Get pixel color from canvas, on mousemove

Question

Is it possible to get the RGB value pixel under the mouse? Is there a complete example of this? Here's what I have so far:

function draw() {
      var ctx = document.getElementById('canvas').getContext('2d');
      var img = new Image();
      img.src = 'Your URL';

      img.onload = function(){
        ctx.drawImage(img,0,0);


      };

      canvas.onmousemove = function(e) {
            var mouseX, mouseY;

            if(e.offsetX) {
                mouseX = e.offsetX;
                mouseY = e.offsetY;
            }
            else if(e.layerX) {
                mouseX = e.layerX;
                mouseY = e.layerY;
            }
            var c = ctx.getImageData(mouseX, mouseY, 1, 1).data;
            
            $('#ttip').css({'left':mouseX+20, 'top':mouseY+20}).html(c[0]+'-'+c[1]+'-'+c[2]);
      };
    }

Paco

Duplicate of #1936521 – Maice

Answer 1

Here's a complete, self-contained example. First, use the following HTML:

<canvas id="example" width="200" height="60"></canvas>
<div id="status"></div>

Then put some squares on the canvas with random background colors:

var example = document.getElementById('example');
var context = example.getContext('2d');
context.fillStyle = randomColor();
context.fillRect(0, 0, 50, 50);
context.fillStyle = randomColor();
context.fillRect(55, 0, 50, 50);
context.fillStyle = randomColor();
context.fillRect(110, 0, 50, 50);

And print each color on mouseover:

$('#example').mousemove(function(e) {
    var pos = findPos(this);
    var x = e.pageX - pos.x;
    var y = e.pageY - pos.y;
    var coord = "x=" + x + ", y=" + y;
    var c = this.getContext('2d');
    var p = c.getImageData(x, y, 1, 1).data; 
    var hex = "#" + ("000000" + rgbToHex(p[0], p[1], p[2])).slice(-6);
    $('#status').html(coord + "<br>" + hex);
});

The code above assumes the presence of jQuery and the following utility functions:

function findPos(obj) {
    var curleft = 0, curtop = 0;
    if (obj.offsetParent) {
        do {
            curleft += obj.offsetLeft;
            curtop += obj.offsetTop;
        } while (obj = obj.offsetParent);
        return { x: curleft, y: curtop };
    }
    return undefined;
}

function rgbToHex(r, g, b) {
    if (r > 255 || g > 255 || b > 255)
        throw "Invalid color component";
    return ((r << 16) | (g << 8) | b).toString(16);
}

function randomInt(max) {
  return Math.floor(Math.random() * max);
}

function randomColor() {
    return `rgb(${randomInt(256)}, ${randomInt(256)}, ${randomInt(256)})`
}

See it in action here:

• https://bl.ocks.org/wayneburkett/ca41a5245a9f48766b7bc881448f9203

// set up some sample squares with random colors
var example = document.getElementById('example');
var context = example.getContext('2d');
context.fillStyle = randomColor();
context.fillRect(0, 0, 50, 50);
context.fillStyle = randomColor();
context.fillRect(55, 0, 50, 50);
context.fillStyle = randomColor();
context.fillRect(110, 0, 50, 50);

$('#example').mousemove(function(e) {
    var pos = findPos(this);
    var x = e.pageX - pos.x;
    var y = e.pageY - pos.y;
    var coord = "x=" + x + ", y=" + y;
    var c = this.getContext('2d');
    var p = c.getImageData(x, y, 1, 1).data; 
    var hex = "#" + ("000000" + rgbToHex(p[0], p[1], p[2])).slice(-6);
    $('#status').html(coord + "<br>" + hex);
});

function findPos(obj) {
    var curleft = 0, curtop = 0;
    if (obj.offsetParent) {
        do {
            curleft += obj.offsetLeft;
            curtop += obj.offsetTop;
        } while (obj = obj.offsetParent);
        return { x: curleft, y: curtop };
    }
    return undefined;
}

function rgbToHex(r, g, b) {
    if (r > 255 || g > 255 || b > 255)
        throw "Invalid color component";
    return ((r << 16) | (g << 8) | b).toString(16);
}

function randomInt(max) {
  return Math.floor(Math.random() * max);
}

function randomColor() {
    return `rgb(${randomInt(256)}, ${randomInt(256)}, ${randomInt(256)})`
}

<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.3.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<canvas id="example" width="200" height="60"></canvas>
<div id="status"></div>

    

Statocyst

Can you please look into this question and see if there is solution for that. I will highly appreciate that :) – Porphyry

Your use of nested offsetParents is a really nice way to go about that. I've never thought about that. But why don't you use a regular while loop instead of an if and then a do...while? – Polecat

this answer helps me today (1-September-2017).so +1 – Eggshell

@AlivetoDie #100! Thanks :) – Statocyst

Answer 2

If you need to get the average color of a rectangular area, rather than the color of a single pixel, please take a look at this other question:

👉 JavaScript - Get average color from a certain area of an image

Anyway, both are done in a very similar way:

🔍 Getting The Color/Value of A Single Pixel from An Image or Canvas

To get the color of a single pixel, you would first draw that image to a canvas, which you have already done:

const image = document.getElementById('image');
const canvas = document.createElement('canvas');
const context = canvas.getContext('2d');
const width = image.width;
const height = image.height;

canvas.width = width;
canvas.height = height;

context.drawImage(image, 0, 0, width, height);

And then get the value of a single pixel like this:

const data = context.getImageData(X, Y, 1, 1).data;

// RED   = data[0]
// GREEN = data[1]
// BLUE  = data[2]
// ALPHA = data[3]

🚀 Speeding Things Up by Getting all ImageData at Once

You need to use this same CanvasRenderingContext2D.getImageData() to get the values of the whole image, which you do by changing its third and fourth params. The signature of that function is:

ImageData ctx.getImageData(sx, sy, sw, sh);

• sx: The x coordinate of the upper left corner of the rectangle from which the ImageData will be extracted.
• sy: The y coordinate of the upper left corner of the rectangle from which the ImageData will be extracted.
• sw: The width of the rectangle from which the ImageData will be extracted.
• sh: The height of the rectangle from which the ImageData will be extracted.

You can see it returns an ImageData object, whatever that is. The important part here is that that object has a .data property which contains all our pixel values.

However, note that .data property is a 1-dimension Uint8ClampedArray, which means that all the pixel's components have been flattened, so you are getting something that looks like this:

Let's say you have a 2x2 image like this:

 RED PIXEL |       GREEN PIXEL
BLUE PIXEL | TRANSPARENT PIXEL

Then, you will get them like this:

[ 255, 0, 0, 255,    0, 255, 0, 255,    0, 0, 255, 255,    0, 0, 0, 0          ]
|   RED PIXEL   |    GREEN PIXEL   |     BLUE PIXEL   |    TRANSPAERENT  PIXEL |
|   1ST PIXEL   |      2ND PIXEL   |      3RD PIXEL   |             4TH  PIXEL | 

As calling getImageData is a slow operation, you can call it only once to get the data of all the image (sw = image width, sh = image height).

Then, in the example above, if you want to access the components of the TRANSPARENT PIXEL, that is, the one at position x = 1, y = 1 of this imaginary image, you would find its first index i in its ImageData's data property as:

const i = (y * imageData.width + x) * 4;

✨ Let's See It in Action

const solidColor = document.getElementById('solidColor');
const alphaColor = document.getElementById('alphaColor');
const solidWeighted = document.getElementById('solidWeighted');

const solidColorCode = document.getElementById('solidColorCode');
const alphaColorCode = document.getElementById('alphaColorCode');
const solidWeightedCOde = document.getElementById('solidWeightedCode');

const brush = document.getElementById('brush');
const image = document.getElementById('image');
const canvas = document.createElement('canvas');
const context = canvas.getContext('2d');
const width = image.width;
const height = image.height;

const BRUSH_SIZE = brush.offsetWidth;
const BRUSH_CENTER = BRUSH_SIZE / 2;
const MIN_X = image.offsetLeft + 4;
const MAX_X = MIN_X + width - 1;
const MIN_Y = image.offsetTop + 4;
const MAX_Y = MIN_Y + height - 1;

canvas.width = width;
canvas.height = height;

context.drawImage(image, 0, 0, width, height);

const imageDataData = context.getImageData(0, 0, width, height).data;

function sampleColor(clientX, clientY) {
  if (clientX < MIN_X || clientX > MAX_X || clientY < MIN_Y || clientY > MAX_Y) {
    requestAnimationFrame(() => {
      brush.style.transform = `translate(${ clientX }px, ${ clientY }px)`;
      solidColorCode.innerText = solidColor.style.background = 'rgb(0, 0, 0)';
      alphaColorCode.innerText = alphaColor.style.background = 'rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.00)';
      solidWeightedCode.innerText = solidWeighted.style.background = 'rgb(0, 0, 0)';
    });
    
    return;
  }
  
  const imageX = clientX - MIN_X;
  const imageY = clientY - MIN_Y;
  
  const i = (imageY * width + imageX) * 4;

  // A single pixel (R, G, B, A) will take 4 positions in the array:
  const R = imageDataData[i];
  const G = imageDataData[i + 1];
  const B = imageDataData[i + 2];
  const A = imageDataData[i + 3] / 255;
  const iA = 1 - A;

  // Alpha-weighted color:
  const wR = (R * A + 255 * iA) | 0;
  const wG = (G * A + 255 * iA) | 0;
  const wB = (B * A + 255 * iA) | 0;

  // Update UI:
  
  requestAnimationFrame(() => {
    brush.style.transform = `translate(${ clientX }px, ${ clientY }px)`;

    solidColorCode.innerText = solidColor.style.background
      = `rgb(${ R }, ${ G }, ${ B })`;

    alphaColorCode.innerText = alphaColor.style.background
      = `rgba(${ R }, ${ G }, ${ B }, ${ A.toFixed(2) })`;

    solidWeightedCode.innerText = solidWeighted.style.background
      = `rgb(${ wR }, ${ wG }, ${ wB })`;
  });
}

document.onmousemove = (e) => sampleColor(e.clientX, e.clientY);
  
sampleColor(MIN_X, MIN_Y);

body {
  margin: 0;
  height: 100vh;
  display: flex;
  flex-direction: row;
  align-items: center;
  justify-content: center;
  cursor: none;
  font-family: monospace;
  overflow: hidden;
}

#image {
  border: 4px solid white;
  border-radius: 2px;
  box-shadow: 0 0 32px 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, .25);
  width: 150px;
  box-sizing: border-box;
}

#brush {
  position: absolute;
  top: 0;
  left: 0;
  pointer-events: none;
  width: 1px;
  height: 1px;
  mix-blend-mode: exclusion;
  border-radius: 100%;
}

#brush::before,
#brush::after {
  content: '';
  position: absolute;
  background: magenta;
}

#brush::before {
  top: -16px;
  left: 0;
  height: 33px;
  width: 100%;
}

#brush::after {
  left: -16px;
  top: 0;
  width: 33px;
  height: 100%;
}

#samples {
  position: relative;
  list-style: none;
  padding: 0;
  width: 250px;
}

#samples::before {
  content: '';
  position: absolute;
  top: 0;
  left: 27px;
  width: 2px;
  height: 100%;
  background: black;
  border-radius: 1px;
}

#samples > li {
  position: relative;
  display: flex;
  flex-direction: column;
  justify-content: center;
  padding-left: 56px;
}

#samples > li + li {
  margin-top: 8px;
}

.sample {
  position: absolute;
  top: 50%;
  left: 16px;
  transform: translate(0, -50%);
  display: block;
  width: 24px;
  height: 24px;
  border-radius: 100%;
  box-shadow: 0 0 16px 4px rgba(0, 0, 0, .25);  
  margin-right: 8px;
}

.sampleLabel {
  font-weight: bold;
  margin-bottom: 8px;
}

.sampleCode {
  
}

<img id="image" src="data:image/gif;base64,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" >

<div id="brush"></div>

<ul id="samples">
  <li>
    <span class="sample" id="solidColor"></span>
    <div class="sampleLabel">solidColor</div>
    <div class="sampleCode" id="solidColorCode">rgb(0, 0, 0)</div>
  </li>
  <li>
    <span class="sample" id="alphaColor"></span>
    <div class="sampleLabel">alphaColor</div>
    <div class="sampleCode" id="alphaColorCode">rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.00)</div>
  </li>
  <li>
    <span class="sample" id="solidWeighted"></span>
    <div class="sampleLabel">solidWeighted (with white)</div>
    <div class="sampleCode" id="solidWeightedCode">rgb(0, 0, 0)</div>
  </li>
</ul>

⚠️ Note I'm using a small data URI to avoid Cross-Origin issues if I include an external image or an answer that is larger than allowed if I try to use a longer data URI.

🕵️ These colors look weird, don't they?

If you move the cursor around the borders of the asterisk shape, you will see sometimes avgSolidColor is red, but the pixel you are sampling looks white. That's because even though the R component for that pixel might be high, the alpha channel is low, so the color is actually an almost transparent shade of red, but avgSolidColor ignores that.

On the other hand, avgAlphaColor looks pink. Well, that's actually not true, it just looks pink because we are now using the alpha channel, which makes it semitransparent and allows us to see the background of the page, which in this case is white.

🎨 Alpha-weighted color

Then, what can we do to fix this? Well, it turns out we just need to use the alpha channel and its inverse as the weights to calculate the components of our new sample, in this case merging it with white, as that's the color we use as background.

That means that if a pixel is R, G, B, A, where A is in the interval [0, 1], we will compute the inverse of the alpha channel, iA, and the components of the weighted sample as:

const iA = 1 - A;
const wR = (R * A + 255 * iA) | 0;
const wG = (G * A + 255 * iA) | 0;
const wB = (B * A + 255 * iA) | 0;

Note how the more transparent a pixel is (A closer to 0), the lighter the color.

Anaximander

Answer 3

I know this is an old question, but here's an alternative. I'd store that image data in an array, then, on mouse move event over the canvas:

var index = (Math.floor(y) * canvasWidth + Math.floor(x)) * 4
var r = data[index]
var g = data[index + 1]
var b = data[index + 2]
var a = data[index + 3]

A lot easier than getting the imageData everytime.

Sandoval

Answer 4

Merging various references found here in StackOverflow (including the article above) and in other sites, I did so using javascript and JQuery:

<html>
<body>
<canvas id="myCanvas" width="400" height="400" style="border:1px solid #c3c3c3;">
Your browser does not support the canvas element.
</canvas>
<script src="jquery.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
    window.onload = function(){
        var canvas = document.getElementById('myCanvas');
        var context = canvas.getContext('2d');
        var img = new Image();
        img.src = 'photo_apple.jpg';
        context.drawImage(img, 0, 0);
    };

    function findPos(obj){
    var current_left = 0, current_top = 0;
    if (obj.offsetParent){
        do{
            current_left += obj.offsetLeft;
            current_top += obj.offsetTop;
        }while(obj = obj.offsetParent);
        return {x: current_left, y: current_top};
    }
    return undefined;
    }

    function rgbToHex(r, g, b){
    if (r > 255 || g > 255 || b > 255)
        throw "Invalid color component";
    return ((r << 16) | (g << 8) | b).toString(16);
    }

$('#myCanvas').click(function(e){
    var position = findPos(this);
    var x = e.pageX - position.x;
    var y = e.pageY - position.y;
    var coordinate = "x=" + x + ", y=" + y;
    var canvas = this.getContext('2d');
    var p = canvas.getImageData(x, y, 1, 1).data;
    var hex = "#" + ("000000" + rgbToHex(p[0], p[1], p[2])).slice(-6);
    alert("HEX: " + hex);
});
</script>
<img src="photo_apple.jpg"/>
</body>
</html>

This is my complete solution. Here I only used canvas and one image, but if you need to use <map> over the image, it's possible too.

Italianate

Answer 5

calling getImageData every time will slow the process ... to speed up things i recommend store image data and then you can get pix value easily and quickly, so do something like this for better performance

// keep it global
let imgData = false;  // initially no image data we have

// create some function block 
if(imgData === false){   
  // fetch once canvas data     
  var ctx = canvas.getContext("2d");
  imgData = ctx.getImageData(0, 0, canvas.width, canvas.height);
}
    // Prepare your X Y coordinates which you will be fetching from your mouse loc
    let x = 100;   // 
    let y = 100;
    // locate index of current pixel
    let index = (y * imgData.width + x) * 4;

        let red = imgData.data[index];
        let green = imgData.data[index+1];
        let blue = imgData.data[index+2];
        let alpha = imgData.data[index+3];
   // Output
   console.log('pix x ' + x +' y '+y+ ' index '+index +' COLOR '+red+','+green+','+blue+','+alpha);

Reubenreuchlin

Answer 6

Quick Answer

context.getImageData(x, y, 1, 1).data; returns an rgba array. e.g. [50, 50, 50, 255]

---

Here's a version of @lwburk's rgbToHex function that takes the rgba array as an argument.

function rgbToHex(rgb){
  return '#' + ((rgb[0] << 16) | (rgb[1] << 8) | rgb[2]).toString(16);
};

Sherrell

This only works with red-values above 16, for example [10, 42, 67, 255] produces #a2a43 which is not a valid / well formatted hex color code. – Orit

Answer 7

I have a very simple working example of geting pixel color from canvas.

First some basic HTML:

<canvas id="myCanvas" width="400" height="250" style="background:red;" onmouseover="echoColor(event)">
</canvas>

Then JS to draw something on the Canvas, and to get color:

var c = document.getElementById("myCanvas");
var ctx = c.getContext("2d");
ctx.fillStyle = "black";
ctx.fillRect(10, 10, 50, 50);

function echoColor(e){
    var imgData = ctx.getImageData(e.pageX, e.pageX, 1, 1);
    red = imgData.data[0];
    green = imgData.data[1];
    blue = imgData.data[2];
    alpha = imgData.data[3];
    console.log(red + " " + green + " " + blue + " " + alpha);  
}

Here is a working example, just look at the console.

Metencephalon

Thanks, this was just what I needed. Now I can find out what part of the pie chart was clicked. I converted it to typescript. – Sibelius

Answer 8

You can try color-sampler. It's an easy way to pick color in a canvas. See demo.

Hidden

Answer 9

@Wayne Burkett's answer is good. If you wanted to also extract the alpha value to get an rgba color, we could do this:

var r = p[0], g = p[1], b = p[2], a = p[3] / 255;
var rgba = "rgb(" + r + "," + g + "," + b + "," + a + ")";

I divided the alpha value by 255 because the ImageData object stores it as an integer between 0 - 255, but most applications (for example, CanvasRenderingContext2D.fillRect()) require colors to be in valid CSS format, where the alpha value is between 0 and 1.

(Also remember that if you extract a transparent color and then draw it back onto the canvas, it will overlay whatever color is there previously. So if you drew the color rgba(0,0,0,0.1) over the same spot 10 times, it would be black.)

Scroop