Qt/QML : Send QImage From C++ to QML and Display The QImage On GUI
Matthew Barrera
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: 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 } } }
} 18 4 Answers
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
QQuickImageProvidersubclass; give it aQImagemember (the image to provider), overriderequestImageto provide that image (the actualidrequested does not really matter, see below), and a slot that receives aQImageand updates the member. - Connect your
Publishersignal to your provider's slot - Install the provider into the QML engine via
QQmlEngine::addImageProvider(seeQQuickView::engine); again theiddoes not really matter, just use a sensible one In QML, just use a plain
Imageelement with a source like thisImage { id: myImage source: "image://providerIdPassedToAddImageProvider/foobar" }foobarwill 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
Connectionselement and a bit of JS.Note that in general you don't need to make
Publishera QML type, you just need to create one instance in C++ and expose it to the QML world viaQQmlContext::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 theQImageto be painted and has a slot that sets the new QImage. Also itspaintimplementation simply paints the image usingQPainter::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
objectNameproperty to some value, then usingfindChildon the root object (as returned byQQuickView::rootObject()) to get a pointer to the item itself. Then you can useconnectas usual.Or, could instead perform the connection in QML, just like above, via a
Connectionselement 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
QImagetype 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.
2QString getImage()
{
QByteArray byteArray;
QBuffer buffer(&byteArray);
buffer.open(QIODevice::WriteOnly);
img.save(&buffer,"JPEG"); //save image data in string
QString image("data:image/jpg;base64,");
image.append(QString::fromLatin1(byteArray.toBase64().data()));
return image;
}send image string directly to qml source
2Use QQuickItem. There is a Qt example that does this.
C:\Qt\Examples\Qt-5.14.1\quick\scenegraph\threadedanimation
You make a class derived from QQuickItem and register it with qmlRegisterType. Provide the override function 'updatePaintNode' in your class. In the example, the class is 'Spinner'
In updatePaintNode:
Create a node class derived from QObject and QSGTransformNode
In the node class constructor:
Convert your Qimage to an QSGTexture with createTextureFromImage.
Create QSGSimpleTextureNode, set QSGTexture using setTexture
appendChildNode with QSGSimpleTextureNode
In QML add
import Spinner 1.0and
Spinner { anchors.centerIn: parent anchors.horizontalCenterOffset: 80 spinning: true
}