Sharp: Enhancement: create blank/empty image of given dimensions/channels

[pjarts]

Is it possible to create an empty canvas image with Sharp and process it through a stream or do I need to load a canvas image file from disk?

[lovell]

Are you able to provide more information about the problem you're trying to solve? What do you mean by "canvas" in this context?

[pjarts]

The lwip node module has a method called "create" (https://github.com/EyalAr/lwip#create-a-new-image) that creates an empty image. I was wondering if it is possible to accomplish the same thing in sharp, or if I always have to start off from an existing image file.

[lovell]

You could use a raw pixel input buffer for this, something like this (ES2015) example:

const width = 200;
const height = 100;
const channels = 4;
const rgbaPixel = 0x00000000;

const canvas = Buffer.alloc(width * height * channels, rgbaPixel);

sharp(canvas, { raw : { width, height, channels } })...

[lovell]

@pjarts Were you able to make any progress with this?

[strarsis]

Would a little helper function ("create(...)"?) in sharp make sense,
like one that uses the canvas code above?

[pjarts]

@lovell, sorry for the late reply. Yes your code seems to do what I was looking for, although I agree with @strarsis that a helper function would be nicer.

[lovell]

@pjarts Thanks for confirming.

Let's leave this issue open to track adding such a helper - I'll need to have a think about what the API might look like.

[strarsis]

1. A kind of factory/'static' method:

   sharp.empty()
   

2. With configuration object passed:

   sharp.create/empty/new({ width: 1024, height: 768 });
   

3. Like 2. but directly with 'constructor' method:

   sharp({ width: 1024, height: 768 });
   

4. With no arguments passed at all - using resize to achieve the desired dimensions:

   sharp().resize(1024, 768);
   

5. Like 3. but using an empty dummy image from constant (not very elegant imho
   because of dummy image and even artifacts that may be caused):

   sharp(sharp.EMPTY_IMAGE).resize(1024, 768);
   

[lovell]

The forthcoming v0.16.0 release moves all image input logic to a common location, namely the _createInputDescriptor function in JavaScript then CreateInputDescriptor method in C++.

This is the best place to add such a "create image" helper, so any part of the API that can handle input images will be able to use it.

Here's how the API could work:

sharp(null, {
  create: {
    width: 1024,
    height: 768,
    channels: 3,
    background: rgb
  }
})...

sharp('input.jpg')
  .overlayWith(null, create: {
    width: 16,
    height: 32,
    channels: 4,
    background: rgba
  })...

where rgb and rgba are parsed by the color module, the same approach used by the existing background function.

[strarsis]

[email protected] doesn't seem to support it yet.

[lovell]

@strarsis That's correct. My comment about v0.16.0 was that it provided the ground work for this feature request.

[5im0n]

Is this feature gonna be available in a next release ?

[lovell]

@5im0n I'm happy to help with a PR if you're able.

[lovell]

Commit 1aa053c adds the ability to create a blank image using the API described by comment https://github.com/lovell/sharp/issues/470#issuecomment-239620622 above. This will be available in v0.17.3.

[lovell]

v0.17.3 now available, thanks for all the suggestions.

[wmertens]

To combine multiple images, I did this instead of the empty canvas:

    for (let i = 1, left = singleWidth; i < imgCount; i++, left += singleWidth) {
        // only one overlay per pipeline
        if (i > 1) {combined = sharp(await combined.toBuffer())}
        combined.overlayWith(imgBufs[i], {left, top: 0})
    }

so basically forcing sharp to process the pipeline once there is more than one overlay. Async/await makes this nice, with promises this code would be a bit harder.

(incidentally, I wonder if there would be a use for a .perform() call that runs the pipeline and starts a new one?)