Access the physical path of the AvatarUrl of a media file

Question

I would like to access the physical path of the AvatarUrl of a media file so that I can add a watermark to the image from a Widget Extension. I am using HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath(url) in the widget extension to obtain the phyiscal path from the url, but I am getting the following error in the error logs 
 Ibby_v1_ImageManipulation.ImageData threw exception System.Web.HttpException : 'http:/localhost/cfs-filesystemfile/__key/telligent-evolution-components-attachments/13-01-00-00-00-00-00-25/Image5.jpg' is not a valid virtual path.

Patrick M. · Answer

You should not do it this way, Cfs, while is file system based by default, it doesn't have to be. The appropriate way is to use the Cfs Api to get the file ( Cfs In-Process API Service ) and utilize the stream that you will get to process it(this is all you get from reading disk anyway). Note you cannot save it directly back to the cfs, you are going to have to save your manipulated file as a user avatar update.