The problem that I am facing is simple (and less abstract than the question itself). I am looking for a solution to highlight an area of an image (the selection) while the rest of the image is faded or grayed out. You can compare the effect with the interface you see in, for example, Photoshop when you crop an image. The image is grayed out and the the area that will be cropped is clear.
My initial idea was to use masking for this (hence the question), but I am not sure if this is a viable approach and, if it is, how to proceed.
Not sure if this is the best way, but it should work.
First, you create a screenshot of the view.
UIGraphicsBeginImageContextWithOptions(captureView.bounds.size, view.opaque, 0.0);
[captureView.layer renderInContext:UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext()];
UIImage *screenshot = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext();
UIGraphicsEndImageContext();
This snippet is 'stolen' and slightly modified from here:
Low quality of capture view context on iPad
Then you could create a grayscale mask image of same dimensions as the original (screenshot).
Follow the clear & simple instructions on How to Mask an Image.
Then you create UIImageView, set the masked image as it's image and add it on top of your original view. You also might want to set the backgroundColor of this UIImageView to your liking.
EDIT:
A simpler way would probably be using view.layer.mask, which is "an optional layer whose alpha channel is used as a mask to select between the layer's background and the result of compositing the layer's contents with its filtered background." (from CALayer class reference)
Some literature:
UIView Class Reference
CALayer Class Reference
And a simple example how mask can be made with (possibly hidden) another UIView:
Masking a UIView
Related
I'm trying to make a ViewController that presents info from a webpage like this:
However, I'm confused on one thing. How did they get the imageView to display an image that's cut off at the corner, i.e. not rectangular? Do you think they created that player card in Photoshop and used it as the background for the imageView image, or did they create it programmatically?
I wonder because the image is behind the picture of the bear, so I imagine if they created the background in Photoshop, how would they get the image behind the bear head? They can't have just created the card with the player's picture as part of it, then loaded the whole image because if they traded the player, because I'm sure they pull the player info and picture from the web so they can have a card for all players, even if they trade or acquire a new player mid-season, without having to update the app (and add the finished image to images.xcassets).
This can be composed from two CALayers at runtime. Put the picture on the bottom layer; the picture can come from anywhere - the web, the bundle, etc. the image source could be dynamic.
Put another CALayer on top, with the frame rendered with opaque colors, and a transparent cut-out for the picture in the middle:
There are a bunch of ways to do this. A simple and flexible way to do it is to create a CAShapeLayer that's the same size as the image view, with it's origin at 0,0, and add it as the UIImageView's layer's mask.
You'd create a filled UIBezierPath that maps out the part of the image you want to show, and install the bezier path's CGPath into the mask layer's path property.
The result would be that the image view is cropped so that only the part inside the shape is drawn.
Here is a photo explanation to better illustrate what I mean:
I have two UIImageViews, with View1 being on the bottom and View2 at the top:
What I would like to do accomplish is to programmatically set an area on View2 that is completely transparent (i.e. has an alpha of 0), so that this will be the end result:
I haven't been able to find a similar problem related to marking a part of a UIImageView transparent in the form of a shape (specifically, a circle), and was wondering how I should tackle this problem?
Thanks!
One road you could go is CoreGraphics:
Create an image context
Set the clipping path you need (or just clear the circle for the "hole" after drawing)
Draw the original image into the context
Make an UIImage from that context
Assign the image to the top UIImageView
https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/2ddrawing/conceptual/drawingprintingios/HandlingImages/Images.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40010156-CH13-SW1
I want to fill specific color on specific area of an image.
EX:
In above Joker image, If touch on hair of Joker then fill specific color on hair Or touch on nose then fill specific color on nose.. etc. I hope may you understand what I am trying to say.
After googling it's may be achieve by use of UIBezierPath or CGContext Reference but I am very new for it, I tried to read this documentation but I do not understand (take more time) anything also I have limit of time for this Project. So I can not spend more time on it.
Also I found that we can use Flood fill algorithm. But I don't know how to use in my case.
NOTE: I don't want to divide original image (such like hair. nose, cap,...etc) because If I will do then there will be so many images in bundle so I need to handle it for both normal and retina device so this option is not helpful for me.
So please give me your valuable suggestion and also tell me which is best for me UIBezierPath or CGContext Reference? How can I fill color on specific portion of image? and/or can we fill color under the black border of area ? Because I am new at Quartz 2D Programming.
Use the Github library below. The post uses the flood fill algorithm : UIImageScanlineFloodfill
Objective C description : ObjFloodFill
If you want to look at detailed explanation of the algorithm : Recursion Explained with the Flood Fill Algorithm (and Zombies and Cats)
few of the other tutorials in other languages : Lode's Computer Graphics Tutorial : Flood Fill
Rather than attempting to flood fill an area of a raster-based image, a better approach (and much smaller amount of data) would be to create vector images. Once you have a vector image, you can stroke the outline to draw it uncolored, or you can fill the outline to draw it colored.
I recommend using CoreGraphics calls like CGContextStrokePath() and CGContextFillPath() to do the drawing. This will likely look better than using the flood fill because you will get nicely anti-aliased edges.
Apple has some good documentation on how to draw with Quartz 2D. Particularly the section on Paths is useful to what you're trying to do.
You can Clip the context based on image Alpha transparency
I have created a quick image with black color and alpha
Then using the below Code
- (void)drawRect:(CGRect)rect
{
CGContextRef context = UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext(); // Get the context
CGContextSetFillColorWithColor(context, [UIColor blueColor].CGColor); // Set the fill color to be blue
// Flip the context so that the image is not flipped
CGContextTranslateCTM(context, 0, rect.size.height);
CGContextScaleCTM(context, 1.0, -1.0);
// Clip the context by a mask created from the image
UIImage *image = [UIImage imageNamed:#"image.png"];
CGImageRef cgImage = image.CGImage;
CGContextClipToMask(context, rect, cgImage);
// Finally fill the context with the color and mask you set earlier
CGContextFillRect(context, rect);
}
The result
This is a quick hint of what you can do. However you need now to convert your image to add alpha transparent to the parts you need to remove
After a quick search I found these links
How can I change the color 'white' from a UIImage to transparent
How to make one colour transparent in UIImage
If You create your image as SVG vector base image, it will be very light (less than png, jpg) and really easy to manage via Quartz 2D using bezier paths. Bezier paths can be filled (white at starting). UIBezierPath have a method (containsPoint:) that help define if you click inside.
I'm working on a educational app involving complex scripts in which I paint parts of different 'letters' different colours. UILabel is out of the question, so I've drilled down into Core Text and am having a surprisingly successful go of painting glyphs in CALayers.
What I haven't managed to do is animate the size of my custom drawn text. Basically I have text on 'tiles' (CALayers) that move around the screen. The moving around is okay, but now I want to zoom in on the ones that users press.
My idea is to try to cache a 'full resolution' tile and then draw it to scale during an animation of an image bounds. So far I've tried to draw and cache and then redraw such a tile in the following way:
UIGraphicsBeginImageContext(CGSizeMake(50, 50));
CGContextRef context = UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext();
//do some drawing...
myTextImage = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext();
UIGraphicsEndImageContext();
Then in [CALayer drawInContext:(CGContextRef)context],
I call [myTextImage drawAtPoint:CGPointZero].
When I run the app, the console shows <Error>: CGContextDrawImage: invalid context 0x0. Meanwhile I can perfectly while just continue to draw text in context in the same method even after that error is logged.
So I have two questions: (1) Why isn't this working? Should I be using CGBitmap instead?
And more important: (2) Is there a smarter way of solving the overall problem? Maybe storing my text as paths and then somehow getting CAAnimation to draw it at different scales as the bounds of the enclosing CALayer change?
Okay, this is much easier than I thought. Simply draw the text in the drawInContext: of a CALayer inside of a UIView. Then animate the view using the transform property, and the text will shrink or expand as you like.
Just pay attention to scaling so that the text doesn't get blocky. The easiest way to do that is to make sure the transform scale factors do not go above 1. In other words, make the 'default' 1:1 size of your UIView the largest size you ever want to display it.
I am creating an iOS user interface to allow a user to pick a rectangle within an existing image, dragging the corners of that rectangle to the desired size. I now have four custom UIButtons (30% alpha) and a custom view (also with 30% alpha) that draws the dashed lines between the four corner buttons.
To "improve" the interface, I would like my drawRect code to make the cropped portion of the image appear "normal" while everything outside the cropped region is washed out (filled with white color, which will give me the correct effect since the UIView is set to 30% alpha).
The obvious algorithm would be:
Fill the entire image with [UIColor whiteColor] fill
Draw the four dashed lines with a [UIColor clearColor] fill
When I do this, the clear fill isn't showing up. I believe this is because the "fill" of the clear color in step #2 isn't being seen because the pixels were already set to white in step #1. Perhaps there's a blend mode that will allow me to see the transparency of the second rectangle? I'm not sure about the various blend modes.
My second attempt, which works, does the following:
Draw the four dashed lines with [UIColor clearColor] fill
Draw four additional rectangles with [UIColor whiteColor] fill, each representing the portions to the left, right, above, and below the cropped region.
As I mention, this method works, but seems to me there should be a simpler way instead of me having to calculate these four additional rectangles each and every time.
There is a similar question on SO Create layer mask with custom-shaped hole that uses CALayer and masks, but this seems to be overkill for what I need.
Does anybody have any suggestions on how to improve this?
You can set the blend mode to kCGBlendModeCopy and use clearColor to reset a pixel's alpha to zero. You can presumably also use kCGBlendModeClear but I haven't tested that.
You can also set the clipping path to just contain the pixels you want cleared and call CGContextClearRect(gc, CGRectInfinite).
If you want to use a clipping mask with a hole in it, you can do so without using a CALayer, and you can build it a little more simply than in the answer you linked, by using the even-odd rule and CGRectInfinite:
CGContextSaveGState(GC); {
CGContextBeginPath(gc);
CGContextAddRect(gc, myRect); // or whatever simple path you want here
CGContextAddRect(gc, CGRectInfinite);
CGContextEOClip(gc);
// drawing code here is clipped to the exterior of myRect
} CGContextRestoreGState(gc);