OutOfMemory when loading large Background Image

Question

I am using android:background to give a background image to android layout.
After putting some images I get this exception :

08-24 00:40:19.237: E/dalvikvm-heap(8533): Out of memory on a 36000016-byte allocation.

how can I use large images as backgrounds on android?
can I expand the application heap memory? or is it something not good to do ?

Answer 1

Please have a look at my related question:

High resolution Image - OutOfMemoryError

Try to minimize the memory usage of your application by keeping the background image as small as possible.

This can be done via:

• cropping the image so that it fits the screen
• compress the image further (use e.g. photoshop) before even using it in the app
• use the below method to load your bitmap
• recycle the bitmap as soon as you no loger need it
• make sure you do not keep multiple instances of it in memory
• set the reference to null after using the bitmap

Make sure the images you set as a background are loaded properly (e.g. cropped in size, for example fit the screen size) and released from the memory as soon as they are no longer needed.

Make sure you have only one instance of your Bitmap in memory. After displaying it, call recycle() and set your reference to null.

This is how you could load your images:

public static Bitmap decodeSampledBitmapFromResource(Resources res, int resId,
        int reqWidth, int reqHeight) {

    // First decode with inJustDecodeBounds=true to check dimensions
    final BitmapFactory.Options options = new BitmapFactory.Options();
    options.inJustDecodeBounds = true;
    BitmapFactory.decodeResource(res, resId, options);

    // Calculate inSampleSize
    options.inSampleSize = calculateInSampleSize(options, reqWidth, reqHeight);

    // Decode bitmap with inSampleSize set
    options.inJustDecodeBounds = false;
    return BitmapFactory.decodeResource(res, resId, options);
}

public static int calculateInSampleSize(
            BitmapFactory.Options options, int reqWidth, int reqHeight) {
    // Raw height and width of image
    final int height = options.outHeight;
    final int width = options.outWidth;
    int inSampleSize = 1;

    if (height > reqHeight || width > reqWidth) {

        // Calculate ratios of height and width to requested height and width
        final int heightRatio = Math.round((float) height / (float) reqHeight);
        final int widthRatio = Math.round((float) width / (float) reqWidth);

        // Choose the smallest ratio as inSampleSize value, this will guarantee
        // a final image with both dimensions larger than or equal to the
        // requested height and width.
        inSampleSize = heightRatio < widthRatio ? heightRatio : widthRatio;
    }

    return inSampleSize;
}

Thanks to Adam Stelmaszczyk for this beautiful piece of code.

Answer 2

I have experienced a similar issue due to background images in layouts. The normal size of a memory allocation of an image should be height*width*4 bytes (in mode ARGB_8888, the default mode).

If you see and allocation of 30MB when showing an activity there must be some problem. Check if you are placing your background images in the drawable folder. In that case, the system must scale that image to the specific density of the screen, causing a big memory overhead.

Solutions:

1. Place a specific version of the background image in each drawable folder (mdpi, hdpi, xhdpi...).
2. Place the background image in a special resource folder called "drawable-nodpi". The system won't try to scale images placed in this directory so only an streching process is carried out and the memory allocated will be the expected.

More information in this answer

Hope this helps.

Answer 3

I had the same problem and fixed it by the following:

1. Create a drawable-nodpi folder and put your background images in there.

2. Use Picasso to display the images http://square.github.io/picasso/

Display them with .fit() and .centerCrop() and Picasso scales the image if it needs to

ImageView ivLogo = (ImageView) findViewById(R.id.ivLogo);
Picasso.with(getApplicationContext())
   .load(R.drawable.logo)
   .fit()
   .centerCrop()
   .into(ivLogo);

If you do run out of memory somehow, Picasso will simply not display the image, instead of giving you an OOM error. I Hope this helps!

Answer 4

can I expand the application heap memory?

Yes, you can. Just set android:largeHeap:="true"in your Manifest.xml.

   <application
        android:name="com.pepperonas.libredrive.App"
        android:allowBackup="true"
        android:icon="@drawable/ic_launcher"
        android:largeHeap="true"
        android:label="@string/app_name"
        android:launchMode="standard">