How to copyclone a UIElement and keep the layout/render information?

I wish to copy a complex data-bound UIElement but keep the Binding, Layout and Rendering information from the original UIElement.

Creating a new UIElement seems inefficient since I would have to do a开发者_StackOverflownother complete Binding/Measure/Arrange/Render pass.

The closest I've got so far is to create a new DrawingVisual, open it for rendering, and DrawDrawing using the source UIElement DrawingGroup.

DrawingVisual dv = new DrawingVisual();
DrawingGroup dg = VisualTreeHelper.GetDrawing(SourceElement);

using (DrawingContext dc = dv.RenderOpen())
{
     Drawing d = dg.Children[0];
     dc.DrawDrawing(d);
}

return dv;

Is this a good approach and will it work for complex UIElements (e.g. lots of Panels within Borders, custom Controls etc etc)?

To give you a context, I am making a DocumentPaginator which is working well, but inefficeintly due to the recreation of identical UIElements.

Thanks in advance, Pete

If it's only for presentation purposes, you can use a VisualBrush. More information can be found here, here, and here. It even reflects any live updates made to the attached visual.