UIImage from CALayer - iPhone SDK

Question

Hi all,

In my application, I have created a CALayer (with a few sublayers - the CALayer is composed of shapes added as sublayers).

I am trying to create a UIImage that I will be able to upload to a server (I have the code for this). However, I can't figure out how to add the CALayer to a UIImage.

Is this possible? Any advice would be excellent and very appreciated.

Many thanks, Brett

Answer 1

Sounds like you want to render your layer into a UIImage. In that case, the method below should do the trick. Just add this to your view or controller class, or create a category on CALayer.

- (UIImage *)imageFromLayer:(CALayer *)layer
{
  UIGraphicsBeginImageContext([layer frame].size);

  [layer renderInContext:UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext()];
  UIImage *outputImage = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext();

  UIGraphicsEndImageContext();

  return outputImage;
}