how to crop image in to pieces programmatically

Question

I need to divide an image into 9 pieces programmatically. Any suggestions on how to do this?

Answer 1

The code below is also a solution that detects the piece of the picture that was tapped on. The idea is to take a UIImage and use CGImageCreateWithImageInRect to crop out pieces. From the cropped piece create a new UIImage and place it in a UIImageView. In order to get the tap gesture to work I had to place the UIImageView in a UIView. Finally, provide the gesture and a unique tag so that the piece can be identified when tapped on.

- (void)loadView {
    UIView* root = [[UIView alloc] initWithFrame:[[UIScreen mainScreen] applicationFrame]];
    UIImage* whole = [UIImage imageNamed:@"whole.jpg"]; //I know this image is 300x300

    int partId = 0;
    for (int x=0; x<=200; x+=100) {
        for(int y=0; y<=200; y+=100) {
            CGImageRef cgImg = CGImageCreateWithImageInRect(whole.CGImage, CGRectMake(x, y, 100, 100));
            UIImage* part = [UIImage imageWithCGImage:cgImg];
            UIImageView* iv = [[UIImageView alloc] initWithImage:part];

            UIView* sView = [[UIView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(200-x, 200-y, 100, 100)];
            [sView addSubview:iv];
            [iv release];

            UITapGestureRecognizer* tap = [[UITapGestureRecognizer alloc] initWithTarget:self
                                                                                  action:@selector(tap:)];
            tap.numberOfTapsRequired = 1;
            [sView addGestureRecognizer:tap];
            [tap release];

            sView.tag = partId;

            [root addSubview:sView];
            [sView release];
            partId++;
            CGImageRelease(cgImg);
        }
    }

    self.view = root;
}

- (void)tap:(UITapGestureRecognizer*)gesture
{
    NSLog(@"image tap=%d", gesture.view.tag);
}

Answer 2

There are many ways to slice and dice an image but here is one. It uses Quartz to cut an image into 9 equal-sized fractions. Notice it does not handle rotated images (by that I mean images with imageOrientation!=0) but it should get you started:

+(NSArray *)splitImageInTo9:(UIImage *)im{
    CGSize size = [im size];
    NSMutableArray *arr = [[NSMutableArray alloc] initWithCapacity:9];
    for (int i=0;i<3;i++){
        for (int j=0;j<3;j++){
            CGRect portion = CGRectMake(i * size.width/3.0, j * size.height/3.0, size.width/3.0, size.height/3.0);
            UIGraphicsBeginImageContext(portion.size);
            CGContextRef context = UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext();
            CGContextScaleCTM(context, 1.0, -1.0);
            CGContextTranslateCTM(context, 0, -portion.size.height);
            CGContextTranslateCTM(context, -portion.origin.x, -portion.origin.y);
            CGContextDrawImage(context,CGRectMake(0.0, 0.0,size.width,  size.height), im.CGImage);
            [arr addObject:UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext()];
            UIGraphicsEndImageContext();


        }
    }
    return [arr autorelease];

}

The output will be an array of the 9 images each of size (with/3, height/3)