Silverlight Transforms Overview

This topic describes how to use the two-dimensional (2-D) Transform classes in Microsoft Silverlight to rotate, scale, skew, and move (translate) objects.

• What Is a Transform?
• Transform Objects
• Common Transformation Properties
• Transformations and Coordinate Systems
• Animating Transformations
• Interactive Transforms

What Is a Transform?

A Transform defines how to map, or transform, points from one coordinate space to another coordinate space. This mapping is described by a transformation Matrix, which is a collection of three rows with three columns of Double values.

Note   Silverlight uses row-major matrices. Vectors are expressed as row vectors and not column vectors.

The following table shows the structure of a Silverlight matrix.

By manipulating matrix values, you can rotate, scale, skew, and move (translate) an object. For example, if you change the value in the first column of the third row (the OffsetX value) to 100, you can use it to move an object 100 units along the x-axis. If you change the value in the second column of the second row to 3, you can use it to stretch an object to three times its current height. If you change both values, you move the object 100 units along the x-axis and stretch its height by a factor of 3. Because Silverlight only supports affine transforms, the values in the right column are always 0,0,1.

Although Silverlight enables you to directly manipulate matrix values, it also provides several Transform classes that enable you to transform an object without knowing how the underlying matrix structure is configured. For example, the ScaleTransform class enables you to scale an object by setting its ScaleX and ScaleY properties instead of manipulating a transformation matrix. Likewise, the RotateTransform class enables you to rotate an object by just setting its Angle property.

Transform Classes

Silverlight provides the following 2-D Transform classes for common transformation operations.

Class	Description	Illustration
RotateTransform	Rotates an element by the specified Angle.
ScaleTransform	Scales an element by the specified ScaleX and ScaleY amounts.
SkewTransform	Skews an element by the specified AngleX and AngleY amounts.
TranslateTransform	Moves (translates) an element by the specified X and Y amounts.

For creating more complex transformations, Silverlight provides the following two classes.

Common Transformation Properties

One way to transform an object is to declare the appropriate Transform type and apply it to the transformation property of the object. Different types of objects have different types of transformation properties. The following table lists several commonly used Silverlight types and their transformation properties.

Transformations and Coordinate Systems

When you transform an object, you do not simply transform the object, you transform coordinate space in which that object exists. By default, a transform is centered at the origin of the target object's coordinate system (0,0). The only exception is a TranslateTransform, which has no center properties to set because the translation effect is the same regardless of where it is centered.

The following example uses a RotateTransform to rotate a Rectangle element (a type of UIElement) by 45 degrees about its default center (0, 0).

<Canvas
  xmlns="https://schemas.microsoft.com/client/2007"
  xmlns:x="https://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
  Width="200" Height="200">
  <Rectangle
    Canvas.Left="100" Canvas.Top="100"
    Width="50" Height="50"
    Fill="RoyalBlue">
    <Rectangle.RenderTransform>
      <RotateTransform Angle="45" />
    </Rectangle.RenderTransform>
  </Rectangle>
</Canvas>

The following illustration shows the effect of the rotation.

A Rectangle element rotated 45 degrees about the point (0,0)

By default, the element rotates about its upper-left corner (0, 0). The RotateTransform, ScaleTransform, and SkewTransform classes provide CenterX and CenterY properties that enable you to specify the point at which the transform is applied.

The next example also uses a RotateTransform to rotate a Rectangle element by 45 degrees; however, this time the CenterX and CenterY properties are set so that the RotateTransform has a center of 25,25.

<Canvas
  xmlns="https://schemas.microsoft.com/client/2007"
  xmlns:x="https://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" 
  Width="200" Height="200">
  <Rectangle
    Canvas.Left="100" Canvas.Top="100"
    Width="50" Height="50"
    Fill="RoyalBlue">
    <Rectangle.RenderTransform>
      <RotateTransform Angle="45" CenterX="25" CenterY="25" />
    </Rectangle.RenderTransform>
  </Rectangle>
</Canvas> 

The following illustration shows the effect of the rotation.

A Rectangle element rotated 45 degrees about the point (25, 25)

Animating Transformations

Transform objects can be animated. To animate a Transform, apply an animation of a compatible type to the property you want to animate.

The following example uses a Storyboard and a DoubleAnimation with a RotateTransform to make a Rectangle spin in place.

<Canvas
  xmlns="https://schemas.microsoft.com/client/2007"
  xmlns:x="https://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" 
  Width="200" Height="200">
  <Rectangle
    Canvas.Left="100" Canvas.Top="100"
    Width="50" Height="50"
    Fill="RoyalBlue">
    <Rectangle.RenderTransform>
      <RotateTransform x:Name="myTransform" Angle="45" CenterX="25" CenterY="25" />
    </Rectangle.RenderTransform>
    <Rectangle.Triggers>
      <EventTrigger RoutedEvent="Rectangle.Loaded">
        <BeginStoryboard>
          <Storyboard>
            <DoubleAnimation
              Storyboard.TargetName="myTransform"
              Storyboard.TargetProperty="Angle"
              From="0" To="360" Duration="0:0:5" RepeatBehavior="Forever" />
          </Storyboard>
        </BeginStoryboard>
      </EventTrigger>
    </Rectangle.Triggers>
  </Rectangle>
</Canvas> 

For more information about animations, see the Animation Overview.

Interactive Transforms

Transform objects can be accessed and manipulated by using JavaScript. One way to do this is to name the Transform and then access it by using code. The following example shows how to increase the ScaleX and ScaleY property values of a ScaleTransform applied to a Rectangle every time that Rectangle is clicked.

<Canvas
  xmlns="https://schemas.microsoft.com/client/2007"
  xmlns:x="https://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
  Width="200" Height="200">
  <Rectangle MouseLeftButtonDown="handleMouseButtonDown"
    Width="50" Height="50"
    Fill="RoyalBlue">
    <Rectangle.RenderTransform>
      <!-- If you give the transform a name you can access it easily
           from code. -->
      <ScaleTransform x:Name="myScaleTransform" />
    </Rectangle.RenderTransform>
  </Rectangle>
</Canvas>

function handleMouseButtonDown(sender, mouseEventArgs)
{
    // Retrieve a reference to the ScaleTransform object.
    var scaleTransform = sender.findName("myScaleTransform");
    // Increase ScaleX and ScaleY by 25%.
    scaleTransform.ScaleX = scaleTransform.ScaleX * 1.25;
    scaleTransform.ScaleY = scaleTransform.ScaleY * 1.25;
}

See Also

Transform
Matrix
Overviews and How-to Topics