Exporting customized UITableViewCells into UIImage - ios

I have a UITableView with a set of UITableViewCells in it - each of the cells contain a UIView which shows some graphics in a context.
What would be the best way to export these cells into one UIImage?
Thanks
edit 1: I know how to create an image from the viewable area of the table, but this table scrolls out of the screen and I would like to create a UIImage of all of the cells, not only those you see.

You should be able to do this by telling the view's layer to draw into a custom graphics context, then creating a bitmapped CGImage from that context. Once you have a CGImage, you can create a UIImage from it. It would look roughly like this:
// Create a bitmap context.
CGColorSpaceRef colorSpace = CGColorSpaceCreateDeviceRGB();
CGContextRef bitmapContextForCell = CGBitmapContextCreate(nil, cell.bounds.size.width, cell.bounds.size.height, 8, 0, colorSpace, kCGImageAlphaNone);
CGColorSpaceRelease(colorSpace);
// Draw the cell's layer into the context.
[cell.layer renderInContext:bitmapContextForCell];
// Create a CGImage from the context.
CGImageRef cgImageForCell = CGBitmapContextCreateImage(bitmapContextForCell);
// Create a UIImage from the CGImage.
UIImage * cellImage = [UIImage imageWithCGImage:cgImageForCell];
// Clean up.
CGImageRelease(cgImageForCell);
CGContextRelease(bitmapContextForCell);
That's how to create a image for each cell. If you want to create one image for all your cells, use your table view instead of the cell.

Related

How to render offscreen IOS

I am trying to make a metaball implementation in swift but have ran into this problem on the way. Basically I need to draw some alpha radial gradients offscreen and then check each pixel value to see wether it is above a certain alpha threshold if it is than the pixel becomes black other wise it is white.
The problem is that I cant figure out how to make an offscreen context that I can draw on and perform calculations on and then display it on the screen.
I have searched endlessly but I am very confused with the differences between UIcontexts and CGContext. In my current attempt I use a CGBitmapContext but to no avail. Any help would be greatly appreciated (preferably in swift, but anything goes).
You could draw to a bitmap graphics context as described here.
Here is how you can create an image context, draw to it using CG calls, and then get a UIImage:
// Create an N*N image
CGSize size = CGSizeMake(N, N);
UIGraphicsBeginImageContext(size);
CGContextRef ctx = UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext();
// EG:
CGColorRef backColor = [UIColor lightGrayColor].CGColor;
CGContextSetFillColorWithColor(ctx, backColor);
CGContextFillRect(ctx, r1);
.... more drawing code
UIImage *image = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext();
UIGraphicsEndImageContext();
You can get a CGImageRef very easily:
CGImageRef cgImage = image.CGImage;
Finally, you can get the underlying bytes as explained here.

Taking a screenshot of a view that is currently not on screen on iOS

I'm trying to make a transition between two ViewControllers. My Transition class has a property for the destination view controller. When I try to get a screenshot of the destination's view, I use this method:
+ (UIImage *)renderImageFromView:(UIView *)view withRect:(CGRect)frame {
// Create a new context the size of the frame
UIGraphicsBeginImageContextWithOptions(frame.size, YES, 0);
CGContextRef context = UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext();
// Render the view
[view.layer renderInContext:context];
// Get the image from the context
UIImage *renderedImage = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext();
// Cleanup the context you created
UIGraphicsEndImageContext();
return renderedImage;
}
So when I want the image, I'll do this:
UIImage *image = [UIImage renderImageFromView:destinationController.view withRect:destinationController.view.bounds];
I tried it on a blank UIViewController with an orange background color and a label. I get the orange background color, but I do not get the label that was created in IB. Is there a way to get a proper screenshot of the new view I plan on showing? Thanks!
You need to make sure the view's layer is drawn to first. Calling renderInContext on a CALayer will only recursively call additional child CALayers. You need your child UIViews to draw themselves, not just using the CALayer.
Try calling
[view drawrect:frame];
instead of
[view.layer renderInContext:context];
As long as you have an open graphics context(which you do at that point), drawrect should draw directly into that.

Fast screenshot ios

In my project I have to make a screenshot of the screen and apply blur to create the effect of frosted glass. Content can be moved under the glass and blured picture changed.
I'v used Accelerate.framework to speedup blurring, also i,v used OpenGL to draw CIImage directly to GLView.
Now I'm looking for a way to optimize getting screenshot of the screen.
I use this method to get screenshot of some area at the bottom of the screen:
CGSize size = CGSizeMake(rect.size.width, rect.size.height);
// get screenshot of self.view
CGColorSpaceRef colorSpaceRef = CGColorSpaceCreateDeviceRGB();
CGContextRef ctx = CGBitmapContextCreate(nil, size.width, size.height, 8, 0, colorSpaceRef, kCGImageAlphaPremultipliedFirst);
CGContextClearRect(ctx, rect);
CGColorSpaceRelease(colorSpaceRef);
CGContextSetInterpolationQuality(ctx, kCGInterpolationNone);
CGContextSetShouldAntialias(ctx, NO);
CGContextSetAllowsAntialiasing(ctx, NO);
CGContextTranslateCTM(ctx, 0.0, someView.frame.size.height);
CGContextScaleCTM(ctx, 1, -1);
//add mask
CGImageRef maskImage = [UIImage imageNamed:#"mask.png"].CGImage;
CGContextClipToMask(ctx, rect, maskImage);
[someView.layer renderInContext:ctx];
//get screenshot image
CGImageRef imageRef = CGBitmapContextCreateImage(ctx);
It works fine and fast if self.view has 1-2 subviews, but if there are several subviews (or it is tableview), then everything starts to slow down.
So i try to find a fast way to get pixels from some rect on screen. Maybe using a low-level API.
if just perform some animations , try this way , called -snapshotViewAfterScreenUpdates: or -resizableSnapshotViewFromRect:afterScreenUpdates:withCapInsets: method which are UIView provided , these method return UIView object without rendering into a bitmap image , so it is a more efficient .

MonoTouch convert color UIImage with alpha to grayscale and blur?

I am trying to find a recipe for producing a a blurred grayscale UIImage from a color PNG and alpha. There are recipes out there in ObjC but MonoTouch does not bind the CGRect functions so not sure how to do this. Any ideas?
Here is one ObjC example of grayscale:
(UIImage *)convertImageToGrayScale:(UIImage *)image
{
// Create image rectangle with current image width/height
CGRect imageRect = CGRectMake(0, 0, image.size.width, image.size.height);
// Grayscale color space
CGColorSpaceRef colorSpace = CGColorSpaceCreateDeviceGray();
// Create bitmap content with current image size and grayscale colorspace
CGContextRef context = CGBitmapContextCreate(nil, image.size.width, image.size.height, 8, 0, colorSpace, kCGImageAlphaNone);
// Draw image into current context, with specified rectangle
// using previously defined context (with grayscale colorspace)
CGContextDrawImage(context, imageRect, [image CGImage]);
// Create bitmap image info from pixel data in current context
CGImageRef imageRef = CGBitmapContextCreateImage(context);
// Create a new UIImage object
UIImage *newImage = [UIImage imageWithCGImage:imageRef];
// Release colorspace, context and bitmap information
CGColorSpaceRelease(colorSpace);
CGContextRelease(context);
CFRelease(imageRef);
// Return the new grayscale image
return newImage;
}
Monotouch does not bind the CGRect functions so not sure how to do this.
When using MonoTouch CGRect is mapped to RectangleF. A lot of extension methods exists that should map to every function provided by GCRect. You should not have any problem in porting ObjectiveC code using them.
If something is missing please fill a bug report # http://bugzilla.xamarin.com and we'll fix it asap (and provide a workaround when possible).
There are recipes out there in ObjC but MonoTouch
If you have links then please edit your question and add them. That will make it easier to help you :)
UPDATE
Here's a, line-by-line, C# translation of your example. It seems to works for me (and it's much easier to my eyes than Objective-C ;-)
UIImage ConvertToGrayScale (UIImage image)
{
RectangleF imageRect = new RectangleF (PointF.Empty, image.Size);
using (var colorSpace = CGColorSpace.CreateDeviceGray ())
using (var context = new CGBitmapContext (IntPtr.Zero, (int) imageRect.Width, (int) imageRect.Height, 8, 0, colorSpace, CGImageAlphaInfo.None)) {
context.DrawImage (imageRect, image.CGImage);
using (var imageRef = context.ToImage ())
return new UIImage (imageRef);
}
}
I wrote a native port of the blur and tint UIImage categories from WWDC for Monotouch.
https://github.com/lipka/MonoTouch.UIImageEffects
Sample code for tint and blur:
UIColor tintColor = UIColor.FromWhiteAlpha (0.11f, 0.73f);
UIImage yourImage;
yourImage.ApplyBlur (20f /*blurRadius*/, tintColor, 1.8f /*deltaSaturationFactor*/, null);

Draw background image using CGContextDrawImage

I want to draw on a UIView that has a background image that I set using the code below:
- (void)setBackgroundImageFromData:(NSData *)imageData {
UIImage *image = [UIImage imageWithData:imageData];
int width = image.size.width;
int height = image.size.height;
CGSize size = CGSizeMake(width, height);
CGRect imageRect = CGRectMake(0, 0, width, height);
UIGraphicsBeginImageContext(size);
CGContextRef currentContext = UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext();
CGContextTranslateCTM(currentContext, 0, height);
CGContextScaleCTM(currentContext, 1.0, -1.0);
CGContextDrawImage(currentContext, imageRect, image.CGImage);
UIGraphicsEndImageContext();
}
The initial view is created using the code from Apple's GLPaint example. For the life of me, that background image is not shown. What am I missing?
Thanks!
You create a UIImage, and an imageRect successfully. You then begin a image context to draw the image to, draw the image to the context, and end the context. The problem is that you just allow the context to expire without doing anything to it.
In UIKit you don't push new visuals upwards, you wait until requested to draw. Internal mechanisms cache your images and use them to move things about and otherwise redraw the screen at the usual 60fps.
If this is a custom UIView subclass, then you probably want to keep hold of the UIImage and composite it as part of your drawRect:. You can set the contents of your UIView as having changed by calling setNeedsRedraw — you'll then be asked to redraw your contents at some point in the future.
If this isn't a custom subclass, then the easiest thing to do is to wrap this view in an outer view and add a UIImageView behind it, to which you can set the UIImage.

Resources