Invert bitmap colors

Question

I have the following problem. I have a charting program, and it\'s design is black, but the charts (that I get from the server as images) are light (it actually uses only 5 colo

Answer 1

A quick way would be to use AvoidXfermode to repaint just those colors you want changed - you could then switch between any colors you want. You just need to do something like this:

// will change red to green
Paint change1 = new Paint();
change1.setColor(Color.GREEN);
change1.setXfermode(new AvoidXfermode(Color.RED, 245, AvoidXfermode.Mode.TARGET));

Canvas c = new Canvas();
c.setBitmap(chart);
c.drawRect(0, 0, width, height, change1);

// rinse, repeat for other colors

You may need to play with the tolerance for the AvoidXfermode, but that should do what you want a lot faster than a per-pixel calculation. Also, make sure your chart image is in ARGB8888 mode. By default, Android tends to work with images in RGB565 mode, which tends to mess up color calculations like you want to use - to be sure, you can make sure your image is both in ARGB8888 mode and mutable by calling Bitmap chart = chartFromServer.copy(Config.ARGB_8888, true); before you setup the Xfermode.

Clarification: to change other colors, you wouldn't have to re-load the images all over again, you would just have to create other Paints with the appropriate colors you want changed like so:

// changes green to red
Paint change1 = new Paint();
change1.setColor(Color.GREEN);
change1.setXfermode(new AvoidXfermode(Color.RED, 245, AvoidXfermode.Mode.TARGET));

// changes white to blue
Paint change2 = new Paint();
change2.setColor(Color.BLUE);
change2.setXfermode(new AvoidXfermode(Color.WHITE, 245, AvoidXfermode.Mode.TARGET));

// ... other Paints with other changes you want to apply to this image

Canvas c = new Canvas();
c.setBitmap(chart);
c.drawRect(0, 0, width, height, change1);
c.drawRect(0, 0, width, height, change2);
//...
c.drawRect(0, 0, width, height, changeN);