mask image via another image

Question

Alright what I am trying to do is:

• given an image where there is a circle within that image that is "blank". I want to take an existing image from user library and then mask it so that only a certain part of that image is shown on the "blank" image..

I have tried a few masking code but they all seem to work the other way around ... any tips on how to tackle this?

Answer 1

Unfortunately you can't use CoreAnimation to do this (which would make it rather easy). Looking at Apple's CoreAnimation documentation:

iOS Note: As a performance consideration, iOS does not support the mask property.

Therefore the next best way to do this is to use Quartz 2D (as answered here):

CGContextRef mainViewContentContext;
CGColorSpaceRef colorSpace;

colorSpace = CGColorSpaceCreateDeviceRGB();

// create a bitmap graphics context the size of the image
mainViewContentContext = CGBitmapContextCreate (NULL, targetSize.width, targetSize.height, 8, 0, colorSpace, kCGImageAlphaPremultipliedLast);

// free the rgb colorspace
CGColorSpaceRelease(colorSpace);    

if (mainViewContentContext==NULL)
    return NULL;

CGImageRef maskImage = [[UIImage imageNamed:@"mask.png"] CGImage];
CGContextClipToMask(mainViewContentContext, CGRectMake(0, 0, targetSize.width, targetSize.height), maskImage);
CGContextDrawImage(mainViewContentContext, CGRectMake(thumbnailPoint.x, thumbnailPoint.y, scaledWidth, scaledHeight), self.CGImage);


// Create CGImageRef of the main view bitmap content, and then
// release that bitmap context
CGImageRef mainViewContentBitmapContext = CGBitmapContextCreateImage(mainViewContentContext);
CGContextRelease(mainViewContentContext);

// convert the finished resized image to a UIImage 
UIImage *theImage = [UIImage imageWithCGImage:mainViewContentBitmapContext];
// image is retained by the property setting above, so we can 
// release the original
CGImageRelease(mainViewContentBitmapContext);

// return the image
return theImage;