High Quality Scaling of UIImage

Question

I need to scale the resolution of an image coming from a view layer in an iPhone application. The obvious way is to specify a scale factor in UIGraphicsBeginImageContextWithOptions, but any time the scale factor is not 1.0 then quality of the image goes to pot -- far more than would be expected from the loss of pixels.

I've tried several other scaling techniques, but they all seem to revolve around CGContext stuff and all appear to do the same thing.

Simply changing image "size" (without changing the dot resolution) isn't sufficient, mostly because that info seems to be discarded very quickly by other hands in the pipeline (the image will be converted to a JPG and emailed).

Is there any other way to scale an image on iPhone?

Answer 1

Swift extension:

extension UIImage{

        // returns a scaled version of the image
        func imageScaledToSize(size : CGSize, isOpaque : Bool) -> UIImage{

            // begin a context of the desired size
            UIGraphicsBeginImageContextWithOptions(size, isOpaque, 0.0)

            // draw image in the rect with zero origin and size of the context
            let imageRect = CGRect(origin: CGPointZero, size: size)
            self.drawInRect(imageRect)

            // get the scaled image, close the context and return the image
            let scaledImage = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext()
            UIGraphicsEndImageContext()

            return scaledImage
       }
}

Example:

aUIImageView.image = aUIImage.imageScaledToSize(aUIImageView.bounds.size, isOpaque : false)

Set isOpaque to true if the image has no alpha: drawing will have better performance.

Answer 2

About UIImage resize problem, this post give many ways to handle UIImage object. The UIImage has some orientation problems need to be fixed. This and Another post will address it.

---

-(UIImage*)resizedImageToSize:(CGSize)dstSize
{
    CGImageRef imgRef = self.CGImage;
    // the below values are regardless of orientation : for UIImages from Camera, width>height (landscape)
    CGSize  srcSize = CGSizeMake(CGImageGetWidth(imgRef), CGImageGetHeight(imgRef)); // not equivalent to self.size (which is dependant on the imageOrientation)!

    /* Don't resize if we already meet the required destination size. */
    if (CGSizeEqualToSize(srcSize, dstSize)) {
        return self;
    }

    CGFloat scaleRatio = dstSize.width / srcSize.width;

    // Handle orientation problem of UIImage
    UIImageOrientation orient = self.imageOrientation;
    CGAffineTransform transform = CGAffineTransformIdentity;
    switch(orient) {

        case UIImageOrientationUp: //EXIF = 1
            transform = CGAffineTransformIdentity;
            break;

        case UIImageOrientationUpMirrored: //EXIF = 2
            transform = CGAffineTransformMakeTranslation(srcSize.width, 0.0);
            transform = CGAffineTransformScale(transform, -1.0, 1.0);
            break;

        case UIImageOrientationDown: //EXIF = 3
            transform = CGAffineTransformMakeTranslation(srcSize.width, srcSize.height);
            transform = CGAffineTransformRotate(transform, M_PI);
            break;

        case UIImageOrientationDownMirrored: //EXIF = 4
            transform = CGAffineTransformMakeTranslation(0.0, srcSize.height);
            transform = CGAffineTransformScale(transform, 1.0, -1.0);
            break;

        case UIImageOrientationLeftMirrored: //EXIF = 5
            dstSize = CGSizeMake(dstSize.height, dstSize.width);
            transform = CGAffineTransformMakeTranslation(srcSize.height, srcSize.width);
            transform = CGAffineTransformScale(transform, -1.0, 1.0);
            transform = CGAffineTransformRotate(transform, 3.0 * M_PI_2);
            break;  

        case UIImageOrientationLeft: //EXIF = 6  
            dstSize = CGSizeMake(dstSize.height, dstSize.width);
            transform = CGAffineTransformMakeTranslation(0.0, srcSize.width);
            transform = CGAffineTransformRotate(transform, 3.0 * M_PI_2);
            break;  

        case UIImageOrientationRightMirrored: //EXIF = 7  
            dstSize = CGSizeMake(dstSize.height, dstSize.width);
            transform = CGAffineTransformMakeScale(-1.0, 1.0);
            transform = CGAffineTransformRotate(transform, M_PI_2);
            break;  

        case UIImageOrientationRight: //EXIF = 8  
            dstSize = CGSizeMake(dstSize.height, dstSize.width);
            transform = CGAffineTransformMakeTranslation(srcSize.height, 0.0);
            transform = CGAffineTransformRotate(transform, M_PI_2);
            break;  

        default:  
            [NSException raise:NSInternalInconsistencyException format:@"Invalid image orientation"];  

    }  

    /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
    // The actual resize: draw the image on a new context, applying a transform matrix
    UIGraphicsBeginImageContextWithOptions(dstSize, NO, self.scale);

    CGContextRef context = UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext();

       if (!context) {
           return nil;
       }

    if (orient == UIImageOrientationRight || orient == UIImageOrientationLeft) {
        CGContextScaleCTM(context, -scaleRatio, scaleRatio);
        CGContextTranslateCTM(context, -srcSize.height, 0);
    } else {  
        CGContextScaleCTM(context, scaleRatio, -scaleRatio);
        CGContextTranslateCTM(context, 0, -srcSize.height);
    }

    CGContextConcatCTM(context, transform);

    // we use srcSize (and not dstSize) as the size to specify is in user space (and we use the CTM to apply a scaleRatio)
    CGContextDrawImage(UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext(), CGRectMake(0, 0, srcSize.width, srcSize.height), imgRef);
    UIImage* resizedImage = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext();
    UIGraphicsEndImageContext();

    return resizedImage;
}