Android: Resize a large bitmap file to scaled output file.

Question

I have a large bitmap (say 3888x2592) in a file. Now, I want to resize that bitmap to 800x533 and save it to another file. I normally would scale the bitmap by calling Bitmap.createBitmap method but it needs a source bitmap as the first argument, which I can't provide because loading the original image into a Bitmap object would of course exceed the memory (see here, for example).

I also can't read the bitmap with, for example, BitmapFactory.decodeFile(file, options), providing a BitmapFactory.Options.inSampleSize, because I want to resize it to an exact width and height. Using inSampleSize would resize the bitmap to 972x648 (if I use inSampleSize=4) or to 778x518 (if I use inSampleSize=5, which isn't even a power of 2).

I would also like to avoid reading the image using inSampleSize with, for example, 972x648 in a first step and then resizing it to exactly 800x533 in a second step, because the quality would be poor compared to a direct resizing of the original image.

To sum up my question: Is there a way to read a large image file with 10MP or more and save it to a new image file, resized to a specific new width and height, without getting an OutOfMemory exception?

I also tried BitmapFactory.decodeFile(file, options) and setting the Options.outHeight and Options.outWidth values manually to 800 and 533, but it doesn't work that way.

Answer 1

No. I'd love for someone to correct me, but I accepted the load/resize approach you tried as a compromise.

Here are the steps for anyone browsing:

1. Calculate the maximum possible inSampleSize that still yields an image larger than your target.
2. Load the image using BitmapFactory.decodeFile(file, options), passing inSampleSize as an option.
3. Resize to the desired dimensions using Bitmap.createBitmap().

Answer 2

When i have large bitmaps and i want to decode them resized i use the following

BitmapFactory.Options options = new BitmapFactory.Options();
InputStream is = null;
is = new FileInputStream(path_to_file);
BitmapFactory.decodeStream(is,null,options);
is.close();
is = new FileInputStream(path_to_file);
// here w and h are the desired width and height
options.inSampleSize = Math.max(options.outWidth/w, options.outHeight/h);
// bitmap is the resized bitmap
Bitmap bitmap = BitmapFactory.decodeStream(is,null,options);

Answer 3

Why not use the API?

int h = 48; // height in pixels
int w = 48; // width in pixels    
Bitmap scaled = Bitmap.createScaledBitmap(largeBitmap, h, w, true);

Answer 4

Taking into account that you want to resize to exact size and want to keep as much quality as needed I think you should try this.

1. Find out the size of the resized image with call of BitmapFactory.decodeFile and providing the checkSizeOptions.inJustDecodeBounds
2. Calculate the maximum possible inSampleSize you can use on your device to not exceed the memory. bitmapSizeInBytes = 2*width*height; Generally for your picture inSampleSize=2 would be fine since you will need only 2*1944x1296)=4.8Mbб which should feet in memory
3. Use BitmapFactory.decodeFile with inSampleSize to load the Bitmap
4. Scale the bitmap to exact size.

Motivation: multiple-steps scaling could give you higher quality picture, however there is no guarantee that it will work better than using high inSampleSize. Actually, I think that you also can use inSampleSize like 5 (not pow of 2) to have direct scaling in one operation. Or just use 4 and then you can just use that image in UI. if you send it to server - than you can do scaling to exact size on server side which allow you to use advanced scaling techniques.

Notes: if the Bitmap loaded in step-3 is at least 4 times larger (so the 4*targetWidth < width) you probably can use several resizing to achieve better quality. at least that works in generic java, in android you don't have the option to specify the interpolation used for scaling http://today.java.net/pub/a/today/2007/04/03/perils-of-image-getscaledinstance.html