silverlight charting no initial animation for printing (printing in series of data)

I'm in a bit of a pickle. I need to generate charts (off screen so the user doesn't see them) and make these charts save-able. this means setting up the basics and building an image from the loaded chart. I'm talking about a columnseries chart fyi :)

the problem is the built-in ease-in animation. as the chart triggers the "loaded" event I generate an image to save and thus nothing is on the chart yet.

I've tried several things:

• different events that could trigger at the end of render
• delaying the building of the image (but that's not bulletproof)

thus far all my googling searches come up with retemplating the datapoints without the animation (for which I cannot find any reference which is a major problem, the only thing I can find is something concerning a StylePalette, what is nowhere to be found in the assemblies)

any help in this area would be greatly appreciated.

EDIT:

I ported to my main mvvm solution, which made me put this into a custom control. after some collaboration with colleagues we decided the control should produce a series of images (in the form of WriteableBitmaps) from a series of data (lists of lists).

this can be done by just running through the list and rendering what I need. Outside of the visible visualtree of course since the images have to be added to a document which is generated clientside.

this brings me to the next puddle of problems. since I cannot subscribe to the LayoutUpdated event (as it get's trigger开发者_JAVA技巧ed by virtually EVERYTHING) I'm a little stuck. There's 1 chart on the control that is constantly loaded with new data, which in turn causes the loaded event only to happen once. I need a solution (event of sorts) that let's me know all data is rendered so I can pull the screenshot and put in some new data...

help?

This link may be of interest as the problem you are facing should be similar as when you try printing the chart: http://www.davidpoll.com/2010/04/16/making-printing-easier-in-silverlight-4/

Basically (assuming you cannot re-template the series [much easier with Expression Blend!]) you can traverse the visual tree and "complete" any storyboard by calling SkipToFill().

From the above mentioned link:

 private static void DriveAnimationsToCompletion(FrameworkElement element)
    {
        if (element == null)
            return;
        var groups = VisualStateManager.GetVisualStateGroups(element);
        foreach (VisualStateGroup group in groups)
        {
            foreach (
                Storyboard board in group.Transitions.Cast<VisualTransition>().Select(trans => trans.Storyboard)
                    .Concat(group.States.Cast<VisualState>().Select(state => state.Storyboard))
                    .Where(board => board.GetCurrentState() != ClockState.Stopped))
            {
                board.SkipToFill();
            }
        }
        foreach (
            FrameworkElement child in
                Enumerable.Range(0, VisualTreeHelper.GetChildrenCount(element)).Select(
                    index => VisualTreeHelper.GetChild(element, index)).OfType<FrameworkElement>())
            DriveAnimationsToCompletion(child);
    }

what I did is add this style:

<Style x:Key="customColumnDataPoint" TargetType="chartingToolkit:ColumnDataPoint">
    <Setter Property="Background" Value="DarkBlue"/>
    <Setter Property="BorderBrush" Value="Black"/>
    <Setter Property="BorderThickness" Value="1"/>
    <Setter Property="IsTabStop" Value="False"/>
    <Setter Property="Template">
        <Setter.Value>
            <ControlTemplate TargetType="chartingToolkit:ColumnDataPoint">
                <Border
                    BorderBrush="{TemplateBinding BorderBrush}"
                    BorderThickness="{TemplateBinding BorderThickness}"
                    x:Name="Root">
                    <VisualStateManager.CustomVisualStateManager>
                        <ei:ExtendedVisualStateManager/>
                    </VisualStateManager.CustomVisualStateManager>
                    <VisualStateManager.VisualStateGroups>
                        <VisualStateGroup x:Name="CommonStates">
                            <VisualStateGroup.Transitions>
                                <VisualTransition GeneratedDuration="0"/>
                            </VisualStateGroup.Transitions>
                            <VisualState x:Name="Normal"/>
                            <VisualState x:Name="MouseOver">
                            </VisualState>
                        </VisualStateGroup>
                        <VisualStateGroup x:Name="SelectionStates">
                            <VisualStateGroup.Transitions>
                                <VisualTransition GeneratedDuration="0"/>
                            </VisualStateGroup.Transitions>
                            <VisualState x:Name="Unselected"/>
                            <VisualState x:Name="Selected">
                                <Storyboard>
                                    <DoubleAnimation
                                        Storyboard.TargetName="SelectionHighlight"
                                        Storyboard.TargetProperty="Opacity"
                                        To="0.6"
                                        Duration="0"/>
                                </Storyboard>
                            </VisualState>
                        </VisualStateGroup>
                        <VisualStateGroup x:Name="RevealStates">
                            <VisualStateGroup.Transitions>
                                <VisualTransition GeneratedDuration="0"/>
                            </VisualStateGroup.Transitions>
                            <VisualState x:Name="Shown">
                                <Storyboard>
                                    <DoubleAnimation
                                        Storyboard.TargetName="Root"
                                        Storyboard.TargetProperty="Opacity"
                                        To="1"
                                        Duration="0"/>
                                </Storyboard>
                            </VisualState>
                            <VisualState x:Name="Hidden">
                                <Storyboard>
                                    <DoubleAnimation
                                        Storyboard.TargetName="Root"
                                        Storyboard.TargetProperty="Opacity"
                                        To="1"
                                        Duration="0"/>
                                </Storyboard>
                            </VisualState>
                        </VisualStateGroup>
                    </VisualStateManager.VisualStateGroups>
                    <Grid
                        Background="{TemplateBinding Background}">
                        <Rectangle>
                            <Rectangle.Fill>
                                <LinearGradientBrush>
                                    <GradientStop
                                        Color="#77ffffff"
                                        Offset="0"/>
                                    <GradientStop
                                        Color="#00ffffff"
                                        Offset="1"/>
                                </LinearGradientBrush>
                            </Rectangle.Fill>
                        </Rectangle>
                        <Border
                            BorderBrush="#ccffffff"
                            BorderThickness="1">
                            <Border
                                BorderBrush="#77ffffff"
                                BorderThickness="1"/>
                        </Border>
                        <Rectangle x:Name="SelectionHighlight" Fill="Red" Opacity="0"/>
                        <Rectangle x:Name="MouseOverHighlight" Fill="White" Opacity="0"/>
                    </Grid>
                    <ToolTipService.ToolTip>
                        <ContentControl Content="{TemplateBinding FormattedDependentValue}"/>
                    </ToolTipService.ToolTip>
                </Border>
            </ControlTemplate>
        </Setter.Value>
    </Setter>
</Style>

it folds the animation to nothing but still doesn't make a bulletproof solution...

I still need an event to which to subscribe. I edited my original question to add some more specifics ...