How To Speed Up Image Blur? - objective-c

Question

I have the following code in my viewWillAppear in a modal uiviewcontroller.
I am including UIImage+ImageEffects.h to do the blurring of the background image in this example.
-(void) viewWillAppear:(BOOL)animated
{
[super viewWillAppear:NO];
// grab an image of our parent view
UIView *parentView = self.presentingViewController.view;
UIImage *parentViewImage = [self takeSnapshotOfView:parentView];
UIImage *blurredImage = nil;
//BLUR THE IMAGE
blurredImage = [self blurWithImageEffects:parentViewImage];
// insert an image view with a picture of the parent view at the back of our view's subview stack...
UIImageView *imageView = [[UIImageView alloc] initWithFrame:self.view.bounds];
imageView.image = blurredImage;
[self.view insertSubview:imageView atIndex:0];
}
[EDIT] Adding Blur Methods
- (UIImage *)takeSnapshotOfView:(UIView *)view
{
CGFloat reductionFactor = 1.5;
UIGraphicsBeginImageContext(CGSizeMake(view.frame.size.width/reductionFactor, view.frame.size.height/reductionFactor));
[view drawViewHierarchyInRect:CGRectMake(0, 0, view.frame.size.width/reductionFactor, view.frame.size.height/reductionFactor) afterScreenUpdates:YES];
UIImage *image = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext();
UIGraphicsEndImageContext();
return image;
}
- (UIImage *)blurWithImageEffects:(UIImage *)image
{
return [image applyBlurWithRadius:10 tintColor:[UIColor colorWithWhite:1 alpha:0.2] saturationDeltaFactor:1.5 maskImage:nil];
}
The code works fine and the background shows up blurry but it is really noticeably slow on iPad 3 with iOS 8. When the button to display this viewcontroller is tapped there is a pause before the viewcontroller slides up from the bottom. If I remove the blur the view controller slides up faster.
I tried putting the code in the viewDidAppear but then there is a noticeable white background displayed for a few seconds before the blur appears. But when in viewDidAppear the viewcontroller slides up immediately.
If I reduce the applyWithBlurRadius value this does not seem to reduce the time it takes to apply the blur.
Is there any way I can make it run faster?

Answer 1

GPUImage might solve your issue, Its fast and it doesn't put too much load on processing.
Link To Framework : https://github.com/BradLarson/GPUImage
Link to use GPUImage Blur
http://blog.bubbly.net/tag/gpu-image/
http://www.raywenderlich.com/60968/ios-7-blur-effects-gpuimage
However a reference is shown below which will give you the basic idea:
First prepare your view which is to blurred:
- (NSData *)PhotoForBlurring:(UIView *)view{
UIGraphicsBeginImageContextWithOptions(view.bounds.size, NO, 1.0);
[view.layer renderInContext:UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext()];
UIImage *image = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext();
UIGraphicsEndImageContext();
NSData * data = UIImagePNGRepresentation(image);
[data writeToFile:#"aName.png" atomically:YES];
return data; }
-(void)sharingScrapPage{
GPUImageiOSBlurFilter *blur = [[GPUImageiOSBlurFilter alloc]init];
blur.blurRadiusInPixels=2.0;
blur.downsampling=6.0;
[blurview removeFromSuperview];
blurview = [[UIImageView alloc]initWithFrame:getRectDisplay(0, 0, 480, 320)]; // Landscape Iphone 4S
UIImage *imageForBlurring=[UIImage imageWithData:[self PhotoForBlurring:self.view]];
NSData* pngdataForBlurring = UIImagePNGRepresentation (imageForBlurring);
UIImage* blurImage = [UIImage imageWithData:pngdataForBlurring];
blurImage=[blur imageByFilteringImage:blurImage];
blurview.image=blurImage;
[self.view addSubview:blurview];
[progressHUD removeFromSuperview];
progressHUD = [[ProgressHUD alloc]initWithFrame:getRectDisplay(190, 110, 100, 90)];
[blurview addSubview:progressHUD]; }