How to get pixel data from a UIImage (Cocoa Touch) or CGImage (Core Graphics)?

Solution 1:

FYI, I combined Keremk's answer with my original outline, cleaned-up the typos, generalized it to return an array of colors and got the whole thing to compile. Here is the result:

+ (NSArray*)getRGBAsFromImage:(UIImage*)image atX:(int)x andY:(int)y count:(int)count
{
    NSMutableArray *result = [NSMutableArray arrayWithCapacity:count];

    // First get the image into your data buffer
    CGImageRef imageRef = [image CGImage];
    NSUInteger width = CGImageGetWidth(imageRef);
    NSUInteger height = CGImageGetHeight(imageRef);
    CGColorSpaceRef colorSpace = CGColorSpaceCreateDeviceRGB();
    unsigned char *rawData = (unsigned char*) calloc(height * width * 4, sizeof(unsigned char));
    NSUInteger bytesPerPixel = 4;
    NSUInteger bytesPerRow = bytesPerPixel * width;
    NSUInteger bitsPerComponent = 8;
    CGContextRef context = CGBitmapContextCreate(rawData, width, height,
                    bitsPerComponent, bytesPerRow, colorSpace,
                    kCGImageAlphaPremultipliedLast | kCGBitmapByteOrder32Big);
    CGColorSpaceRelease(colorSpace);

    CGContextDrawImage(context, CGRectMake(0, 0, width, height), imageRef);
    CGContextRelease(context);

    // Now your rawData contains the image data in the RGBA8888 pixel format.
    NSUInteger byteIndex = (bytesPerRow * y) + x * bytesPerPixel;
    for (int i = 0 ; i < count ; ++i)
    {
        CGFloat alpha = ((CGFloat) rawData[byteIndex + 3] ) / 255.0f;
        CGFloat red   = ((CGFloat) rawData[byteIndex]     ) / alpha;
        CGFloat green = ((CGFloat) rawData[byteIndex + 1] ) / alpha;
        CGFloat blue  = ((CGFloat) rawData[byteIndex + 2] ) / alpha;
        byteIndex += bytesPerPixel;

        UIColor *acolor = [UIColor colorWithRed:red green:green blue:blue alpha:alpha];
        [result addObject:acolor];
    }

  free(rawData);

  return result;
}

Solution 2:

One way of doing it is to draw the image to a bitmap context that is backed by a given buffer for a given colorspace (in this case it is RGB): (note that this will copy the image data to that buffer, so you do want to cache it instead of doing this operation every time you need to get pixel values)

See below as a sample:

// First get the image into your data buffer
CGImageRef image = [myUIImage CGImage];
NSUInteger width = CGImageGetWidth(image);
NSUInteger height = CGImageGetHeight(image);
CGColorSpaceRef colorSpace = CGColorSpaceCreateDeviceRGB();
unsigned char *rawData = malloc(height * width * 4);
NSUInteger bytesPerPixel = 4;
NSUInteger bytesPerRow = bytesPerPixel * width;
NSUInteger bitsPerComponent = 8;
CGContextRef context = CGBitmapContextCreate(rawData, width, height, bitsPerComponent, bytesPerRow, colorSpace, kCGImageAlphaPremultipliedLast | kCGBitmapByteOrder32Big);
CGColorSpaceRelease(colorSpace);

CGContextDrawImage(context, CGRectMake(0, 0, width, height));
CGContextRelease(context);

// Now your rawData contains the image data in the RGBA8888 pixel format.
int byteIndex = (bytesPerRow * yy) + xx * bytesPerPixel;
red = rawData[byteIndex];
green = rawData[byteIndex + 1];
blue = rawData[byteIndex + 2];
alpha = rawData[byteIndex + 3];