I am trying to draw a crosshair ("plus sign") with inverted colors over an image to show the location of a selected point within the image. This is how I do it:
private static void DrawInvertedCrosshair(Graphics g, Image img, PointF location, float length, float width)
{
float halfLength = length / 2f;
float halfWidth = width / 2f;
Rectangle absHorizRect = Rectangle.Round(new RectangleF(location.X - halfLength, location.Y - halfWidth, length, width));
Rectangle absVertRect = Rectangle.Round(new RectangleF(location.X - halfWidth, location.Y - halfLength, width, length));
ImageAttributes attributes = new ImageAttributes();
float[][] invertMatrix =
{
new float[] {-1, 0, 0, 0, 0 },
new float[] { 0, -1, 0, 0, 0 },
new float[] { 0, 0, -1, 0, 0 },
new float[] { 0, 0, 0, 1, 0 },
new float[] { 1, 1, 1, 0, 1 }
};
ColorMatrix matrix = new ColorMatrix(invertMatrix);
attributes.SetColorMatrix(matrix, ColorMatrixFlag.Default, ColorAdjustType.Bitmap);
g.DrawImage(img, absHorizRect, absHorizRect.X, absHorizRect.Y, absHorizRect.Width, absHorizRect.Height, GraphicsUnit.Pixel, attributes);
g.DrawImage(img, absVertRect, absVertRect.X, absVertRect.Y, absVertRect.Width, absVertRect.Height, GraphicsUnit.Pixel, attributes);
}
It works as expected, however, it is really slow. I want the user to be able to move the selected location around with their mouse by setting the location to the cursor's location whenever it moves. Unfortunately, on my computer, it can update only around once per second for big images.
So, I am looking for an alternative to using Graphics.DrawImage to invert a region of an image. Are there any ways to do this with speeds proportional to the selected region area rather than the entire image area?