Greg Schechter's Blog

Bing Maps, Windows Presentation Foundation and Silverlight -- Graphics, Media, Animation, Programming Model and other goodies.

Introducing the new Bing Maps beta

Well, I’ve been off the air for quite some time, and now have the opportunity to pop up and talk...

Author: Greg Schechter Date: 12/06/2009

Effect Library posted

Troy Jefferson interned this summer with the WPF team and gathered a bunch of Effects that had been...

Author: Greg Schechter Date: 10/22/2008

A More Useful Multi-Input Effect

In my last post, I introduced multi-input effects, where you can send in arbitrary WPF brushes that...

Author: Greg Schechter Date: 09/27/2008

Introducing Multi-Input Shader Effects

Thus far in this series on Effects, we've discussed building and using Effects that have a single...

Author: Greg Schechter Date: 09/16/2008

A VisualStudio BuildTask and project and item templates for writing ShaderEffects

In a number of places in this series on Effects, I've alluded to a VisualStudio BuildTask and...

Author: Greg Schechter Date: 08/12/2008

.NET Framework 3.5SP1 and Visual Studio 2008 SP1 released!

Alright!  .NET 3.5 SP1 and VS 2008 SP1 are live and available on the web today.  There are...

Author: Greg Schechter Date: 08/12/2008

Interested in working on the WPF team?

As you can see from this and other blogs, there's lots of exciting stuff going on in WPF these days,...

Author: Greg Schechter Date: 05/22/2008

Writing custom Effects - adding parameters to Effects

A couple of posts ago, I wrote about writing custom Effects.  The example that I dove into was...

Author: Greg Schechter Date: 05/15/2008

A simple Effect sample project and ClickOnce application

The previous post in this series began to talk about writing custom Effects for WPF. We looked...

Author: Greg Schechter Date: 05/14/2008

Writing custom GPU-based Effects for WPF

The last few posts in this series on Effects have focused on the perspective of those using Effects....

Author: Greg Schechter Date: 05/12/2008

More details on how Effects work

The last couple posts in this series have dug into features and example usage of Effects in WPF....

Author: Greg Schechter Date: 05/12/2008

Using Effects in WPF (Part 2)

My previous post on Effects (part of this series) gives a simple example of instantiating an...

Author: Greg Schechter Date: 05/12/2008

GPU-accelerated custom effects for WPF

With WPF 3.5 SP1 on the horizon (and the Beta available now), I plan to discuss some of the new...

Author: Greg Schechter Date: 05/12/2008

A Series on GPU-based Effects for WPF

GPU-based Effects are a hot new feature in WPF for .NET 3.5 SP1. I'm going to be blogging a series...

Author: Greg Schechter Date: 05/12/2008

VB.NET version of Planerator posted

Sean Cullinan, of blendblog.net, recently posted a VB.NET port of the Planerator. 

Author: Greg Schechter Date: 02/11/2008

Some implementation details of the Planerator

My previous two posts (here and here) discuss usage of the Planerator control.  There are some...

Author: Greg Schechter Date: 11/28/2007

Planerator comments and posted XBAP

My previous post introduced a simple, but very powerful custom WPF control called a Planerator. That...

Author: Greg Schechter Date: 11/28/2007

Enter The Planerator - Dead-simple 3D in WPF, with a stupid name

[UPDATED: November 26, 2007 - updated source code zip one last time.] [UPDATED: November 7, 2007 -...

Author: Greg Schechter Date: 10/26/2007

Making use of multiprocessing in WPF

There was a query on the MSDN forums for WPF the other day that asked about leveraging multiple...

Author: Greg Schechter Date: 09/27/2007

Silverlight 1.1 VirtualEarth Viewer

Microsoft Live Search Maps (aka Virtual Earth) at https://maps.live.com, is fantastic web technology...

Author: Greg Schechter Date: 08/21/2007

WPF, Silverlight and C# 3.0 object initializers

XAML is definitely the way to go whenever possible when you're writing WPF and Silverlight apps, due...

Author: Greg Schechter Date: 05/19/2007

Making ParallaxUi look right - field of view selection

In my last post, I said that "one of the more subtle aspects of the otherwise pretty straightforward...

Author: Greg Schechter Date: 04/15/2007

Camera construction in ParallaxUi

One of the more subtle aspects of the otherwise pretty straightforward ParallaxUi is the...

Author: Greg Schechter Date: 04/03/2007

ParallaxUi - source posted

I've cleaned up the source to ParallaxUi a bit and am attaching it to this post as a .zip file. This...

Author: Greg Schechter Date: 04/03/2007

ParallaxUi - UIs Escaping from Flatland

As I mentioned in my last post, one of the guiding principles for the design of 3D in WPF is the...

Author: Greg Schechter Date: 03/30/2007

Mapping interactive 2D UI onto 3D in WPF

There’s been a super exciting update in WPF’s 3D arena that’s been recently announced that I want to...

Author: Greg Schechter Date: 01/02/2007

The word is - "Java on Vista: Yes, it Works"

Some folks have noticed that when they run Java applets in the browser, that Aero and desktop...

Author: Greg Schechter Date: 10/09/2006

A Couple of Cool Uses of the DWM Thumbnail APIs

I've seen a couple of cool uses in the past week of the DWM Thumbnail API (described in my previous...

Author: Greg Schechter Date: 09/28/2006

APIs in the Desktop Window Manager

For the most part, the Vista Desktop Window Manager is an end-user feature. However, because it so...

Author: Greg Schechter Date: 09/14/2006

Responding to Comments on "High DPI Support in Windows Aero Vista"

I received a number of great comments and questions on my last post about High DPI Support in...

Author: Greg Schechter Date: 09/14/2006

High DPI Support in Windows Vista Aero

A good amount of ink has been spilled on this blog talking about all the cost, nuance, impact, and...

Author: Greg Schechter Date: 08/07/2006

How underlying WPF concepts and technology are being used in the DWM

In the earlier posts I've done on the DWM, there's been a hint of the relationship between it and...

Author: Greg Schechter Date: 06/09/2006

I'm on TV... and just in time for Mother's Day...

I got to do this fun Channel9 video the other day with Charles Torre and Tim Sneath. In it we talk...

Author: Greg Schechter Date: 05/10/2006

Redirecting GDI, DirectX, and WPF applications

As mentioned in earlier posts, by far the most important aspect of the DWM is the fact that...

Author: Greg Schechter Date: 05/03/2006

Responding to Comments from "The role of the Windows Display Driver Model in the DWM"

As usual, lots of great, insightful comments (and thanks for the kudos)... Jevan on the DWM team...

Author: Greg Schechter Date: 04/21/2006

The role of the Windows Display Driver Model in the DWM

The Problem Ever since the advent of dedicated graphics processors, even old-school graphics...

Author: Greg Schechter Date: 04/02/2006

Desktop Window Manager Index of Post Topics

Here's a list of topics that I have posted on (with active links) or expect to post on (without...

Author: Greg Schechter Date: 03/26/2006

Responding to Comments from "DWM's use of DirectX, GPUs, and hardware acceleration"

My earlier post on "DWM's use of DirectX, GPUs, and hardware acceleration" generated some good...

Author: Greg Schechter Date: 03/25/2006

DWM's use of DirectX, GPUs, and hardware acceleration

For the last few years, both desktop and laptop PCs have been outfitted with increasingly powerful...

Author: Greg Schechter Date: 03/19/2006

Responding to Comments from "Under the Hood of the DWM"

Wow... lots of great interest and comments in my previous post on "Under the Hood of the Desktop...

Author: Greg Schechter Date: 03/11/2006

Under the Hood of the Desktop Window Manager

I've made a grand total of one post in about the last 21 months. What have I been doing during this...

Author: Greg Schechter Date: 03/06/2006

Update: Changeables have become Freezables

Way back in December of 2003, I posted on Changeables in Avalon -- why they exist, what they're...

Author: Greg Schechter Date: 06/20/2005

Simulating “Weak Delegates” in the CLR

Introduction What follows may seem like a fairly obscure topic relating to lifetime management in...

Author: Greg Schechter Date: 05/28/2004

Introducing 3D in Avalon and 2D/3D Integration

At the beginning of May, we gave a number of presentations on Avalon at WinHEC. One thing that we...

Author: Greg Schechter Date: 05/23/2004

Talking Avalon at WinHEC

Earlier this month I had the opportunity to present the overview of Avalon at the Windows Hardware...

Author: Greg Schechter Date: 05/23/2004

My Avalon talk at PDC 2003 - Better Late Than Never

I gave a talk at PDC 2003 back in October, and haven't managed to mention it here since then. Here's...

Author: Greg Schechter Date: 05/23/2004

What are these "Changeable" things Avalon has, and why does it need them?

Frank Hileman wonders about the Changeable class in a comment on a usability post to Steven Clarke's...

Author: Greg Schechter Date: 12/04/2003

"Length" in Avalon

Frank Hileman wonders about the Length type in a comment on a usability post to Steven Clarke's...

Author: Greg Schechter Date: 12/04/2003

Introduction

I just set up this spanking new blog on weblogs.asp.net. My name's Greg Schechter and I'm an...

Author: Greg Schechter Date: 12/04/2003