I created a class Publisher
which periodically emits a QImage
object.
However I'm having a tough time drawing the QImage
to a QML element. It appears that the Image
and Canvas
QML components require a QUrl
instead of a QImage
, but I'm not sure how to convert my QImage
to a QUrl
. Edit4: When I say QUrl, I don't mean I'm trying to convert an image to a URL. That's nonsense. I mean I want to generate a reference to this image, which is not on disk, and the data type that QML components are asking for is a URL.
I've done some research and found that QQuickImageProvider
provides a solution, but I haven't found any documentation explaining how to convert my QImage
signal to a QUrl
that I can use for drawing. Any example code or reference documentation would be appreciated.
Thanks for your help!
Edit1:
I've taken a look here: http://qt-project.org/doc/qt-5.0/qtquick/qquickimageprovider.html and I do not see how I pass a QImage to the quick image provider and from it create a QUrl.
Edit2. Here is the header. The implementation should not be important.
class Publisher
{
Q_OBJECT
public:
Publisher(QObject* parent = 0);
virtual ~Publisher(void);
Q_SIGNALS:
void newImage(const QImage& newImage);
};
Edit 3. Here is my QML code, but I don't know how to draw my QImage, so this code is kind of meaningless.
my main.cpp file:
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
QGuiApplication app(argc, argv);
qmlRegisterType<Publisher>("Components", 1, 0, "Publisher");
QtQuick2ApplicationViewer viewer;
viewer.setMainQmlFile(QStringLiteral("qml/QQuickViewExample/main.qml"));
viewer.showExpanded();
return app.exec();
}
my main.qml file:
import QtQuick 2.0
import Components 1.0
Rectangle {
id : testRect
width: 360
height: 360
Image{
anchors.fill: parent
id: myImage
Publisher {
id: myPub
onNewImage: {
myImage.source = newImage; #I know this doesnt work, it needs a QUrl and not a QImage
}
}
}
}
In other words, you have a class emitting a signal carrying a QImage and want to update an item in QML with that image? There are various solutions, none of which involves "converting a QImage to a QUrl" (whatever that means, surely you don't need to get a data
URL carrying your image data...)
Use an image provider
This means you can use a plain Image
item in your QML files.
- Create a
QQuickImageProvider
subclass; give it a QImage
member (the image to provider), override requestImage
to provide that image (the actual id
requested does not really matter, see below), and a slot that receives a QImage
and updates the member.
- Connect your
Publisher
signal to your provider's slot
- Install the provider into the QML engine via
QQmlEngine::addImageProvider
(see QQuickView::engine
); again the id
does not really matter, just use a sensible one
In QML, just use a plain Image
element with a source like this
Image {
id: myImage
source: "image://providerIdPassedToAddImageProvider/foobar"
}
foobar
will be passed to your provider, but again, it doesn't really matter.
We're almost there, we now only need a way to push the image updates to the QML world (otherwise Image will never know when to update itself). See my answer here for how to do that with a Connections
element and a bit of JS.
Note that in general you don't need to make Publisher
a QML type, you just need to create one instance in C++ and expose it to the QML world via QQmlContext::setContextProperty
.
Use a custom Qt Quick 2 Item
QQuickPaintedItem
is probably the most convenient for the job as it offers a paint
method taking a QPainter
. Hence the big plan is
- Subclass
QQuickPaintedItem
: the subclass stores the QImage
to be painted and has a slot that sets the new QImage. Also its paint
implementation simply paints the image using QPainter::drawImage
.
- Expose the subclass to the QML world via
qmlRegisterType
(so that you can use it in QML)
Figure out a way to connect the signal carrying the new image to the items' slot.
This might be the tricky part.
To perform the connection in C++ you need a way to figure out that the item has been created (and get a pointer to it); usually one does this by means of assigning the objectName
property to some value, then using findChild
on the root object (as returned by QQuickView::rootObject()
) to get a pointer to the item itself. Then you can use connect
as usual.
Or, could instead perform the connection in QML, just like above, via a Connections
element on the publisher C++ object exposed to the QML world:
MyItem {
id: myItem
}
Connections {
target: thePublisherObjectExposedFromC++
onNewImage: myItem.setImage(image)
}
This has the advantage of working no matter when you create the MyItem instance; but I'm not 100% sure it will work because I'm not sure you can handle the QImage
type in QML.
When I've had image-producing C++ classes I've wanted to embed in QML, I've always done it by making the C++ class a subclass of QDeclarativeItem
(there'll be a new QtQuick 2.0 equivalent of course), overriding the paint method with the appropriate drawing code, which maybe as simple as
void MyItem::paint(QPainter* painter,const QStyleOptionGraphicsItem*,QWidget*) {
painter->drawImage(QPointF(0.0f,0.0f),_image);
}
if you have a QImage of the right size already... and Job Done. For animation, just ping update() when there's something new to draw.