I'm creating an animation that uncovers the underlying image. There's a virtual shape (e.g. star) moving chaotically and uncovering different parts of the image.
So I had two bitmaps so far:
mask (trace of a shape moving here'n'there)
image (underlying image)
So far in every drawRect() I was:
creating a newMask bitmap by copying the current mask
drawing a stamp on a newMask
creating a resulting bitmap (apply newMask onto an image)
drawing a resulting bitmap to screen context
I'm struggling with performance in this approach. Any ideas how to improve it?
In particular:
Is it possible to skip step 1. & 2. and draw onto mask directly (rather than clone it).
Should I start experimenting with CALayer approach (if this kind of masking is at all possible there)
Should I use OpenGL
Is there any other approach to tackle this?
No, you should not manipulate bitmaps. That is likely to be very CPU-intensive as well as jerky (not smooth animation.)
Instead you should use a CAShapeLayer as a mask and Core Animation.
With a shape layer you can install a path (a CGPath, which can be created easily from a UIBezierPath) into the layer. Then you create a CABasicAnimation that switches the path to a new path. The trick is to always keep the same number and type of control points in the starting and ending paths of the animation. (If the number and/or type of control points in the two paths are different you get very, very strange results. Note that the path calls that create arcs of circles actually generate different numbers of control points based on how much of a circle your arc covers, so circle arcs require special handling.)
I have a sample project on Github that demonstrates various Core Animation techniques, including a demonstration of a "clock wipe" animation that reveals/hides and image view much like you describe.
https://github.com/DuncanMC/iOS-CAAnimation-group-demo
The animation looks like this:
Note that the jerky nature of that image is because it's a GIF. The actual animation on a device is buttery-smooth. It's also possible to create very complex smooth animations like this one:
(That isn't a mask animation but it could be.)
Related
I am working on creating a way for a user to move polygons on screen and change their shape by dragging their corner vertices. I then need to be able to re-draw those modified polygons on other devices - so I need to be able to get final positions of all vertices for all polygons on screen.
This is what I am currently doing:
I draw polygons using UIBezierPath for each shape in the override of the drawRect function. I then allow user to drag them around the screen by applying CGAffineTransformMakeTranslation function and the x and y coordinate deltas in touchedMoved function override. I have the initial control points from which initial polygons are drawn (as described here). But once a path instance is moved on screen, those values don't change - so I am only able to get initial values.
Is there something built - in in the Core Graphics framework that will allow me to grab a set of current control points in a UIBezierPath instance? I am trying to avoid keeping track of those points manually. I will consider using other ways to draw if:
there is a built - in way to detect if a point lies within that polygon (such as UIBezierPath#contains method
A way to easily introduce constraints so user can't move a polygon out of bounds of the superview (I need the whole polygon to be visible)
A way to grab all points easily when user is done
Everything can run under 60fps on iPhone 5.
Thanks for your time!
As you're only applying the transform to the view/layer, to get the transformed control points from the path, simply apply that same transform to the path, and then fetch the control points. Something like:
UIBezierPath* copiedPath = [myPath copy];
[copiedPath applyTransform:[view transform]];
[self yourExistingMethodToFetchPointsFromPath:copiedPath];
The way that you're currently pulling out points from a path is unfortunately at the only API available for re-fetching points from an input UIBezierPath. However - you might be interested in a library I wrote to make working with Bezier path's much simpler: PerformanceBezier. This library makes it significantly easier to get the points from a path:
for(NSInteger i=0;i<[path elementCount];i++){
CGPathElement element = [path elementAtIndex:n];
// now you know the element.type and the element.points
}
In addition to adding functionality to make paths easier to work with, it also adds a caching layer on top of the existing API to make the performance hit of working with paths much much smaller. Depending on how much CPU time you're spending on UIBezierPath methods, this library will make a significant improvement. I saw between 2x and 10x improvement, depending on the operations I was using.
I am drawing many audio meters on a view and finding that drawRect can not keep up with the speed of the audio change. In practice only a very small part of the image changes at a time so I really only want to draw the incremental changes.
I have created a CGLayer and when the data changes I use CGContextBeginPath, CGContextMoveToPoint, CGContextAddLineToPoint and CGContextStrokePath to draw in the CGLayer.
In drawRect in the view I use CGContextDrawLayerAtPoint to display the layer.
When the data changes I draw just the difference by drawing a line over the top in the CGLayer. I had assumed it was like photoshop and the new data just draws over the old but I now believe that all the lines I have ever drawn remain present in the layer. Is that correct?
If so is there a way to remove lines from a CGLayer?
What exactly do you mean by 'audio meter' show some snapshots of your intended designs. Shows us some code...
These are my suggestions-
1) Yes the new data just draws on top of CGLayer unless you release it CGLayerRelease(layer)
2) CGContextStrokePath is an expensive operation. You may want to create a generic line stroke and store them in UIImage. Then reuse the UIImage everytime your datachanges.
3) Simplest solution: use UIProgressView if you just want to show audio levels.
I now believe that all the lines I have ever drawn remain present in the layer. Is that correct?
Yes.
If so is there a way to remove lines from a CGLayer?
No. There is not. You would create a new layer. Generally, you create a layer for what is drawn repeatedly.
Your drawing may be able to be simplified by drawing rects rather than paths.
For some audio meters, dividing the meter into multiple pieces may help (you could use a CGLayer here). Similarly, you may be able to just draw rectangles selectively and/or clip drawing, images, and/or layers.
I'm working on a graphing application which I wrote using Core Graphics. I have a buffer which accumulates data, and I render it on the screen. It's super slow and I want to avoid going to openGL if possible. According to the profiler, drawing my graph data is what's killing me (which consists of a number of points which are converted to a path, followed by the calls AddPath, DrawPath)..
This is what I want to do, my question is how to best implement it using layers / views / etc..
I have a grid and some text. I want this to be rendered in a CALayer (or some other layer/view?) and only update when required (the graph is rescaled).
Only a portion of the data needs to be refreshed. I want to take the previous screen buffer, erase a rectangle's worth of data (or cover it with a white box) and then draw only the portion of the graphs that have changed.
I then want to merge the background layer with the foreground graphs to generate the composite image. This requires the graph layer to have a transparent background so as not to obscure the grid.
I've looked at using CAlayer as a sublayer, but it doesn't seem to provide a simple way to draw a line. CAShapeLayer seems a bit better, but it looks like it can only draw a single line. I want the grid to be composed of multiple lines.
What's the best approach and combination of objects to allow me to do this?
Thanks,
Reza
I'd have a CGLayerRef that was used for drawing the path into. For each new point I'd draw just the new segment. When the graph got to full width I'd create a new CGLayerRef and start drawing the new line segments into that.
What happens to the previous layer as it's drawn over by the new layer depends on how your graph is displayed, but you could clear the section which is now underneath the new layer (using CGContextSetBlendMode(context, kCGBlendModeClear);) or you could choose to blend them together in some other way.
Drawing the layers each time you make a change to the lines they contain is relatively cheap compared to drawing all of the line segments themselves.
Technically, there would also be CALayers used to manage the drawing of the CGLayerRefs to the screen (via the delegate relationship drawLayer:inContext:), but all of the line drawing is done using the CGLayerRefs context and then the CGLayerRef is drawn as a whole into the CALayers context (CGContextDrawLayerInRect(context, frame, backingCGLayer);).
I'm considering building an app that would make heavy use of a flood fill / paint bucket feature. The images I'd be coloring are simply like coloring book pages; white background, black borders. I'm debating which is better to use UIImage (by manipulating pixel data) or drawing the images with Core Graphics and changing the fill color on touch.
With UIImage, I'm unable to account for retina images properly; it destroys the image when I write the context into a new UIImage, but I can probably figure out. I open to tips though...
With CoreGraphics, I have no idea how to calculate which shape to fill when a user touches an area and then actually filling that area. I've looked but I have not turned up a successful search.
Overall, I believe the optimal solution is using CoreGraphics, since it'll be lighter overall and I won't have to keep several copies of the same image for different sizes.
Thoughts? Go easy on me! It's my first app and first SO question ;)
I'd suggest using Core Graphics.
Instead of images, define the shapes using CGPath or NSBezierPath, and use Core Graphics to stroke and/or fill the shapes. Filling shapes is then as easy as switching drawing mode from just stroking to stroking and filling.
Creating even more complex shapes is made much easier with the "PaintCode" app (which lets you draw and creates the path code for you).
As your first app, I would suggest something with a little less custom graphics fiddling, though.
I have been trying so much but have no solution find out yet. I have to implement the painting and erasing on iOS so I successfully implemented the painting logic using UIBezierPath. The problem is that for erasing, I implemented the same logic as for painting by using kCGBlendModeClear but the problem is that I cant redraw on the erased area and this is because in each pass in drawRect i have to stroke both the painting and erasing paths. So is there anyway that we can subtract erasing path from drawing path to get the resultant path and then stroke it. I am very new to Core Graphics and looking forward for your reply and comments. Or any other logic to implement the same. I can't use eraser as background color because my background is textured.
You don't need to stroke the path every time, in fact doing so is a huge performance hit. I guarantee if you try it on an iPad 3 you will be met with a nearly unresponsive screen after a few strokes. You only need to add and stroke the path once. After that, it will be stored as pixel data. So don't keep track of your strokes, just add them, stroke them, and get rid of them. Also look into using a CGLayer (you can draw to that outside the main loop, and only render it to your rect in the main loop so it saves lots of time).
These are the steps that I use, and I am doing the exact same thing (I use a CGPath instead of UIBezierPath, but the idea is the same):
1) In touches began, store the touch point and set the context to either erase or draw, depending on what the user has selected.
2) In touches moved, if the point is a certain arbitrary distance away from the last point, then move to the last point (CGContextMoveToPoint) and draw a line to the new point (CGContextAddLineToPoint) in my CGLayer. Calculate the rectangle that was changed (i.e. contains the two points) and call setNeedsDisplayInRect: with that rectangle.
3) In drawRect render the CGLayer into the current window context ( UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext() ).
On an iPad 3 (the one that everyone has the most trouble with due to its enormous pixel count) this process takes between 0.05 ms and 0.15ms per render (depending on how fast you swipe). There is one caveat though, if you don't take the proper precautions, the entire frame rectangle will be redrawn even if you only use setNeedsDisplayInRect: My hacky way to combat this (thanks to the dev forums) is described in my self answered question here, Otherwise, if your view takes a long time to draw the entire frame (mine took an unacceptable 150 ms) you will get a short stutter under certain conditions while the view buffer gets recreated.
EDIT With the new info from your comments, it seems that the answer to this question will benefit you -> Use a CoreGraphic Stroke as Alpha Mask in iPhone App
Hai here is the code for making painting, erasing, undo, redo, saving as picture. you can check sample code and implement this on your project.
Here