How to display bitmaps and animations

The simplest way to display pictures and animations over the control surface is to open, at Design-time, the 3D Button Visual Editor application from inside the Visual Studio.NET IDE as described inside the chapter Editing control properties through the 3D Button Visual Editor application contained inside the How to use the product in your projects section and selecting the editor "Pictures and Animations" tab; as you will see on the table below, you can reach all of these settings at runtime using the corresponding property.

Item name	Description	Corresponding property

Picture/animation for normal state	The picture or animation file displayed on the control surface when the button is in Normal state.	Picture
Picture/animation for pressed state	The picture or animation file displayed on the control surface when the button is in Pressed state.	PicturePressed
Picture/animation for mouse over state	The picture or animation file displayed on the control surface when the mouse is over the button area.	PictureMouseOver
Picture for disabled state	The picture file displayed on the control surface when the button is in Disabled state.	PictureDisabled
Move picture on press	Determines the picture's behaviour when the button is pressed.	MovePictureOnPress
Keep aspect ratio	Determines if the aspect ratio should be kept for a picture whose size is bigger than the button size.	PictureKeepRatio
Transparent factor	Apply alpha channel transparency to the loaded pictures	PictureTranspFactor
Color to render as transparent Predefined color	Sets the button's transparent color based on the PictureTranspColor property setting.	PictureTranspMode
Color to render as transparent Picture Left Top pixel color	Sets the top left pixel as the transparent color.	PictureTranspMode
Predefined transparent color	The color that will be rendered as transparent when the PictureTranspMode is set to TranspModes.UseDefinedColor	PictureTranspColor
"..." color editing button	This button will open the color choice dialog box.
Current picture left top pixel color	The color found inside the current picture left top pixel color.
Position	Changes the picture or animation position over the control.	PicturePosition
Tile	If the picture size is smaller than the button size the picture is tiled in order to completely cover the button surface.	PicturePosition
Stretch	If the picture size is different from the button size the picture is stretched in order to fit exactly the button surface.	PicturePosition
Size to content	Resizes the button to the same size of the picture. This setting is available only for the Ctl3dPictureBox control.	PicturePosition
Offset X	The horizontal offset to fine-tune the picture or animation position over the control.	PictureXOffset
Offset Y	The vertical offset to fine-tune the picture or animation position over the control.	PictureYOffset
Browse button	Browses the current PC folders for a picture.
Delete button	Deletes the current picture.
Preview	Preview of the loaded picture.