Fast Bitmap Blur For Android SDK

Question

Currently in an Android application that I'm developing I'm looping through the pixels of an image to blur it. This takes about 30 seconds on a 640x480 image.

While browsing apps in the Android Market I came across one that includes a blur feature and their blur is very fast (like 5 seconds) so they must be using a different method of blurring.

Anyone know a faster way other than looping through the pixels?

Answer 1

I found that decreasing contrast, brightness and saturation a little makes blurred images more pretty so I combined various methods from stack overflow and made this Blur Class which deals with blurring images, changing brightness, saturation, contrast and size of the blurred images. It can also convert images from drawable to bitmap and vice-versa.

Answer 2

I used this before..

public static Bitmap myblur(Bitmap image, Context context) {
            final float BITMAP_SCALE = 0.4f;
            final float BLUR_RADIUS = 7.5f;
            int width = Math.round(image.getWidth() * BITMAP_SCALE);
            int height = Math.round(image.getHeight() * BITMAP_SCALE);
            Bitmap inputBitmap = Bitmap.createScaledBitmap(image, width, height, false);
            Bitmap outputBitmap = Bitmap.createBitmap(inputBitmap);
            RenderScript rs = RenderScript.create(context);
            ScriptIntrinsicBlur theIntrinsic = ScriptIntrinsicBlur.create(rs, Element.U8_4(rs));
            Allocation tmpIn = Allocation.createFromBitmap(rs, inputBitmap);
            Allocation tmpOut = Allocation.createFromBitmap(rs, outputBitmap);
            theIntrinsic.setRadius(BLUR_RADIUS);
            theIntrinsic.setInput(tmpIn);
            theIntrinsic.forEach(tmpOut);
            tmpOut.copyTo(outputBitmap);
            return outputBitmap;
        }

Answer 3

This is a shot in the dark, but you might try shrinking the image and then enlarging it again. This can be done with Bitmap.createScaledBitmap(Bitmap src, int dstWidth, int dstHeight, boolean filter). Make sure and set the filter parameter to true. It'll run in native code so it might be faster.

Answer 4

For future Googlers, here is an algorithm that I ported from Quasimondo. It's kind of a mix between a box blur and a gaussian blur, it's very pretty and quite fast too:

/**
 * Stack Blur v1.0 from
 * http://www.quasimondo.com/StackBlurForCanvas/StackBlurDemo.html
 * Java Author: Mario Klingemann <mario at quasimondo.com>
 * http://incubator.quasimondo.com
 *
 * created Feburary 29, 2004
 * Android port : Yahel Bouaziz <yahel at kayenko.com>
 * http://www.kayenko.com
 * ported april 5th, 2012
 *
 * This is a compromise between Gaussian Blur and Box blur
 * It creates much better looking blurs than Box Blur, but is
 * 7x faster than my Gaussian Blur implementation.
 *
 * I called it Stack Blur because this describes best how this
 * filter works internally: it creates a kind of moving stack
 * of colors whilst scanning through the image. Thereby it
 * just has to add one new block of color to the right side
 * of the stack and remove the leftmost color. The remaining
 * colors on the topmost layer of the stack are either added on
 * or reduced by one, depending on if they are on the right or
 * on the left side of the stack.
 *  
 * If you are using this algorithm in your code please add
 * the following line:
 * Stack Blur Algorithm by Mario Klingemann <[e-mail]>
 */

public Bitmap fastblur(Bitmap sentBitmap, float scale, int radius) {

    int width = Math.round(sentBitmap.getWidth() * scale);
    int height = Math.round(sentBitmap.getHeight() * scale);
    sentBitmap = Bitmap.createScaledBitmap(sentBitmap, width, height, false);

    Bitmap bitmap = sentBitmap.copy(sentBitmap.getConfig(), true);

    if (radius < 1) {
        return (null);
    }

    int w = bitmap.getWidth();
    int h = bitmap.getHeight();

    int[] pix = new int[w * h];
    Log.e("pix", w + " " + h + " " + pix.length);
    bitmap.getPixels(pix, 0, w, 0, 0, w, h);

    int wm = w - 1;
    int hm = h - 1;
    int wh = w * h;
    int div = radius + radius + 1;

    int r[] = new int[wh];
    int g[] = new int[wh];
    int b[] = new int[wh];
    int rsum, gsum, bsum, x, y, i, p, yp, yi, yw;
    int vmin[] = new int[Math.max(w, h)];

    int divsum = (div + 1) >> 1;
    divsum *= divsum;
    int dv[] = new int[256 * divsum];
    for (i = 0; i < 256 * divsum; i++) {
        dv[i] = (i / divsum);
    }

    yw = yi = 0;

    int[][] stack = new int[div][3];
    int stackpointer;
    int stackstart;
    int[] sir;
    int rbs;
    int r1 = radius + 1;
    int routsum, goutsum, boutsum;
    int rinsum, ginsum, binsum;

    for (y = 0; y < h; y++) {
        rinsum = ginsum = binsum = routsum = goutsum = boutsum = rsum = gsum = bsum = 0;
        for (i = -radius; i <= radius; i++) {
            p = pix[yi + Math.min(wm, Math.max(i, 0))];
            sir = stack[i + radius];
            sir[0] = (p & 0xff0000) >> 16;
            sir[1] = (p & 0x00ff00) >> 8;
            sir[2] = (p & 0x0000ff);
            rbs = r1 - Math.abs(i);
            rsum += sir[0] * rbs;
            gsum += sir[1] * rbs;
            bsum += sir[2] * rbs;
            if (i > 0) {
                rinsum += sir[0];
                ginsum += sir[1];
                binsum += sir[2];
            } else {
                routsum += sir[0];
                goutsum += sir[1];
                boutsum += sir[2];
            }
        }
        stackpointer = radius;

        for (x = 0; x < w; x++) {

            r[yi] = dv[rsum];
            g[yi] = dv[gsum];
            b[yi] = dv[bsum];

            rsum -= routsum;
            gsum -= goutsum;
            bsum -= boutsum;

            stackstart = stackpointer - radius + div;
            sir = stack[stackstart % div];

            routsum -= sir[0];
            goutsum -= sir[1];
            boutsum -= sir[2];

            if (y == 0) {
                vmin[x] = Math.min(x + radius + 1, wm);
            }
            p = pix[yw + vmin[x]];

            sir[0] = (p & 0xff0000) >> 16;
            sir[1] = (p & 0x00ff00) >> 8;
            sir[2] = (p & 0x0000ff);

            rinsum += sir[0];
            ginsum += sir[1];
            binsum += sir[2];

            rsum += rinsum;
            gsum += ginsum;
            bsum += binsum;

            stackpointer = (stackpointer + 1) % div;
            sir = stack[(stackpointer) % div];

            routsum += sir[0];
            goutsum += sir[1];
            boutsum += sir[2];

            rinsum -= sir[0];
            ginsum -= sir[1];
            binsum -= sir[2];

            yi++;
        }
        yw += w;
    }
    for (x = 0; x < w; x++) {
        rinsum = ginsum = binsum = routsum = goutsum = boutsum = rsum = gsum = bsum = 0;
        yp = -radius * w;
        for (i = -radius; i <= radius; i++) {
            yi = Math.max(0, yp) + x;

            sir = stack[i + radius];

            sir[0] = r[yi];
            sir[1] = g[yi];
            sir[2] = b[yi];

            rbs = r1 - Math.abs(i);

            rsum += r[yi] * rbs;
            gsum += g[yi] * rbs;
            bsum += b[yi] * rbs;

            if (i > 0) {
                rinsum += sir[0];
                ginsum += sir[1];
                binsum += sir[2];
            } else {
                routsum += sir[0];
                goutsum += sir[1];
                boutsum += sir[2];
            }

            if (i < hm) {
                yp += w;
            }
        }
        yi = x;
        stackpointer = radius;
        for (y = 0; y < h; y++) {
            // Preserve alpha channel: ( 0xff000000 & pix[yi] )
            pix[yi] = ( 0xff000000 & pix[yi] ) | ( dv[rsum] << 16 ) | ( dv[gsum] << 8 ) | dv[bsum];

            rsum -= routsum;
            gsum -= goutsum;
            bsum -= boutsum;

            stackstart = stackpointer - radius + div;
            sir = stack[stackstart % div];

            routsum -= sir[0];
            goutsum -= sir[1];
            boutsum -= sir[2];

            if (x == 0) {
                vmin[y] = Math.min(y + r1, hm) * w;
            }
            p = x + vmin[y];

            sir[0] = r[p];
            sir[1] = g[p];
            sir[2] = b[p];

            rinsum += sir[0];
            ginsum += sir[1];
            binsum += sir[2];

            rsum += rinsum;
            gsum += ginsum;
            bsum += binsum;

            stackpointer = (stackpointer + 1) % div;
            sir = stack[stackpointer];

            routsum += sir[0];
            goutsum += sir[1];
            boutsum += sir[2];

            rinsum -= sir[0];
            ginsum -= sir[1];
            binsum -= sir[2];

            yi += w;
        }
    }

    Log.e("pix", w + " " + h + " " + pix.length);
    bitmap.setPixels(pix, 0, w, 0, 0, w, h);

    return (bitmap);
}

Answer 5

Use Render Script as mentioned here http://blog.neteril.org/blog/2013/08/12/blurring-images-on-android/

Answer 6

Here is a realtime blurring overlay using RenderScript, which seems to be fast enough.

https://github.com/mmin18/RealtimeBlurView