Drawing on NSBitmapImageRep

Question

I'm trying to create in-memory image, draw on it and save to disk.

Current code is:

NSBitmapImageRep *rep = [[NSBitmapImageRep alloc]
                         initWithBitmapDataPlanes:NULL
                         pixelsWide:256
                         pixelsHigh:256
                         bitsPerSample:8
                         samplesPerPixel:4
                         hasAlpha:YES
                         isPlanar:YES
                         colorSpaceName:NSDeviceRGBColorSpace
                         bitmapFormat:NSAlphaFirstBitmapFormat
                         bytesPerRow:0
                         bitsPerPixel:8
                         ];


[NSGraphicsContext saveGraphicsState];
[NSGraphicsContext setCurrentContext:[NSGraphicsContext graphicsContextWithBitmapImageRep:rep]];

// Draw your content...
NSRect aRect=NSMakeRect(10.0,10.0,30.0,30.0);
NSBezierPath *thePath=[NSBezierPath bezierPathWithRect:aRect];
[[NSColor redColor] set];
[thePath fill];

[NSGraphicsContext restoreGraphicsState];


NSData *data = [rep representationUsingType: NSPNGFileType properties: nil];
[data writeToFile: @"test.png" atomically: NO];

when trying to draw in current context, I'm getting error

CGContextSetFillColorWithColor: invalid context 0x0

What is wrong here? Why context returned by NSBitmapImageRep is NULL? What is the best way to create drawn image and save it?

UPDATE:

Finally came to following solution:

NSImage *image = [[NSImage alloc] initWithSize:NSMakeSize(256, 256)];
[image lockFocus];

NSRect aRect=NSMakeRect(10.0,10.0,30.0,30.0);
NSBezierPath *thePath=[NSBezierPath bezierPathWithRect:aRect];
[[NSColor redColor] set];
[thePath fill];

[image unlockFocus];

NSData *data = [image TIFFRepresentation];
[data writeToFile: @"test.png" atomically: NO];

Answer 1

Your workaround is valid for the task at hand, however, it's a more expensive operation than actually getting an NSBitmapImageRep to work! See http://cocoadev.com/wiki/NSBitmapImageRep for a bit of a discussion..

Notice that [NSGraphicsContext graphicsContextWithBitmapImageRep:] documentation says:

"This method accepts only single plane NSBitmapImageRep instances."

You are setting up your NSBitmapImageRep with isPlanar:YES, which therefore uses multiple planes... Set it to NO - you should be good to go!

In other words:

NSBitmapImageRep *rep = [[NSBitmapImageRep alloc]
                     initWithBitmapDataPlanes:NULL
                     pixelsWide:256
                     pixelsHigh:256
                     bitsPerSample:8
                     samplesPerPixel:4
                     hasAlpha:YES
                     isPlanar:NO
                     colorSpaceName:NSDeviceRGBColorSpace
                     bitmapFormat:NSAlphaFirstBitmapFormat
                     bytesPerRow:0
                     bitsPerPixel:0
                     ];
// etc...