How to convert BGRA bytes to UIImage for saving? - ios

Question

I want to capture raw pixel data for manipulation using GPUImage framework. I capture the data like this:
CVImageBufferRef cameraFrame = CMSampleBufferGetImageBuffer(imageSampleBuffer);
CVPixelBufferLockBaseAddress(cameraFrame, 0);
GLubyte *rawImageBytes = CVPixelBufferGetBaseAddress(cameraFrame);
size_t bytesPerRow = CVPixelBufferGetBytesPerRow(cameraFrame);
NSData *dataForRawBytes = [NSData dataWithBytes:rawImageBytes length:bytesPerRow * CVPixelBufferGetHeight(cameraFrame)];
//raw values
UInt32 *values = [dataForRawBytes bytes];//, cnt = [dataForRawBytes length]/sizeof(int);
//test out dropbox upload here
[self uploadDropbox:dataForRawBytes];
//end of dropbox upload
// Do whatever with your bytes
// [self processImages:dataForRawBytes];
CVPixelBufferUnlockBaseAddress(cameraFrame, 0); }];
I am using the following settings for camera:
NSDictionary *settings = [[NSDictionary alloc] initWithObjectsAndKeys:AVVideoCodecJPEG, AVVideoCodecKey,[NSNumber numberWithUnsignedInt:kCVPixelFormatType_32BGRA], (id)kCVPixelBufferPixelFormatTypeKey, nil];
For testing purposes I want to save the image i capture to dropbox, to do that I need to save it to a tmp directory, how would i save dataForRawBytes?
Any help would be very appreciated!

Answer 1

So i was able to figure out how to gain a UIImage from the raw data, here is my modified code:
CVImageBufferRef cameraFrame = CMSampleBufferGetImageBuffer(imageSampleBuffer);
CVPixelBufferLockBaseAddress(cameraFrame, 0);
Byte *rawImageBytes = CVPixelBufferGetBaseAddress(cameraFrame);
size_t bytesPerRow = CVPixelBufferGetBytesPerRow(cameraFrame);
size_t width = CVPixelBufferGetWidth(cameraFrame);
size_t height = CVPixelBufferGetHeight(cameraFrame);
NSData *dataForRawBytes = [NSData dataWithBytes:rawImageBytes length:bytesPerRow * CVPixelBufferGetHeight(cameraFrame)];
// Do whatever with your bytes
// create suitable color space
CGColorSpaceRef colorSpace = CGColorSpaceCreateDeviceRGB();
//Create suitable context (suitable for camera output setting kCVPixelFormatType_32BGRA)
CGContextRef newContext = CGBitmapContextCreate(rawImageBytes, width, height, 8, bytesPerRow, colorSpace, kCGBitmapByteOrder32Little | kCGImageAlphaPremultipliedFirst);
CVPixelBufferUnlockBaseAddress(cameraFrame, 0);
// release color space
CGColorSpaceRelease(colorSpace);
//Create a CGImageRef from the CVImageBufferRef
CGImageRef newImage = CGBitmapContextCreateImage(newContext);
UIImage *FinalImage = [[UIImage alloc] initWithCGImage:newImage];
//is the image captured, now we can test saving it.
I needed to create properties such as colourspace and generate a CDContexyRef and work with that to finally get a UIImage, and when debugging I can properly see the image i captured.