Creating array of pointers in C#

I am working with some image processing code in C#. Because performance is critical, I'm doing this in unsafe code with pointers.

Here's some code to precede my question:

Rectangle Image_Rectangle = new Rectangle(0, 0, MyImage.Width, MyImage.Height);
BitmapData Image_Data = MyImage.LockBits(Image_Rectangle, ImageLockMode.ReadWrite, PixelFormat.Format24bppRgb);
// ... x and y nested for-loops to work with each pixel
Byte* PixelRow = (Byte*)Image_Data.Scan0 + (y * Image_Data.Stride);

O开发者_如何学编程nce I have the above Byte pointer, I can set its values like so:

PixelRow[(x * 3) + 2] = 255;
PixelRow[(x * 3) + 1] = 255;
PixelRow[(x * 3)] = 255;

However, I would prefer to access these as an array:

Byte[] RGB = { PixelRow[(x * PIXEL_SIZE) + 2], PixelRow[(x * PIXEL_SIZE) + 1], PixelRow[(x * PIXEL_SIZE) + 0] };

RGB[0] = 255;
RGB[1] = 255;
RGB[2] = 255;

The problem is when I try to assign the value, I sense I'm not working with the actual pointer anymore. Once I unlock bits, the resulting bitmap is unchanged (when using the array method).

I'm pretty new to pointers, can anyone help explain what's going on and how to properly maintain pointers through the use of an array?

Byte[] RGB = { PixelRow[(x * PIXEL_SIZE) + 2], 
               PixelRow[(x * PIXEL_SIZE) + 1], 
               PixelRow[(x * PIXEL_SIZE) + 0] };

You are creating an array of bytes based on the values that PixelRow[..] is pointing to - since these are bytes - a value type - you are creating a copy for each byte and the resulting array is completely separate from the image they came from.

Guess you can't leave code in comments :) Try something like

 Byte*[] RGB = { &PixelRow[(x * PIXEL_SIZE) + 2], 
                 &PixelRow[(x * PIXEL_SIZE) + 1], 
                 &PixelRow[(x * PIXEL_SIZE) + 0] };

--4/29 Edit

Another approach you could try is to get a pointer to the index of the array where the pixel you are concerned with starts. Then use that with array notation to access and alter the Red, Green, and Blue byte values you are concerned with. Now this assumes that your pixels are stored in the array in sequential order, but you could do that as follows:

Byte* RGB = &PixelRow[x * PIXEL_SIZE];
RGB[0] = (byte)255;
RGB[1] = (byte)255;
RGB[2] = (byte)255;

You can override the index operator and have it do what you like.

More on this here:

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/csharplanguage/thread/9bec45ef-b471-4dda-92b0-e6c99e82c356/