#753 – Scale vs. Expansion in ManipulationDelta Events

When handling a ManipulationDelta event during touch manipulation, you often care about the ManipulationDelta.Scale property, which indicates the updated scale of an element, relative to its previous size (e.g. 0.5 = 1/2 size).

You can also access a ManipulationDelta.Expansion property, which tells you the actual number of device independent units (1/96th in) that the element is changing, relative to its last known size.

The example below dumps out both scale and expansion values as we scale with touch.

        private Vector totalScale = new Vector(1.0, 1.0);
        private Vector totalExpansion = new Vector(0.0, 0.0);

        private void Image_ManipulationDelta(object sender, ManipulationDeltaEventArgs e)
        {
            ManipulationDelta md = e.DeltaManipulation;

            totalScale.X *= md.Scale.X;
            totalScale.Y *= md.Scale.Y;

            totalExpansion.X += md.Expansion.X;
            totalExpansion.Y += md.Expansion.Y;

            Console.WriteLine(string.Format(
                "Scale: {0},{1}.  Expansion: {2},{3}",
                md.Scale.X, md.Scale.Y, md.Expansion.X, md.Expansion.Y));
            Console.WriteLine(string.Format(
                "  Total Scale: {0},{1}.  Total Expansion: {2},{3}",
                totalScale.X, totalScale.Y, totalExpansion.X, totalExpansion.Y));
        }