C# import of Adobe Illustrator (.AI) files render to Bitmap?

Question

Anyone knows how to load a .AI file (Adobe Illustrator) and then rasterize/render the vectors into a Bitmap so I could generate eg. a JPG or PNG from it?

I would like to produce thumbnails + render the big version with transparent background in PNG if possible.

Ofcause its "possible" if you know the specs of the .AI, but has anyone any knowledge or code to share for a start? or perhaps just a link to some components?

C# .NET please :o)

Code is most interesting as I know nothing about reading vector points and drawing splines.

Answer 1

Well, if Gregory is right that ai files are pdf-compatible, and you are okay with using GPL code, there is a project called GhostscriptSharp on github that is a .NET interface to the Ghostscript engine that can render PDF.

Answer 2

With the newer AI versions, you should be able to convert from PDF to image. There are plenty of libraries that do this that are cheap, so I would choose buy over build on this one. If you need to convert the older AI files, all bets are off. I am not sure what format they were in.

Answer 3

private void btnGetAIThumb_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    Illustrator.Application app = new Illustrator.Application();
    Illustrator.Document doc = app.Open(@"F:/AI_Prog/2009Calendar.ai", Illustrator.AiDocumentColorSpace.aiDocumentRGBColor, null);
    doc.Export(@"F:/AI_Prog/2009Calendar.png",Illustrator.AiExportType.aiPNG24, null);  
    doc.Close(Illustrator.AiSaveOptions.aiDoNotSaveChanges); 
    doc = null; //
}

Illustrator.AiExportType.aiPNG24 can be set as JPEG，GIF，Flash，SVG and Photoshop format.

Answer 4

I Have Tested that with Pdf2Png and it worked fine with both .PDF and .ai files.
But I don't know how it will work with transparents.

string pdf_filename = @"C:\test.ai";
//string pdf_filename = @"C:\test.pdf";
string png_filename = "converted.png";
List<string> errors = cs_pdf_to_image.Pdf2Image.Convert(pdf_filename, png_filename);