Displaying Images with Android

Ilias TsagklisNovember 11th, 2012Last Updated: February 16th, 2013

0 58 3 minutes read

With this example we are going to demonstrate how to display Images with Android using canvas.

In short, to create and use a Sprite Animation you should:

copy the image you want to display in one of the /res/drawable* resource folders of the Android Project
lock the canvas for exclusive pixel editing
model the image with a bitmap
use canvas.drawBitmap to draw the image into the canvas
create handlers to handle several touch events

as shown in the code snippets below:

package net.obviam.droidz;

import net.obviam.droidz.model.Droid;
import android.app.Activity;
import android.content.Context;
import android.graphics.BitmapFactory;
import android.graphics.Canvas;
import android.graphics.Color;
import android.util.Log;
import android.view.MotionEvent;
import android.view.SurfaceHolder;
import android.view.SurfaceView;

public class MainGamePanel extends SurfaceView implements
  SurfaceHolder.Callback {

 private static final String TAG = MainGamePanel.class.getSimpleName();

 private MainThread thread;
 private Droid droid;

 public MainGamePanel(Context context) {
  super(context);
  // adding the callback (this) to the surface holder to intercept events
  getHolder().addCallback(this);

  // create droid and load bitmap
  droid = new Droid(BitmapFactory.decodeResource(getResources(), R.drawable.droid_1), 50, 50);

  // create the game loop thread
  thread = new MainThread(getHolder(), this);

  // make the GamePanel focusable so it can handle events
  setFocusable(true);
 }

 @Override
 public void surfaceChanged(SurfaceHolder holder, int format, int width,
   int height) {
 }

 @Override
 public void surfaceCreated(SurfaceHolder holder) {
  // at this point the surface is created and
  // we can safely start the game loop
  thread.setRunning(true);
  thread.start();
 }

 @Override
 public void surfaceDestroyed(SurfaceHolder holder) {
  Log.d(TAG, "Surface is being destroyed");
  // tell the thread to shut down and wait for it to finish
  // this is a clean shutdown
  boolean retry = true;
  while (retry) {
   try {
    thread.join();
    retry = false;
   } catch (InterruptedException e) {
    // try again shutting down the thread
   }
  }
  Log.d(TAG, "Thread was shut down cleanly");
 }

 @Override
 public boolean onTouchEvent(MotionEvent event) {
  if (event.getAction() == MotionEvent.ACTION_DOWN) {
   // delegating event handling to the droid
   droid.handleActionDown((int)event.getX(), (int)event.getY());

   // check if in the lower part of the screen we exit
   if (event.getY() > getHeight() - 50) {
    thread.setRunning(false);
    ((Activity)getContext()).finish();
   } else {
    Log.d(TAG, "Coords: x=" + event.getX() + ",y=" + event.getY());
   }
  } if (event.getAction() == MotionEvent.ACTION_MOVE) {
   // the gestures
   if (droid.isTouched()) {
    // the droid was picked up and is being dragged
    droid.setX((int)event.getX());
    droid.setY((int)event.getY());
   }
  } if (event.getAction() == MotionEvent.ACTION_UP) {
   // touch was released
   if (droid.isTouched()) {
    droid.setTouched(false);
   }
  }
  return true;
 }

 @Override
 protected void onDraw(Canvas canvas) {
  // fills the canvas with black
  canvas.drawColor(Color.BLACK);
  droid.draw(canvas);
 }
}

package net.obviam.droidz.model;

import android.graphics.Bitmap;
import android.graphics.Canvas;
import android.view.MotionEvent;

public class Droid {

 private Bitmap bitmap; // the actual bitmap
 private int x;   // the X coordinate
 private int y;   // the Y coordinate
 private boolean touched; // if droid is touched/picked up

 public Droid(Bitmap bitmap, int x, int y) {
  this.bitmap = bitmap;
  this.x = x;
  this.y = y;
 }

 public Bitmap getBitmap() {
  return bitmap;
 }
 public void setBitmap(Bitmap bitmap) {
  this.bitmap = bitmap;
 }
 public int getX() {
  return x;
 }
 public void setX(int x) {
  this.x = x;
 }
 public int getY() {
  return y;
 }
 public void setY(int y) {
  this.y = y;
 }

 public boolean isTouched() {
  return touched;
 }

 public void setTouched(boolean touched) {
  this.touched = touched;
 }

 public void draw(Canvas canvas) {
  canvas.drawBitmap(bitmap, x - (bitmap.getWidth() / 2), y - (bitmap.getHeight() / 2), null);
 }

 public void handleActionDown(int eventX, int eventY) {
  if (eventX >= (x - bitmap.getWidth() / 2) && (eventX <= (x + bitmap.getWidth()/2))) {
   if (eventY >= (y - bitmap.getHeight() / 2) && (y <= (y + bitmap.getHeight() / 2))) {
    // droid touched
    setTouched(true);
   } else {
    setTouched(false);
   }
  } else {
   setTouched(false);
  }

 }
}

public void run() {
  Canvas canvas;
  Log.d(TAG, "Starting game loop");
  while (running) {
   canvas = null;
   // try locking the canvas for exclusive pixel editing on the surface
   try {
    canvas = this.surfaceHolder.lockCanvas();
    synchronized (surfaceHolder) {
     // update game state
     // draws the canvas on the panel
     this.gamePanel.onDraw(canvas);
    }
   } finally {
    // in case of an exception the surface is not left in
    // an inconsistent state
    if (canvas != null) {
     surfaceHolder.unlockCanvasAndPost(canvas);
    }
   } // end finally
  }
 }

This was an example of how to display Images in Android.

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