i have exactly the same problem and i am not surprised because there is no way this could possibly work. nowhere do you actually set the image width or height or the pixel format of the byte array (in my case it's just a string or RGB values) - nor can i find a way you might actually set these - but they would definitely be required in order to initialise a BitmapImage. if you read from a file or an in memory image format this information is contained in the header of a specific image format such as png or jpg - but in the case of simple raw image data it is not. hence the exception. there obviously must be another solution. sadly i have searched high and low and still have no answers!