[Windows] [.NET 9.0 Preview 5] App icon in the taskbar is pixelated

[TommiGustafsson-HMP]

Description

This is a .NET MAUI App using .NET MAUI 9.0 Preview 5 and .NET SDK 9.0 Preview 5. This bug pertains to the Windows platform (WinUI 3).

The Problem

Our app logo is pixelated in the task bar, when I start it in the Debug mode.

I have two screens. One at 100% scaling and the other at 200% scaling. The 100% screen shows it like this:

The 200% screen shows it like this:

The original image is this:

Resizetizer seems to work OK, and all image sizes are created in obj\Debug\net9.0-windows10.0.19041.0\win10-x64\resizetizer\r.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Build GnollHack for MAUI Windows using these instructions:
   https://github.com/hyvanmielenpelit/GnollHack/wiki/Development-Information

2. Start the Game in Debug mode.

Link to public reproduction project repository

https://github.com/hyvanmielenpelit/GnollHack

Version with bug

Unknown/Other

Is this a regression from previous behavior?

Not sure, did not test other versions

Last version that worked well

Unknown/Other

Affected platforms

Windows

Affected platform versions

No response

Did you find any workaround?

Not yet.

Relevant log output

No response

[github-actions]

Hi I'm an AI powered bot that finds similar issues based off the issue title.

Please view the issues below to see if they solve your problem, and if the issue describes your problem please consider closing this one and thumbs upping the other issue to help us prioritize it. Thank you!

Open similar issues:

• Low quality of the icon in the sample project (#11400), similarity score: 0.79

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• App icon not showing in build (#3755), similarity score: 0.78
• AppIcon shows a border on windows taskbar (#5162), similarity score: 0.78
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• Pixelated Edges on Splashscreen on Android (#20823), similarity score: 0.77

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[TommiGustafsson-HMP]

The question is why isn't the taskbar icon using appiconLogo.targetsize-256.png even though it is used everywhere else, such as in search results.

[TommiGustafsson-HMP]

Investigating this, it seems that everything is working as intended. The problem was that the original image does not work well when downsized to 24x24 (taskbar size) and 48x48 (taskbar size at a 200% scale), wherefore the remedy is to redesign the logo so that it works better in small resolutions.

[TommiGustafsson-HMP]

I am reopening this issue, because Resizetizer is responsible for the low quality icon, when downsized. If I create a 24x24 icon in Photoshop, it looks fine.

[TommiGustafsson-HMP]

Here are examples how the images should look like when scaled down properly:

24x24

48x48

We see that the quality produced by Resizetizer is awful compared to almost any other resizing tool.

[janne-hmp]

@mattleibow Would it be possible to get Resizetizer to use bicubic interpolation in resizing? This should result in much better quality than currently. (Looks like nearest-neighbor interpolation or the like.)

[janne-hmp]

@mattleibow You should most likely use SKBitmap.ScalePixels(destPixmap, SKFilterQuality.High) to scale the bitmaps rather than SKCanvas.Scale.