Loading Base64 Images In Xamarin.Forms

In this article, we will learn to load Base64 String Images into Images in Xamarin.Forms without using any External Plugins like FFMpeg Image Loader Plugin.

Base64 Images

Base64 is a group of similar binary-to-text encoding schemes that represent binary data in an ASCII string format by translating it into a radix-64 representation. The term Base64 originates from a specific MIME content transfer encoding. To know more about Base64 Click Here.

Platform Support

The approach used here is done with Portable Library. So, it supports all the 3 (Android, iOS, and UWP) Platforms supported by Xamarin.Forms.

Without much introduction, we will skip into the coding part of this article.

Steps

I have explained the method to load base64 image in Image with 3 steps as shown below.

Step 1 - Creating new Xamarin.Forms Projects.

Step 2 - Creating a user interface with Xamarin.Forms.

Step 3 - Implementing the functionality to load Base64 Image.

Step 1 Creating new Xamarin.Forms Projects.

Create New Project by Selecting New >> Project >> Select Xamarin Cross-Platform App and Click OK.

Then Select Android and iOS Platforms as shown below with Code Sharing Strategy as PCL or .NET Standard and Click OK.

Step 2 Creating a user interface with Xamarin.Forms

Add Image Control to your Page, and here, I am going to add the control in MainPage.xaml. You can paste the codes shown below to create user interface for your page.

1. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>  
2. <ContentPage xmlns="http://xamarin.com/schemas/2014/forms" 
3. xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2009/xaml" 
4. xmlns:local="clr-namespace:Base64" 
5. x:Class="Base64.MainPage">  
6.     <ContentPage.Content>  
7.         <Image x:Name="xfImage" VerticalOptions="Center" 
8. HorizontalOptions="Center" /> 
9. </ContentPage.Content>  
10. </ContentPage>  

Step 3 implementing the functionality to load Base64 Image

In Xamarin.Forms, we can assign the source for Images by many ways like File Path, Image URL, From Resource Folder or Stream of Image.

We can convert the Base64 string into Stream of Image. That is array of Bytes (byte[]). We will use this method to assign Base64 image to Image Controls using the following code.

1. byte[] Base64Stream = Convert.FromBase64String(base64Image);  
2. xfImage.Source = ImageSource.FromStream(() => new MemoryStream(Base64Stream));  

Full Code of MainPage.xaml.cs

1. namespace Base64 {  
2.     public partial class MainPage: ContentPage {  
3.         string base64Image = "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";  
4.         public MainPage() {  
5.             InitializeComponent();  
6.             byte[] Base64Stream = Convert.FromBase64String(base64Image);  
7.             xfImage.Source = ImageSource.FromStream(() => new MemoryStream(Base64Stream));  
8.         }  
9.     }  
10. }  

The longest string shown here is the base 64 is encoded to the image

• Convert.FromBase64String(base64Image) is used to convert base64 string byte[].
• ImageSource.FromStream(() => new MemoryStream(Base64Stream)) is used to convert the byte[] to Image Stream and Stream is assigned to Image Control.