Reflection of UIImage without UIImageView - objective-c

Question

How to create a reflection of UIImage without using UIImageView ? I have seen the apple code for reflection using two imageViews but i don't want to add imageview in my application i just want whole image of the original image and the reflected image. Does any body knows how to do that.

Answer 1

This is from UIImage+FX.m, created by Nick Lockwood
UIImage * processedImage = //here your image
processedImage = [processedImage imageWithReflectionWithScale:0.15f
gap:10.0f
alpha:0.305f];
Scale is the size of the reflection, gap the distance between the image and the reflection, and alpha the alpha of the reflection
- (UIImage *)imageWithReflectionWithScale:(CGFloat)scale gap:(CGFloat)gap alpha:(CGFloat)alpha
{
//get reflected image
UIImage *reflection = [self reflectedImageWithScale:scale];
CGFloat reflectionOffset = reflection.size.height + gap;
//create drawing context
UIGraphicsBeginImageContextWithOptions(CGSizeMake(self.size.width, self.size.height + reflectionOffset * 2.0f), NO, 0.0f);
//draw reflection
[reflection drawAtPoint:CGPointMake(0.0f, reflectionOffset + self.size.height + gap) blendMode:kCGBlendModeNormal alpha:alpha];
//draw image
[self drawAtPoint:CGPointMake(0.0f, reflectionOffset)];
//capture resultant image
UIImage *image = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext();
UIGraphicsEndImageContext();
//return image
return image;
}
and
- (UIImage *)reflectedImageWithScale:(CGFloat)scale
{
//get reflection dimensions
CGFloat height = ceil(self.size.height * scale);
CGSize size = CGSizeMake(self.size.width, height);
CGRect bounds = CGRectMake(0.0f, 0.0f, size.width, size.height);
//create drawing context
UIGraphicsBeginImageContextWithOptions(size, NO, 0.0f);
CGContextRef context = UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext();
//clip to gradient
CGContextClipToMask(context, bounds, [[self class] gradientMask]);
//draw reflected image
CGContextScaleCTM(context, 1.0f, -1.0f);
CGContextTranslateCTM(context, 0.0f, -self.size.height);
[self drawInRect:CGRectMake(0.0f, 0.0f, self.size.width, self.size.height)];
//capture resultant image
UIImage *reflection = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext();
UIGraphicsEndImageContext();
//return reflection image
return reflection;
}
gradientMask
+ (CGImageRef)gradientMask
{
static CGImageRef sharedMask = NULL;
if (sharedMask == NULL)
{
//create gradient mask
UIGraphicsBeginImageContextWithOptions(CGSizeMake(1, 256), YES, 0.0);
CGContextRef gradientContext = UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext();
CGFloat colors[] = {0.0, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0};
CGColorSpaceRef colorSpace = CGColorSpaceCreateDeviceGray();
CGGradientRef gradient = CGGradientCreateWithColorComponents(colorSpace, colors, NULL, 2);
CGPoint gradientStartPoint = CGPointMake(0, 0);
CGPoint gradientEndPoint = CGPointMake(0, 256);
CGContextDrawLinearGradient(gradientContext, gradient, gradientStartPoint,
gradientEndPoint, kCGGradientDrawsAfterEndLocation);
sharedMask = CGBitmapContextCreateImage(gradientContext);
CGGradientRelease(gradient);
CGColorSpaceRelease(colorSpace);
UIGraphicsEndImageContext();
}
return sharedMask;
}
it returns the image with the reflection.

Answer 2

I wrote a blog post awhile ago that uses a view's CAReplicatorLayer. It's really designed for handling dynamics updates to a view with reflection, but I think it would work for what you want to do as well.

Answer 3

You can render the image and its reflection inside a graphics context and then get a CGImage from the context and from that again a UIImage.
But the question is: why not use two views? Why would you think it is a problem or limitation?