CGContextAddEllipseInRect to CGImageRef to CGImageMaskCreate to CGContextClipToMask - iphone

Question

I haven't been able to find one single example on the internets that teaches me how to create a circle on the fly and then use this circle to clip an UIImage.
Here's my code, unfortunately it doesn't give me desired results.
//create a graphics context
UIGraphicsBeginImageContext(CGSizeMake(243, 243));
CGContextRef context = UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext();
//create my object in this context
CGContextAddEllipseInRect(context, CGRectMake(0, 0, 243, 243));
CGContextSetFillColor(context, CGColorGetComponents([[UIColor whiteColor] CGColor]));
CGContextFillPath(context);
UIImage *image = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext();
//create an uiimage from the ellipse
//Get the drawing image
CGImageRef maskImage = [image CGImage];
// Get the mask from the image
CGImageRef maskRef = CGImageMaskCreate(CGImageGetWidth(maskImage)
, CGImageGetHeight(maskImage)
, CGImageGetBitsPerComponent(maskImage)
, CGImageGetBitsPerPixel(maskImage)
, CGImageGetBytesPerRow(maskImage)
, CGImageGetDataProvider(maskImage)
, NULL
, false);
//finally clip the context to the mask.
CGContextClipToMask( context , CGRectMake(0, 0, 243, 243) , maskRef );
//draw the image
[firstPieceView.image drawInRect:CGRectMake(0, 0, 320, 480)];
// [firstPieceView drawRect:CGRectMake(0, 0, 320, 480)];
//extract a new image
UIImage *outputImage = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext();
NSLog(#"self.firstPieceView is %#", NSStringFromCGRect(self.firstPieceView.frame));
UIGraphicsEndImageContext();
self.firstPieceView.image = outputImage;
I would appreciate any directions.

Answer 1

I suspect you need to rephrase your question better.
There's plenty of example code for whatever you're trying to do out there.
Here's how you could implement a custom UIView subclass to clip am image to an ellipse:
- (void)drawInRect:(CGRect)rect {
UIImage image;// set/get from somewhere
CGImageRef imageRef = [image CGImageRef];
CGContextRef context = UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext();
CGContextAddEllipseInRect(context, self.bounds);
CGContextClip(context);
CGContextDrawImage(context, self.bounds, imageRef);
}
caveat emptor
Edit (a day later, free time produces):
- (void)drawRect:(CGRect)rect {
// we're ignoring rect and drawing the whole view
CGImageRef imageRef = [_image CGImage]; // ivar: UIImage *_image;
CGContextRef context = UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext();
// set the background to black
[[UIColor blackColor] setFill];
CGContextFillRect(context, self.bounds);
// modify the context coordinates,
// UIKit and CoreGraphics are oriented differently
CGContextSaveGState(context);
CGContextTranslateCTM(context, 0, CGRectGetHeight(rect));
CGContextScaleCTM(context, 1, -1);
// add clipping path to the context, then execute the clip
// this is in effect for all drawing until GState restored
CGContextAddEllipseInRect(context, self.bounds);
CGContextClip(context);
// stretch the image to be the size of the view
CGContextDrawImage(context, self.bounds, imageRef);
CGContextRestoreGState(context);
}