.NET integration

Overview

Cloudinary is a cloud-based service that provides an end-to-end image management solution including uploads, storage, manipulations, optimizations and delivery.

With Cloudinary you can easily upload images to the cloud, automatically perform smart image manipulations without installing any complex software. All your images are then seamlessly delivered through a fast CDN, optimized and using industry best practices. Cloudinary offers comprehensive APIs and administration capabilities and is easy to integrate with new and existing web and mobile applications.

Quick example

Take a look at the following Cloudinary URL that generates the image below:

http://res.cloudinary.com/demo/image/upload/w_150,h_150,c_thumb,g_face,r_20,e_sepia/l_cloudinary_icon,g_south_east,x_5,y_5,w_50,o_60,e_brightness:200/a_10/front_face.png

174x174 PNG

Simply accessing the above URL told Cloudinary to transform an uploaded image, create a 150x150px thumbnail using face detection based cropping, round the image's corners, add a sepia effect, convert it to a transparent PNG format, add a watermark layer, rotate the image by 10 degrees and ultimately delivered the resulting image through a fast CDN using smart caching techniques.

.NET Library Features

Cloudinary provides an open source .NET library for further simplifying the integration:

• Build URLs for image transformation & manipulation.
• View helper methods for embedding and transforming images.
• API wrappers: image upload, administration, sprite generation and more.
• Direct image uploading from the browser using a jQuery plugin.

The library is built for .NET Framework 3.5 and supports higher versions. You can use any .NET language with the library. The library itself is written in C#. Our documentation includes examples both in C# and VB.NET.

.NET - Getting started guide

1Installation

The easiest way to start using Cloudinary's .NET library is to use Visual Studio and NuGet Package Manager. Please see NuGet Documentation for instructions of how to use NuGet packages. Below are the steps required to start a new project using Visual Studio and Cloudinary's .NET library.

• Download NuGet Package Manager at http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/27077b70-9dad-4c64-adcf-c7cf6bc9970c.
• Use Visual Studio to create a new project and choose .NET 3.5 or above as the target framework.
• Right click on the project in the Solution Explorer window and click on the menu item 'Manage NuGet packages...'
• Type CloudinaryDotNet in the search box at the upper right corner.
• When CloudinaryDotNet package appears, click on the Install button.
• After the package is installed, click the Close button.

Use CloudinaryDotNet and CloudinaryDotNet.Actions namespaces in your code:

For C#:

using CloudinaryDotNet;
using CloudinaryDotNet.Actions;

For VB.NET:

Imports CloudinaryDotNet
Imports CloudinaryDotNet.Actions

The library contains powerful helper methods for using directly from views. This documentation provides examples of the integration with Cloudinary's .NET library for the ASP.NET MVC v4.0 framework, for both Razor and ASPX view engines.

Using namespaces in view code:

For Razor/C#:

@using CloudinaryDotNet
@using CloudinaryDotNet.Actions

For Razor/VB.NET:

@Imports CloudinaryDotNet
@Imports CloudinaryDotNet.Actions

For ASPX (C# and VB.NET):

<%@ Import Namespace="CloudinaryDotNet" %>
<%@ Import Namespace="CloudinaryDotNet.Actions" %>

• https://github.com/cloudinary/CloudinaryDotNet
• https://www.nuget.org/packages/CloudinaryDotNet/

2Configuration

Your Cloud Name account parameter is required to create an instance of Cloudinary class, which is the main entry point for using the library. API Key and API Secret are further needed to perform secure API calls to Cloudinary (e.g., image uploads). See API, URLs and access identifiers for more details.

Setting the configuration parameters can be done either programmatically using a constructor of the Cloudinary class or globally using an environment variable.

You can find your configuration parameters in the dashboard of our Management Console.

Here's an example of setting configuration parameters in your .NET application:

For C#:

Account account = new Account(
  "my_cloud_name",
  "my_api_key",
  "my_api_secret");

Cloudinary cloudinary = new Cloudinary(account);

For VB.NET:

Dim account = New Account(
  "my_cloud_name",
  "my_api_key",
  "my_api_secret")
  
Dim cloudinary = New Cloudinary(account)

See Configuration Options for more details and additional configuration methods.

3Upload_images

You can upload images and any other files from your server. Uploading is done over HTTPS using a secure protocol based on the api_key and api_secret parameters you provide.

The following snippet uploads a local file to Cloudinary:

For C#:

var uploadParams = new ImageUploadParams()
{
  File = new FileDescription(@"c:\mypicture.jpg")
};
var uploadResult = cloudinary.Upload(uploadParams);

For VB.NET:

Dim uploadParams = New ImageUploadParams
uploadParams.File = New FileDescription("c:\mypicture.jpg")
Dim uploadResult = m_cloudinary.Upload(uploadParams)

Alternatively, you can a specify a local path, a public HTTP URL, an S3 URL or an actual image file's data. For example:

For C#:

var uploadParams = new ImageUploadParams()
{
  File = new FileDescription(@"http://www.example.com/image.jpg")
};
var uploadResult = cloudinary.Upload(uploadParams);

For VB.NET:

Dim uploadParams = New ImageUploadParams
uploadParams.File = New FileDescription("http://www.example.com/image.jpg")
Dim uploadResult = m_cloudinary.Upload(uploadParams)

Each image uploaded to Cloudinary is assigned an unique Public ID and is available for immediate delivery and transformation. The upload method returns an instance of ImageUploadResult class that contains a set of properties of the uploaded image, including the image URL and Public ID.

In addition, the result contains the StatusCode property of type System.Net.HttpStatusCode for handling errors and the JsonObj property of type Newtonsoft.Json.Linq.JToken, which is a raw JSON object of upload response returned by Cloudinary's service. The JSON object is an associative array with content similar to the example below:

 RESPONSE (ImageUploadResult):
 {
  "public_id":"tquyfignx5bxcbsupr6a",
  "version":1375302801,
  "signature":"52ecf23eeb987b3b5a72fa4ade51b1c7a1426a97",
  "width":1920,
  "height":1200,
  "format":"jpg",
  "resource_type":"image",
  "created_at":"2013-07-31T20:33:21Z",
  "bytes":737633,
  "type":"upload",
  "url":
   "http://res.cloudinary.com/demo/image/upload/v1375302801/tquyfignx5bxcbsupr6a.jpg",
  "secure_url":
   "https://res.cloudinary.com/demo/image/upload/v1375302801/tquyfignx5bxcbsupr6a.jpg"
 }

As you can see in the following example, with a single call you can define a custom Public ID, apply an incoming image transformation before storing the image in the cloud, generate derived images eagerly and assign tags to uploaded images:

For C#:

var cloudinary = new Cloudinary(
  new Account(
    "my_cloud_name",
    "my_api_key",
    "my_api_secret"));
    
var uploadParams = new ImageUploadParams()
{
  File = new FileDescription(@"C:\mypicture.jpg"),
  PublicId = "sample_id",
  Transformation = new Transformation().Crop("limit").Width(40).Height(40),
  EagerTransforms = new List<Transformation>()
  {
    new Transformation().Width(200).Height(200).Crop("thumb").Gravity("face").
      Radius(20).Effect("sepia"),
    new Transformation().Width(100).Height(150).Crop("fit").FetchFormat("png")
  },
  Tags = "special, for_homepage"
};

var uploadResult = cloudinary.Upload(uploadParams);

For VB.NET:

Dim account = New Account(
  "my_cloud_name",
  "my_api_key",
  "my_api_secret")
  
Dim cloudinary = New Cloudinary(account)
Dim uploadParams = New ImageUploadParams
uploadParams.File = New FileDescription("C:\mypicture.jpg")
uploadParams.PublicId = "sample_id"
uploadParams.Transformation =
  New Transformation().Crop("limit").Width(40).Height(40)
uploadParams.EagerTransforms = New List(Of Transformation)
uploadParams.EagerTransforms.Add(
  New Transformation().Width(200).Height(200).Crop("thumb").Gravity("face").
    Radius(20).Effect("sepia"))
uploadParams.EagerTransforms.Add(
  New Transformation().Width(100).Height(150).Crop("fit").FetchFormat("png"))
uploadParams.Tags = "special, for_homepage"

Dim uploadResult = m_cloudinary.Upload(uploadParams)

Many more upload options as well as direct image uploading from the browser are detailed here: ASP.NET image upload.

Cloudinary supports uploading videos as well. See Upload videos documentation page for more details.

4Display and manipulate images

You can access uploaded images using a URL which is be obtained from an instance of the ImageUploadResult class after uploading or built using various helper methods of the Url class which could be accessed via an instance of the Api class through an instance of the Cloudinary class.

The BuildImageTag method generates an HTML image tag with an image delivery URL based on the given parameters.

For example, displaying the uploaded image with the sample public ID, while providing an alternate text:

// Razor (C# and VB.NET):
@Model.Cloudinary.Api.UrlImgUp.BuildImageTag("sample.jpg",
  new CloudinaryDotNet.StringDictionary("alt=Sample Image"))

// ASPX (C# and VB.NET):
<%: Model.Cloudinary.Api.UrlImgUp.BuildImageTag("sample.jpg",
  new CloudinaryDotNet.StringDictionary("alt=Sample Image")) %>

864x576 JPG (Scaled down)

Note: For .NET version v3.5 and earlier, the result should be wrapped with '@Html.Raw' for embedding HTML code in your view. For example:

// Razor (C# and VB.NET):
@Html.Raw(Model.Cloudinary.Api.UrlImgUp.BuildImageTag("sample.jpg",
  new CloudinaryDotNet.StringDictionary("alt=Sample Image")))

// ASPX (C# and VB.NET):
<%: Html.Raw(Model.Cloudinary.Api.UrlImgUp.BuildImageTag("sample.jpg",
  new CloudinaryDotNet.StringDictionary("alt=Sample Image"))) %>

After the Cloudinary class is instantiated, you should add it to your model in order to use the instance in your view or wrap it with singleton.

Now, let's say that you wish to display a small thumbnail of this uploaded image. Simply add the transformation instructions to your call. For example, displaying the 'sample' image transformed to fill a 100x150 rectangle:

// Razor (C# and VB.NET):
@Model.Cloudinary.Api.UrlImgUp.Transform(
  new Transformation().Width(100).Height(150).Crop("fill")).BuildImageTag("sample.jpg")
  
// ASPX (C# and VB.NET):
<%: Model.Cloudinary.Api.UrlImgUp.Transform(
  new Transformation().Width(100).Height(150).Crop("fill")).BuildImageTag("sample.jpg") %>

100x150 JPG

This is equivalent to:

<img src='http://res.cloudinary.com/demo/image/upload/c_fill,h_150,w_100/sample.jpg' 
     width='100' height='150' />

Using simple parameters you can perform powerful image manipulations. The .NET library builds Cloudinary URLs that you can embed in your web and mobile views for dynamically transforming your uploaded images in the cloud and delivering the results through a fast CDN with advanced caching.

You can easily convert image formats, resize your images, perform face detection based cropping, apply effects and filters, append textual layers or watermarks and more.

The following example code embeds a JPG thumbnail of a profile photo fetched from Facebook in real-time, crops it to a circle, applies a sepia effect and delivers it optimized through a CDN:

// Razor/C#:
@Model.Cloudinary.Api.UrlImgUp.Action("facebook").Transform(
  new Transformation()
    .Width(90)
    .Height(98)
    .Crop("fill")
    .Gravity("face")
    .Radius("max")
    .Effect("sepia"))
  .BuildImageTag("billclinton.jpg")

// Razor/VB.NET:
@Model.Cloudinary.Api.UrlImgUp.Action("facebook").Transform(
  New Transformation() _
    .Width(90) _
    .Height(98) _
    .Crop("fill") _
    .Gravity("face") _
    .Radius("max") _
    .Effect("sepia")) _
  .BuildImageTag("billclinton.jpg")

// ASPX/C#:
<%: Model.Cloudinary.Api.UrlImgUp.Action("facebook").Transform(
  new Transformation()
    .Width(90)
    .Height(98)
    .Crop("fill")
    .Gravity("face")
    .Radius("max")
    .Effect("sepia"))
  .BuildImageTag("billclinton.jpg") %>

// ASPX/VB.NET:
<%: Model.Cloudinary.Api.UrlImgUp.Action("facebook").Transform(
  New Transformation() _
    .Width(90) _
    .Height(98) _
    .Crop("fill") _
    .Gravity("face") _
    .Radius("max") _
    .Effect("sepia")) _
  .BuildImageTag("billclinton.jpg") %>

90x98 JPG

For a full list of supported transformations and their usage, refer to Image transformations.

For more details about Cloudinary's image transformation and manipulation in .NET, see .NET image manipulation.

Videos can be delivered and manipulated as well. See Video manipulation and delivery documentation page for more details.

5Sample projects

To find additional useful code samples and learn how to integrate Cloudinary with your .NET applications, take a look at our Sample Projects. These projects are based on the ASP.NET MVC v4.0 framework and Razor view engine.

Basic sample: Uploading local and remote images to Cloudinary and generating various transformation URLs.

Photo Album: A fully working web application that allows you to uploads photos, maintain a database with references to them, list them with their metadata, and display them using various cloud-based transformations. Image uploading is performed both from the server side and directly from the browser using a jQuery plugin.

• https://github.com/cloudinary/CloudinaryDotNet/tree/master/samples

6What's next

Sign up for a free account if you haven't done so already. Follow the steps above and try Cloudinary out. Finished all steps? That's just an example of what Cloudinary can offer. Here's some additional reading material to help you get the best out of Cloudinary:

Learn more about ASP.NET image upload.

Explore powerful .NET image manipulation features and see our Image transformations docs.

Browse additional .NET integration topics: configuration, Admin API, etc.

Stay tuned for updates, tips and tutorials: Blog, Twitter, Facebook.