OpenCV iOS - Image Processing

Goal

In this tutorial we will learn how to do basic image processing using OpenCV in iOS.

Introduction

In OpenCV all the image processing operations are done on Mat. iOS uses UIImage object to display image. One of the thing is to convert UIImage object to Mat object. Below is the code to convert UIImage to Mat.

- (cv::Mat)cvMatFromUIImage:(UIImage *)image
{
  CGColorSpaceRef colorSpace = CGImageGetColorSpace(image.CGImage);
  CGFloat cols = image.size.width;
  CGFloat rows = image.size.height;

  cv::Mat cvMat(rows, cols, CV_8UC4); // 8 bits per component, 4 channels

  CGContextRef contextRef = CGBitmapContextCreate(cvMat.data,                 // Pointer to  data
                                                 cols,                       // Width of bitmap
                                                 rows,                       // Height of bitmap
                                                 8,                          // Bits per component
                                                 cvMat.step[0],              // Bytes per row
                                                 colorSpace,                 // Colorspace
                                                 kCGImageAlphaNoneSkipLast |
                                                 kCGBitmapByteOrderDefault); // Bitmap info flags

  CGContextDrawImage(contextRef, CGRectMake(0, 0, cols, rows), image.CGImage);
  CGContextRelease(contextRef);
  CGColorSpaceRelease(colorSpace);

  return cvMat;
}

- (cv::Mat)cvMatGrayFromUIImage:(UIImage *)image
{
  CGColorSpaceRef colorSpace = CGImageGetColorSpace(image.CGImage);
  CGFloat cols = image.size.width;
  CGFloat rows = image.size.height;

  cv::Mat cvMat(rows, cols, CV_8UC1); // 8 bits per component, 1 channels

  CGContextRef contextRef = CGBitmapContextCreate(cvMat.data,                 // Pointer to data
                                                 cols,                       // Width of bitmap
                                                 rows,                       // Height of bitmap
                                                 8,                          // Bits per component
                                                 cvMat.step[0],              // Bytes per row
                                                 colorSpace,                 // Colorspace
                                                 kCGImageAlphaNoneSkipLast |
                                                 kCGBitmapByteOrderDefault); // Bitmap info flags

  CGContextDrawImage(contextRef, CGRectMake(0, 0, cols, rows), image.CGImage);
  CGContextRelease(contextRef);
  CGColorSpaceRelease(colorSpace);

  return cvMat;
 }

Once we obtain the Mat Object. We can do all our processing on Mat object, similar to cpp. For example if we want to convert image to gray, we can do it via below code.

cv::Mat greyMat;
cv::cvtColor(inputMat, greyMat, CV_BGR2GRAY);

After the processing we need to convert it back to UIImage.

-(UIImage *)UIImageFromCVMat:(cv::Mat)cvMat
{
  NSData *data = [NSData dataWithBytes:cvMat.data length:cvMat.elemSize()*cvMat.total()];
  CGColorSpaceRef colorSpace;

  if (cvMat.elemSize() == 1) {
      colorSpace = CGColorSpaceCreateDeviceGray();
  } else {
      colorSpace = CGColorSpaceCreateDeviceRGB();
  }

  CGDataProviderRef provider = CGDataProviderCreateWithCFData((__bridge CFDataRef)data);

  // Creating CGImage from cv::Mat
  CGImageRef imageRef = CGImageCreate(cvMat.cols,                                 //width
                                     cvMat.rows,                                 //height
                                     8,                                          //bits per component
                                     8 * cvMat.elemSize(),                       //bits per pixel
                                     cvMat.step[0],                            //bytesPerRow
                                     colorSpace,                                 //colorspace
                                     kCGImageAlphaNone|kCGBitmapByteOrderDefault,// bitmap info
                                     provider,                                   //CGDataProviderRef
                                     NULL,                                       //decode
                                     false,                                      //should interpolate
                                     kCGRenderingIntentDefault                   //intent
                                     );


  // Getting UIImage from CGImage
  UIImage *finalImage = [UIImage imageWithCGImage:imageRef];
  CGImageRelease(imageRef);
  CGDataProviderRelease(provider);
  CGColorSpaceRelease(colorSpace);

  return finalImage;
 }

Output

Check out an instance of running code with more Image Effects on YouTube .