Overlaying color on a NON rectangle shade - core-graphics

I am creating a heat map as an overlay for an image, the sections of the heat map are not rectangles and thus makes it a bit more difficult to overlay a color because when you overlay a color of the image it also hits the transparent pixels of the image. What is the best way to go about this?
The first image is what I am trying to overlay, and the second is the end result I am looking for...

Use Bézier paths, Bézier paths, Bézier paths, or Bézier paths.
See also the section of the Quartz 2D Programming Guide about Bézier paths.

Related

PDF Low-level: Invert colors within coordinates

Is it possible to invert the colors within a box (4 sets of coordinates) on a page from within the page's content object code?
My pages consist of simple B&W JBIG2 images and I wish to make the white black and the black white within a small box to highlight something.
As mkl suggests, you may extract the images and change their bits - this might prove to be a little bit of work however. There might be another useful approach here, specifically useful because it would work regardless of what the underlying objects are.
It is possible in PDF to add a transparent object (for example a rectangle) over all underlying objects. In your case you would create a rectangle that you put on top of the images you already have in the page stream.
If you paint this rectangle in white, set it to transparent and choose "Difference" as the transparency blending mode, the net effect should be that the colors underneath your rectangle are inverted.
From the PDF specification: "Painting with white inverts the backdrop colour; painting with black produces no change."
This may be the quickest and most painless way to accomplish what you are looking for...

Animating arbitrarily-shaped CGPath to rectangle

I am using a CAShapeLayer to display a path that is updated as the user traces his/her finger on the screen. I'd like to transform this path to a rectangle that just encloses the path. I can compute the rectangle just fine; the tricky part is animating the transformation.
The docs say this about animating the path property of CAShapeLayer:
If the two paths have a different number of control points or segments the results are undefined.
So how do I go about adding more control points to the rectangular CGPath? Or is there a better way to achieve this animation? Thanks. =)
I think you have to manually construct a series of lines in the form of a rectangle. Iterate over the elements in the path, compute where on the bounding rectangle you want that point to transform to, and add that segment to the new rectangular path. You may have to use the same kind of element (e.g. cubic or quadratic Bézier curve that happens to form a straight line) so that the number of control points matches.
After the animation completes, you can reset the path to a pure rectangle if you want.

creating a bezier path from a simple image ios

I'd like to generate and draw some bezier paths based on an image in my app. The image will be really simple (black lines on a white background) such as the following:
Is there a method to process the image and create a bezier path based on the black lines? I'm completely lost here.
If you're wondering the reason for needing the image to be a bezier path, I'm going to be comparing the generated bezier path with another bezier path that the user draws (basically a picture-password that the user will have to draw).
If there's a better way to accomplish comparing an image to a bezier path, I'm all ears. Or, if bezier paths aren't the way to go, then let me know. Thanks!
Why not do it the other way around?
let the user draw the path
create an image from the drawn path using core graphics
compare both images with a framework like opencv
You cannot do this with bezier lines. Those are curves, while what you want is lines.
If you wanted to solve for control points though the solutions for this inverse problem
are infinite therfore you must set the number of control point that the bezier curve has.

App graphic making (transparent and no extra spaces)

I am a coder but not a graphic maker. I can decently produce graphics that meet the quality standards visually although I cannot produce graphics that will technically "work." This is what I mean:
I am using CGRectIntersectsRect for colliding images. My image has SOME extra space which I have made completely transparent using Adobe PhotoShop but even if this extra transparent space is not visible, when the two images collide, it will look like you will be hitting nothing as this extra invisible transparent space is PART of the image and when CGRectIntersectsRect is called it detects touch between two images. So if the other image touches the transparent space, CGRectIntersectsRect is called and my code is executed. I only want my code to be executed if it hits the actual COLOR space of the image. Here is two things that could help me through that, they follow through with questions.
Learn how to make NO EXTRA SPACE on an image in photoshop. How could I do this, tutorials?
CGRectIntersectsRect only called when touching a color part of an image. A way to do this?
Thank you guys!
Regarding your question #1, it depends. All images are rectangular, all. So, if your sprite is rectangular, you can crop it in Photoshop to just the rectangular area. But if you want to handle, say, a circle ball, then you can't do such thing as "remove extra space". Your circle ball will always be stored in a rectangular image, with transparent space on the corners.
Learn how to make NO EXTRA SPACE on an image in photoshop. How could I do this, tutorials?
You can manually select an area using the Rectangular Marquee Tool and Image > Crop or automatically trim the image based on an edge pixel color using Image > Trim.
CGRectIntersectsRect only called when touching a color part of an image. A way to do this?
You can use pixel-perfect collisions or create better bounding shapes for your game objects. For example, instead of using pixel-perfect collision for a spaceship like this one, you could use a triangle for the wings, a rectangle for the body, and a triangle for the head.
Pixel-perfect collision
One way you could implement it would be to
Have an blank image in memory.
Draw visible pixels from one image in blue (#0000ff).
Draw visible pixels from the other image in red (#ff0000).
If there's any purple pixels in the image (#ff00ff), then there's an intersection.
Alternative collision detection solution
If your game is physics-based, then you can use a physics engine like Box2D. You can use circles, rectangles, and polygons to represent all of your game objects and it'll give you accurate results without unnecessary overhead.
For collision detection for non-rectangular shapes, you should look into one of the many game and/or physics libraries available for iOS. Cocos2d coupled with Box2d or chipmunk are popular choices.
If you want to do it yourself, you'll need to start with something like a custom CGPath tracing the actual shape of each object, then use a function like CGPathContainsPoint (that's from memory, it may be wrong). But it is not a simple job. Angry birds uses box2d, AFAIK.

How To Draw More Precise Lines using Core Graphics and CALayer

Hello I am having a hard time making this UI element look the way I want (see screenshot). Notice the image on the right--how the line width and darkness looks inconsistent compared to the image on the left (which happens to be a screen grab from safari) where the border width is more consistent. How does apple make their lines so perfect?
I'm using a CALayer and the Core Graphics API to draw the image on the right. Is it possible to draw such perfect lines with the standard apis?
The problem with drawing a 1-pixel path is that Quartz draws paths on an exact point grid, starting from {0,0}. This means that if you stroke a vertical path starting at {10,10} with a 1-point width, half of that line will render in the pixel to the left of the coordinate and half in the pixel to the right, causing a blurring effect.
You should therefore shift your drawing by {0.5,0.5} if you want lines to draw on exact pixels.
You can definitely draw what you want with Quartz.
Apple uses images for the tab elements.