Converting a view to Bitmap without displaying it in Android?

Question

there is a way to do this. you have to create a Bitmap and a Canvas and call view.draw(canvas);

here is the code:

public static Bitmap loadBitmapFromView(View v) {
    Bitmap b = Bitmap.createBitmap( v.getLayoutParams().width, v.getLayoutParams().height, Bitmap.Config.ARGB_8888);                
    Canvas c = new Canvas(b);
    v.layout(v.getLeft(), v.getTop(), v.getRight(), v.getBottom());
    v.draw(c);
    return b;
}

if the view wasn't displayed before the size of it will be zero. Its possible to measure it like this:

if (v.getMeasuredHeight() <= 0) {
    v.measure(LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT, LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT);
    Bitmap b = Bitmap.createBitmap(v.getMeasuredWidth(), v.getMeasuredHeight(), Bitmap.Config.ARGB_8888);
    Canvas c = new Canvas(b);
    v.layout(0, 0, v.getMeasuredWidth(), v.getMeasuredHeight());
    v.draw(c);
    return b;
}

EDIT: according to this post, Passing WRAP_CONTENT as value to makeMeasureSpec() doesn't to do any good (although for some view classes it does work), and the recommended method is:

// Either this
int specWidth = MeasureSpec.makeMeasureSpec(parentWidth, MeasureSpec.AT_MOST);
// Or this
int specWidth = MeasureSpec.makeMeasureSpec(0 /* any */, MeasureSpec.UNSPECIFIED);
view.measure(specWidth, specWidth);
int questionWidth = view.getMeasuredWidth();

here is my solution:

public static Bitmap getBitmapFromView(View view) {
    Bitmap returnedBitmap = Bitmap.createBitmap(view.getWidth(), view.getHeight(),Bitmap.Config.ARGB_8888);
    Canvas canvas = new Canvas(returnedBitmap);
    Drawable bgDrawable =view.getBackground();
    if (bgDrawable!=null) 
        bgDrawable.draw(canvas);
    else 
        canvas.drawColor(Color.WHITE);
    view.draw(canvas);
    return returnedBitmap;
}

Enjoy :)

Try this,

/**
 * Draw the view into a bitmap.
 */
public static Bitmap getViewBitmap(View v) {
    v.clearFocus();
    v.setPressed(false);

    boolean willNotCache = v.willNotCacheDrawing();
    v.setWillNotCacheDrawing(false);

    // Reset the drawing cache background color to fully transparent
    // for the duration of this operation
    int color = v.getDrawingCacheBackgroundColor();
    v.setDrawingCacheBackgroundColor(0);

    if (color != 0) {
        v.destroyDrawingCache();
    }
    v.buildDrawingCache();
    Bitmap cacheBitmap = v.getDrawingCache();
    if (cacheBitmap == null) {
        Log.e(TAG, "failed getViewBitmap(" + v + ")", new RuntimeException());
        return null;
    }

    Bitmap bitmap = Bitmap.createBitmap(cacheBitmap);

    // Restore the view
    v.destroyDrawingCache();
    v.setWillNotCacheDrawing(willNotCache);
    v.setDrawingCacheBackgroundColor(color);

    return bitmap;
}

I know this may be a stale issue, but I was having problems getting any of these solutions to work for me. Specifically, I found that if any changes were made to the view after it was inflated that those changes would not get incorporated into the rendered bitmap.

Here's the method which ended up working for my case. With one caveat, however. prior to calling getViewBitmap(View) I inflated my view and asked it to layout with known dimensions. This was needed since my view layout would make it zero height/width until content was placed inside.

View view = LayoutInflater.from(context).inflate(layoutID, null);
//Do some stuff to the view, like add an ImageView, etc.
view.layout(0, 0, width, height);

Bitmap getViewBitmap(View view)
{
    //Get the dimensions of the view so we can re-layout the view at its current size
    //and create a bitmap of the same size 
    int width = view.getWidth();
    int height = view.getHeight();

    int measuredWidth = View.MeasureSpec.makeMeasureSpec(width, View.MeasureSpec.EXACTLY);
    int measuredHeight = View.MeasureSpec.makeMeasureSpec(height, View.MeasureSpec.EXACTLY);

    //Cause the view to re-layout
    view.measure(measuredWidth, measuredHeight);
    view.layout(0, 0, view.getMeasuredWidth(), view.getMeasuredHeight());

    //Create a bitmap backed Canvas to draw the view into
    Bitmap b = Bitmap.createBitmap(width, height, Bitmap.Config.ARGB_8888);
    Canvas c = new Canvas(b);

    //Now that the view is laid out and we have a canvas, ask the view to draw itself into the canvas
    view.draw(c);

    return b;
}

The "magic sauce" for me was found here: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/android-developers/BxIBAOeTA1Q

Cheers,

Levi