UIView Infinite 360 degree rotation animation?

Question

Found a method (I modified it a bit) that worked perfectly for me: iphone UIImageView rotation

#import <QuartzCore/QuartzCore.h>

- (void) runSpinAnimationOnView:(UIView*)view duration:(CGFloat)duration rotations:(CGFloat)rotations repeat:(float)repeat {
    CABasicAnimation* rotationAnimation;
    rotationAnimation = [CABasicAnimation animationWithKeyPath:@"transform.rotation.z"];
    rotationAnimation.toValue = [NSNumber numberWithFloat: M_PI * 2.0 /* full rotation*/ * rotations * duration ];
    rotationAnimation.duration = duration;
    rotationAnimation.cumulative = YES;
    rotationAnimation.repeatCount = repeat ? HUGE_VALF : 0;

    [view.layer addAnimation:rotationAnimation forKey:@"rotationAnimation"];
}

Kudos to Richard J. Ross III for the idea, but I found that his code wasn't quite what I needed. The default for options, I believe, is to give you UIViewAnimationOptionCurveEaseInOut, which doesn't look right in a continuous animation. Also, I added a check so that I could stop my animation at an even quarter turn if I needed (not infinite, but of indefinite duration), and made the acceleration ramp up during the first 90 degrees, and decelerate during the last 90 degrees (after a stop has been requested):

// an ivar for your class:
BOOL animating;

- (void)spinWithOptions:(UIViewAnimationOptions)options {
   // this spin completes 360 degrees every 2 seconds
   [UIView animateWithDuration:0.5
                         delay:0
                       options:options
                    animations:^{
                       self.imageToMove.transform = CGAffineTransformRotate(imageToMove.transform, M_PI / 2);
                    }
                    completion:^(BOOL finished) {
                       if (finished) {
                          if (animating) {
                             // if flag still set, keep spinning with constant speed
                             [self spinWithOptions: UIViewAnimationOptionCurveLinear];
                          } else if (options != UIViewAnimationOptionCurveEaseOut) {
                             // one last spin, with deceleration
                             [self spinWithOptions: UIViewAnimationOptionCurveEaseOut];
                          }
                       }
                    }];
}

- (void)startSpin {
   if (!animating) {
      animating = YES;
      [self spinWithOptions: UIViewAnimationOptionCurveEaseIn];
   }
}

- (void)stopSpin {
    // set the flag to stop spinning after one last 90 degree increment
    animating = NO;
}

Update

I added the ability to handle requests to start spinning again (startSpin), while the previous spin is winding down (completing). Sample project here on Github.

In Swift, you can use the following code for infinite rotation:

Swift 4

extension UIView {
    private static let kRotationAnimationKey = "rotationanimationkey"

    func rotate(duration: Double = 1) {
        if layer.animation(forKey: UIView.kRotationAnimationKey) == nil {
            let rotationAnimation = CABasicAnimation(keyPath: "transform.rotation")

            rotationAnimation.fromValue = 0.0
            rotationAnimation.toValue = Float.pi * 2.0
            rotationAnimation.duration = duration
            rotationAnimation.repeatCount = Float.infinity

            layer.add(rotationAnimation, forKey: UIView.kRotationAnimationKey)
        }
    }

    func stopRotating() {
        if layer.animation(forKey: UIView.kRotationAnimationKey) != nil {
            layer.removeAnimation(forKey: UIView.kRotationAnimationKey)
        }
    }
}

Swift 3

let kRotationAnimationKey = "com.myapplication.rotationanimationkey" // Any key

func rotateView(view: UIView, duration: Double = 1) {
    if view.layer.animationForKey(kRotationAnimationKey) == nil {
        let rotationAnimation = CABasicAnimation(keyPath: "transform.rotation")

        rotationAnimation.fromValue = 0.0
        rotationAnimation.toValue = Float(M_PI * 2.0)
        rotationAnimation.duration = duration
        rotationAnimation.repeatCount = Float.infinity

        view.layer.addAnimation(rotationAnimation, forKey: kRotationAnimationKey)
    }
}

Stopping is like:

func stopRotatingView(view: UIView) {
    if view.layer.animationForKey(kRotationAnimationKey) != nil {
        view.layer.removeAnimationForKey(kRotationAnimationKey)
    }
}

Nate's answer above is ideal for stop and start animation and gives a better control. I was intrigued why yours didn't work and his does. I wanted to share my findings here and a simpler version of the code that would animate a UIView continuously without stalling.

This is the code I used,

- (void)rotateImageView
{
    [UIView animateWithDuration:1 delay:0 options:UIViewAnimationOptionCurveLinear animations:^{
        [self.imageView setTransform:CGAffineTransformRotate(self.imageView.transform, M_PI_2)];
    }completion:^(BOOL finished){
        if (finished) {
            [self rotateImageView];
        }
    }];
}

I used 'CGAffineTransformRotate' instead of 'CGAffineTransformMakeRotation' because the former returns the result which is saved as the animation proceeds. This will prevent the jumping or resetting of the view during the animation.

Another thing is not to use 'UIViewAnimationOptionRepeat' because at the end of the animation before it starts repeating, it resets the transform making the view jump back to its original position. Instead of a repeat, you recurse so that the transform is never reset to the original value because the animation block virtually never ends.

And the last thing is, you have to transform the view in steps of 90 degrees (M_PI / 2) instead of 360 or 180 degrees (2*M_PI or M_PI). Because transformation occurs as a matrix multiplication of sine and cosine values.

t' =  [ cos(angle) sin(angle) -sin(angle) cos(angle) 0 0 ] * t

So, say if you use 180-degree transformation, the cosine of 180 yields -1 making the view transform in opposite direction each time (Note-Nate's answer will also have this issue if you change the radian value of transformation to M_PI). A 360-degree transformation is simply asking the view to remain where it was, hence you don't see any rotation at all.

My contribution with a Swift Extension from the checked solution :

Swift 4.0

extension UIView{
    func rotate() {
        let rotation : CABasicAnimation = CABasicAnimation(keyPath: "transform.rotation.z")
        rotation.toValue = NSNumber(value: Double.pi * 2)
        rotation.duration = 1
        rotation.isCumulative = true
        rotation.repeatCount = Float.greatestFiniteMagnitude
        self.layer.add(rotation, forKey: "rotationAnimation")
    }
}

Deprecated :

extension UIView{
    func rotate() {
        let rotation : CABasicAnimation = CABasicAnimation(keyPath: "transform.rotation.z")
        rotation.toValue = NSNumber(double: M_PI * 2)
        rotation.duration = 1
        rotation.cumulative = true
        rotation.repeatCount = FLT_MAX
        self.layer.addAnimation(rotation, forKey: "rotationAnimation")
    }
}

If all you want to do is rotate the image endlessly, this works quite well, and is very simple:

NSTimeInterval duration = 10.0f;
CGFloat angle = M_PI / 2.0f;
CGAffineTransform rotateTransform = CGAffineTransformRotate(imageView.transform, angle);

[UIView animateWithDuration:duration delay:0 options:UIViewAnimationOptionRepeat| UIViewAnimationOptionCurveLinear animations:^{
    imageView.transform = rotateTransform;
} completion:nil];

In my experience, this works flawlessly, but be sure your image is capable of being rotated around its center without any offsets, or the image animation will "jump" once it makes it around to PI.

To change the direction of the spin, change the sign of angle (angle *= -1).

Update Comments by @AlexPretzlav made me revisit this, and I realized that when I wrote this the image I was rotating was mirrored along both the vertical and horizontal axis, meaning the image was indeed only rotating 90 degrees and then resetting, though it looked like it was continuing to rotate all the way around.

So, if your image is like mine was, this will work great, however, if the image is not symmetrical, you'll notice the "snap" back to the original orientation after 90 degrees.

To rotate a non-symmetrical image, you're better off with the accepted answer.

One of these less elegant solutions, seen below, will truly rotate the image, but there may be a noticeable stutter when the animation is restarted:

- (void)spin
{
    NSTimeInterval duration = 0.5f;
    CGFloat angle = M_PI_2;
    CGAffineTransform rotateTransform = CGAffineTransformRotate(self.imageView.transform, angle);

    [UIView animateWithDuration:duration delay:0 options:UIViewAnimationOptionCurveLinear animations:^{
        self.imageView.transform = rotateTransform;
    } completion:^(BOOL finished) {
        [self spin];
    }];
}

You could also do this just with blocks, as @richard-j-ross-iii suggests, but you will get a retain loop warning since the block is capturing itself:

__block void(^spin)() = ^{
    NSTimeInterval duration = 0.5f;
    CGFloat angle = M_PI_2;
    CGAffineTransform rotateTransform = CGAffineTransformRotate(self.imageView.transform, angle);

    [UIView animateWithDuration:duration delay:0 options:UIViewAnimationOptionCurveLinear animations:^{
        self.imageView.transform = rotateTransform;
    } completion:^(BOOL finished) {
        spin();
    }];
};
spin();

David Rysanek's awesome answer updated to Swift 4:

import UIKit

extension UIView {

        func startRotating(duration: CFTimeInterval = 3, repeatCount: Float = Float.infinity, clockwise: Bool = true) {

            if self.layer.animation(forKey: "transform.rotation.z") != nil {
                return
            }

            let animation = CABasicAnimation(keyPath: "transform.rotation.z")
            let direction = clockwise ? 1.0 : -1.0
            animation.toValue = NSNumber(value: .pi * 2 * direction)
            animation.duration = duration
            animation.isCumulative = true
            animation.repeatCount = repeatCount
            self.layer.add(animation, forKey:"transform.rotation.z")
        }

        func stopRotating() {

            self.layer.removeAnimation(forKey: "transform.rotation.z")

        }   

    }
}