Resize and crop images before displaying in UITableViewCells

Question

Hello, i have an UITableView in my app and i have to load some images that have a fixed width but different heights. I download the images async using an NSOperationQueue and for resizing and cropping i tried to use the solution provided by Jane Sales in this post link text.

i made a custom UITableViewCell class and in it i have a method that is called when the queued operation finishes to download the image. The method is called properly and the images are displayed. When i try to resize the images using the method proposed by Jane the problems appear. When it reaches [sourceImage drawInRect:thumbnailRect]; i receive an exec bad access error and i can't figure out why. I call the method like this:

- (void) setupImage:(UIImage *) anImage{
    UIImage *resized = [anImage imageByScalingAndCroppingForSize:CGSizeMake(64, 59)];
    if(resized == nil)
        resized = [UIImage newImageFromResource:@"thumb2.png"];
    [thumbnailView setImage:resized];
}

setupImage is the function called when the NSOperationQueue finishes the download action of anImage.

Could someone give me a clue why i receive the exec bad access error when i try to resize and crop the images? I tried using the same function outside the table view. 80% of the cases it works but there are cases when i receive the same exec bad access error.

Thank you in advance, Sorin

Answer 1

Try the following code. The createImage:image:width:height method requires a source CGImageRef and the new width and height of the final UIImage that will be returned. When using as source an UIImage, you can obtain the corresponding CGImageRef as follows:

UIImage *sourceImage;
CGImageRef *sourceRef = [sourceImage CGImage];

        // Draw the image into a pixelsWide x pixelsHigh bitmap and use that bitmap to 
        // create a new UIImage 
        - (UIImage *) createImage: (CGImageRef) image width: (int) pixelWidth height: (int) pixelHeight
        { 
            // Set the size of the output image 
            CGRect aRect = CGRectMake(0.0f, 0.0f, pixelWidth, pixelHeight); 
            // Create a bitmap context to store the new thumbnail 
            CGContextRef context = MyCreateBitmapContext(pixelWidth, pixelHeight); 
            // Clear the context and draw the image into the rectangle 
            CGContextClearRect(context, aRect); 
            CGContextDrawImage(context, aRect, image); 
            // Return a UIImage populated with the new resized image 
            CGImageRef myRef = CGBitmapContextCreateImage (context); 

            UIImage *img = [UIImage imageWithCGImage:myRef];

            free(CGBitmapContextGetData(context)); 
            CGContextRelease(context);
            CGImageRelease(myRef);

            return img; 
        } 



        // MyCreateBitmapContext: Source based on Apple Sample Code
        CGContextRef MyCreateBitmapContext (int pixelsWide,
                    int pixelsHigh)
        {
            CGContextRef    context = NULL;
            CGColorSpaceRef colorSpace;
            void *          bitmapData;
            int             bitmapByteCount;
            int             bitmapBytesPerRow;

            bitmapBytesPerRow   = (pixelsWide * 4);
            bitmapByteCount     = (bitmapBytesPerRow * pixelsHigh);

            colorSpace = CGColorSpaceCreateDeviceRGB();
            bitmapData = malloc( bitmapByteCount );
            if (bitmapData == NULL)
            {
                fprintf (stderr, "Memory not allocated!");
             CGColorSpaceRelease( colorSpace );
                return NULL;
            }
            context = CGBitmapContextCreate (bitmapData,
                     pixelsWide,
                     pixelsHigh,
                     8,
                     bitmapBytesPerRow,
                     colorSpace,
                     kCGImageAlphaPremultipliedLast);
            if (context== NULL)
            {
                free (bitmapData);
             CGColorSpaceRelease( colorSpace );
                fprintf (stderr, "Context not created!");
                return NULL;
            }
            CGColorSpaceRelease( colorSpace );

            return context;
        }

Answer 2

this is what i'm using for resizing and croping the UIImages (the code is from Jane Sales solution)

@implementation UIImage (Extras) 
#pragma mark -
#pragma mark Scale and crop image

- (UIImage*)imageByScalingAndCroppingForSize:(CGSize)targetSize
{
UIImage *sourceImage = self;
UIImage *newImage = nil;        
CGSize imageSize = sourceImage.size;
CGFloat width = imageSize.width;
CGFloat height = imageSize.height;
CGFloat targetWidth = targetSize.width;
CGFloat targetHeight = targetSize.height;
CGFloat scaleFactor = 0.0;
CGFloat scaledWidth = targetWidth;
CGFloat scaledHeight = targetHeight;
CGPoint thumbnailPoint = CGPointMake(0.0,0.0);

if (CGSizeEqualToSize(imageSize, targetSize) == NO) 
        {
        CGFloat widthFactor = targetWidth / width;
        CGFloat heightFactor = targetHeight / height;

        if (widthFactor > heightFactor) 
                scaleFactor = widthFactor; // scale to fit height
        else
                scaleFactor = heightFactor; // scale to fit width
        scaledWidth  = width * scaleFactor;
        scaledHeight = height * scaleFactor;

        // center the image
        if (widthFactor > heightFactor)
                {
                thumbnailPoint.y = (targetHeight - scaledHeight) * 0.5; 
                }
        else 
                if (widthFactor < heightFactor)
                        {
                        thumbnailPoint.x = (targetWidth - scaledWidth) * 0.5;
                        }
        }       

UIGraphicsBeginImageContext(targetSize); // this will crop

CGRect thumbnailRect = CGRectZero;
thumbnailRect.origin = thumbnailPoint;
thumbnailRect.size.width  = scaledWidth;
thumbnailRect.size.height = scaledHeight;

[sourceImage drawInRect:thumbnailRect];

newImage = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext();
if(newImage == nil) 
        NSLog(@"could not scale image");

//pop the context to get back to the default
UIGraphicsEndImageContext();
return newImage;
}

i call the above function like i said before:

- (void) setupImage:(UIImage *) anImage
{
    UIImage *resized = [anImage imageByScalingAndCroppingForSize:CGSizeMake(64, 59)];
    [thumbnailView setImage:resized];
}

the images are downloaded async when a cell is displayed in the table view. the setupImage function receives the image from an NSOperation that downloads it async. the problem is, like i said above, when it reaches [sourceImage drawInRect:thumbnailRect];

thumbnailView is an UIImageView that is a subview of my custom TableViewCell.

hope this clears things a bit about what i'm using in my code. Thank you for the help. Sorin