How to create a circle with a hole in a circle in WPF?

Question

I have created a UserControl which is a ring by superposing 2 circles the small circle being blank and the second behind the smallest being colored.

In my WPF app, I want to put several rings but the small circle does hide other rings. I'd like to see through it and also capture mouse event for ring behind other rings otherwise it's not real rings. Is it possible ?

I tried OpacityMask for small ellipse as pointed by answer to http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/wpf/thread/551201d1-c5b3-4e17-ae63-625cfbb8bcc4 but still can't see ring behind hole:

<UserControl x:Class="MyUserControls.MyRing"
             xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
             xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
             xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006" 
             xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008" 
             mc:Ignorable="d" 
             d:DesignHeight="150" d:DesignWidth="150" SizeChanged="UserControl_SizeChanged">
    <Grid Height="150" Name="Grid" Width="150" MouseMove="ellipse1_MouseMove">
        <Ellipse Fill="Red" Height="150" Width="150" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="0,0,0,0" Name="ellipse1" Stroke="Black" VerticalAlignment="Top"  >
            <Ellipse.OpacityMask>
                <RadialGradientBrush>
                    <GradientStop Color="#FFB94444" Offset="0.496"/>
                    <GradientStop Color="#00FFFFFF" Offset="0.491"/>
                </RadialGradientBrush>
            </Ellipse.OpacityMask>
        </Ellipse>
        <Ellipse Fill="White" Height="100" Width="100" Margin="25,25,25,0" Name="ellipse2" Stroke="Black" VerticalAlignment="Top" />       
    </Grid>
</UserControl>

Answer 1

It looks like you already found your answer (a few years ago), but for anyone else looking to do this, you may want to check out CompositeGeometry:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms751808.aspx#combindgeometriessection

Such as:

<Path Fill="Red" Stroke="Black">
    <Path.Data>
        <CombinedGeometry GeometryCombineMode="Xor">
            <CombinedGeometry.Geometry1>
                <EllipseGeometry RadiusX="75" RadiusY="75" Center="75,75" />
            </CombinedGeometry.Geometry1>
            <CombinedGeometry.Geometry2>
                <EllipseGeometry RadiusX="50" RadiusY="50" Center="75,75" />
            </CombinedGeometry.Geometry2>
        </CombinedGeometry>
    </Path.Data>
</Path>

Then IsHitTestVisible="False" should prevent mouse interference, when needed.

Answer 2

You could just create a circle with a transparent background and a StrokeThickness in the UserControl.

<UserControl x:Class="WpfApplication1.UserControl1"
             xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
             xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
             xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006" 
             xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008" 
             mc:Ignorable="d" 
             d:DesignHeight="300" d:DesignWidth="300">
    <Grid>
        <Ellipse Width="50" Height="50" Stroke="Blue" StrokeThickness="10" Fill="Transparent"></Ellipse>
    </Grid>
</UserControl>

EDIT: You can set a gradient brush to the stroke as below. You could replace the LinearGradientBrush with any other type of brush as you wish.

<Ellipse Width="50" Height="50" StrokeThickness="10" Fill="Transparent">
    <Ellipse.Stroke>
        <LinearGradientBrush>
            <GradientStop Offset="0" Color="Red"/>
            <GradientStop Offset="1" Color="Green"/>
        </LinearGradientBrush>
    </Ellipse.Stroke>
</Ellipse>