How to get the color of a pixel in an UIView?

Question

I am trying to develop a small application. In it, I need to detect the color of a pixel within an UIView. I have a CGPoint defining the pixel I need. The colors of the UIView are changed using CoreAnimation.

I know there are some complex ways to extract color information from UIImages. However I couldn't find a solution for UIViews.

In Pseudo-Code I am looking for something like

pixel = [view getPixelAtPoint:myPoint];
UIColor *mycolor = [pixel getColor];

Any input greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Here is more efficient solution:

// UIView+ColorOfPoint.h
@interface UIView (ColorOfPoint)
- (UIColor *) colorOfPoint:(CGPoint)point;
@end

// UIView+ColorOfPoint.m
#import "UIView+ColorOfPoint.h"
#import <QuartzCore/QuartzCore.h>

@implementation UIView (ColorOfPoint)

- (UIColor *) colorOfPoint:(CGPoint)point
{
    unsigned char pixel[4] = {0};

    CGColorSpaceRef colorSpace = CGColorSpaceCreateDeviceRGB();

    CGContextRef context = CGBitmapContextCreate(pixel, 1, 1, 8, 4, colorSpace, kCGBitmapAlphaInfoMask & kCGImageAlphaPremultipliedLast);

    CGContextTranslateCTM(context, -point.x, -point.y);

    [self.layer renderInContext:context];

    CGContextRelease(context);
    CGColorSpaceRelease(colorSpace);

    //NSLog(@"pixel: %d %d %d %d", pixel[0], pixel[1], pixel[2], pixel[3]);

    UIColor *color = [UIColor colorWithRed:pixel[0]/255.0 green:pixel[1]/255.0 blue:pixel[2]/255.0 alpha:pixel[3]/255.0];

    return color;
}

@end

Link to files: https://github.com/ivanzoid/ikit/tree/master/UIView+ColorOfPoint

Answer 2

A swift'ified version of ivanzoid's answer

Swift 3

extension CALayer {

    func colorOfPoint(point:CGPoint) -> CGColor {

        var pixel: [CUnsignedChar] = [0, 0, 0, 0]

        let colorSpace = CGColorSpaceCreateDeviceRGB()
        let bitmapInfo = CGBitmapInfo(rawValue: CGImageAlphaInfo.premultipliedLast.rawValue)

        let context = CGContext(data: &pixel, width: 1, height: 1, bitsPerComponent: 8, bytesPerRow: 4, space: colorSpace, bitmapInfo: bitmapInfo.rawValue)

        context!.translateBy(x: -point.x, y: -point.y)

        self.render(in: context!)

        let red: CGFloat   = CGFloat(pixel[0]) / 255.0
        let green: CGFloat = CGFloat(pixel[1]) / 255.0
        let blue: CGFloat  = CGFloat(pixel[2]) / 255.0
        let alpha: CGFloat = CGFloat(pixel[3]) / 255.0

        let color = UIColor(red:red, green: green, blue:blue, alpha:alpha)

        return color.cgColor
    }
}

Swift 2

extension CALayer {

    func colorOfPoint(point:CGPoint)->CGColorRef
    {
        var pixel:[CUnsignedChar] = [0,0,0,0]

        let colorSpace = CGColorSpaceCreateDeviceRGB()
        let bitmapInfo = CGBitmapInfo(rawValue: CGImageAlphaInfo.PremultipliedLast.rawValue)

        let context = CGBitmapContextCreate(&pixel, 1, 1, 8, 4, colorSpace, bitmapInfo.rawValue)

        CGContextTranslateCTM(context, -point.x, -point.y)

        self.renderInContext(context!)

        let red:CGFloat = CGFloat(pixel[0])/255.0
        let green:CGFloat = CGFloat(pixel[1])/255.0
        let blue:CGFloat = CGFloat(pixel[2])/255.0
        let alpha:CGFloat = CGFloat(pixel[3])/255.0

        let color = UIColor(red:red, green: green, blue:blue, alpha:alpha)

        return color.CGColor
    }

}

based around the underlying CALayer but easily translatable back to UIView.