How to get the color of a pixel in an UIView?

Question

I am trying to develop a small application. In it, I need to detect the color of a pixel within an UIView. I have a CGPoint defining the pixel I need. The colors of the UIView are changed using CoreAnimation.

I know there are some complex ways to extract color information from UIImages. However I couldn't find a solution for UIViews.

In Pseudo-Code I am looking for something like

pixel = [view getPixelAtPoint:myPoint];
UIColor *mycolor = [pixel getColor];

Any input greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Here is more efficient solution:

// UIView+ColorOfPoint.h
@interface UIView (ColorOfPoint)
- (UIColor *) colorOfPoint:(CGPoint)point;
@end

// UIView+ColorOfPoint.m
#import "UIView+ColorOfPoint.h"
#import <QuartzCore/QuartzCore.h>

@implementation UIView (ColorOfPoint)

- (UIColor *) colorOfPoint:(CGPoint)point
{
    unsigned char pixel[4] = {0};

    CGColorSpaceRef colorSpace = CGColorSpaceCreateDeviceRGB();

    CGContextRef context = CGBitmapContextCreate(pixel, 1, 1, 8, 4, colorSpace, kCGBitmapAlphaInfoMask & kCGImageAlphaPremultipliedLast);

    CGContextTranslateCTM(context, -point.x, -point.y);

    [self.layer renderInContext:context];

    CGContextRelease(context);
    CGColorSpaceRelease(colorSpace);

    //NSLog(@"pixel: %d %d %d %d", pixel[0], pixel[1], pixel[2], pixel[3]);

    UIColor *color = [UIColor colorWithRed:pixel[0]/255.0 green:pixel[1]/255.0 blue:pixel[2]/255.0 alpha:pixel[3]/255.0];

    return color;
}

@end

Link to files: https://github.com/ivanzoid/ikit/tree/master/UIView+ColorOfPoint