Scrolling a Canvas smoothly in Android

Question

I'm new to Android.

I am drawing bitmaps, lines and shapes onto a Canvas inside the OnDraw(Canvas canvas) method of my view. I am looking for help on how to implement smooth scrolling in response to a drag by the user. I have searched but not found any tutorials to help me with this.

The reference for Canvas seems to say that if a Canvas is constructed from a Bitmap (called bmpBuffer, say) then anything drawn on the Canvas is also drawn on bmpBuffer. Would it be possible to use bmpBuffer to implement a scroll ... perhaps copy it back to the Canvas shifted by a few pixels at a time? But if I use Canvas.drawBitmap to draw bmpBuffer back to Canvas shifted by a few pixels, won't bmpBuffer be corrupted? Perhaps, therefore, I should copy bmpBuffer to bmpBuffer2 then draw bmpBuffer2 back to the Canvas.

A more straightforward approach would be to draw the lines, shapes, etc. straight into a buffer Bitmap then draw that buffer (with a shift) onto the Canvas but so far as I can see the various methods: drawLine(), drawShape() and so on are not available for drawing to a Bitmap ... only to a Canvas.

Could I have 2 Canvases? One of which would be constructed from the buffer bitmap and used simply for plotting the lines, shapes, etc. and then the buffer bitmap would be drawn onto the other Canvas for display in the View?

I should welcome any advice!

Answers to similar questions here (and on other websites) refer to "blitting". I understand the concept but can't find anything about "blit" or "bitblt" in the Android documentation. Are Canvas.drawBitmap and Bitmap.Copy Android's equivalents?

Answer 1

I seem to have found an answer. I have put the bulk of the drawing code (which was previously in onDraw()) in a new doDrawing() method. This method starts by creating a new bitmap larger than the screen (large enough to hold the complete drawing). It then creates a second Canvas on which to do the detailed drawing:

    BufferBitmap = Bitmap.createBitmap(1000, 1000, Bitmap.Config.ARGB_8888);
    Canvas BufferCanvas = new Canvas(BufferBitmap);

The rest of the doDrawing() method is taken up with detailed drawing to BufferCanvas.

The entire onDraw() method now reads as follows:

    @Override protected void onDraw(Canvas canvas) {
    super.onDraw(canvas);
    canvas.drawBitmap(BufferBitmap, (float) -posX, (float) -posY, null);
}

The position variables, posX and posY, are initialised at 0 in the application's onCreate()method. The application implements OnGestureListener and uses the distanceX and distanceY arguments returned in the OnScroll notification to increment posX and posY.

That seems to be about all that's needed to implement smooth scrolling. Or am I over-looking something!?