Drawing to a bitmap context - cocoa-touch

Question

I am trying to draw to a bitmap context but coming up empty. I believe I'm creating things properly because I can initialize the context, draw a few things, then create an image from it and draw that image. What I cannot do is, after initialization, trigger further drawing on the context that draws more items on it. I'm not sure if I'm missing some common practice that implies I can only draw it at certain places or that I have to do something else. Here is what I do, below.
I copied the helper function provided by apple with one modification to obtain the color space because it wasn't compiling (this is for iPad, don't know if that matters):
CGContextRef MyCreateBitmapContext (int pixelsWide, int pixelsHigh)
{
CGContextRef context = NULL;
CGColorSpaceRef colorSpace;
void * bitmapData;
int bitmapByteCount;
int bitmapBytesPerRow;
bitmapBytesPerRow = (pixelsWide * 4);// 1
bitmapByteCount = (bitmapBytesPerRow * pixelsHigh);
colorSpace = CGColorSpaceCreateDeviceRGB(); //CGColorSpaceCreateWithName(kCGColorSpaceGenericRGB);// 2
bitmapData = malloc( bitmapByteCount );// 3
if (bitmapData == NULL)
{
fprintf (stderr, "Memory not allocated!");
return NULL;
}
context = CGBitmapContextCreate (bitmapData,// 4
pixelsWide,
pixelsHigh,
8, // bits per component
bitmapBytesPerRow,
colorSpace,
kCGImageAlphaPremultipliedLast);
if (context== NULL)
{
free (bitmapData);// 5
fprintf (stderr, "Context not created!");
return NULL;
}
CGColorSpaceRelease( colorSpace );// 6
return context;// 7
}
I initialize it in my init method below with a few sample draws just to be sure it looks right:
mContext = MyCreateBitmapContext (rect.size.width, rect.size.height);
// sample fills
CGContextSetRGBFillColor (mContext, 1, 0, 0, 1);
CGContextFillRect (mContext, CGRectMake (0, 0, 200, 100 ));
CGContextSetRGBFillColor (mContext, 0, 0, 1, .5);
CGContextFillRect (mContext, CGRectMake (0, 0, 100, 200 ));
CGContextSetRGBStrokeColor(mContext, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0);
CGContextSetRGBFillColor(mContext, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 1.0);
CGContextSetLineWidth(mContext, 5.0);
CGContextAddEllipseInRect(mContext, CGRectMake(0, 0, 60.0, 60.0));
CGContextStrokePath(mContext);
In my drawRect method, I create an image from it to render it. Maybe I should be creating and keeping this image as a member var and updating it everytime I draw something new and not creating the image every frame? (Some advice on this would be nice):
// draw bitmap context
CGImageRef myImage = CGBitmapContextCreateImage (mContext);
CGContextDrawImage(context, rect, myImage);
CGImageRelease(myImage);
Then as a test I try drawing a circle when I touch, but nothing happens, and the touch is definitely triggering:
- (void)touchesBegan:(NSSet *)touches withEvent:(UIEvent *)event
{
CGPoint location;
for (UITouch* touch in touches)
{
location = [touch locationInView: [touch view]];
}
CGContextSetRGBStrokeColor(mContext, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0);
CGContextSetRGBFillColor(mContext, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 1.0);
CGContextSetLineWidth(mContext, 2.0);
CGContextAddEllipseInRect(mContext, CGRectMake(location.x, location.y, 60.0, 60.0));
CGContextStrokePath(mContext);
}
Help?

Answer 1

[self setNeedsDisplay]; !!!!
!!!!!!!!!
so it was because drawRect was never being called after init since it didn't know it needed to refresh. My understanding is that I should just call setNeedsDisplay anytime I draw and that seems to work. :)