I want to print a Bitmap to a mobile Bluetooth Printer (Bixolon SPP-R200) - the SDK doesn't offer direkt methods to print an in-memory image. So I thought about converting a Bitmap like this:
Bitmap bitmap = Bitmap.createBitmap(width, height, Bitmap.Config.ARGB_8888);
To a Monochrome Bitmap. I am drawing black text on above given Bitmap using a Canvas, which works well. However, when I convert the above Bitmap to a ByteArray, the printer seems to be unable to handle those bytes. I suspect I need an Array with one Bit per Pixel (a Pixel would be either white = 1 or black = 0).
As there seems to be no convenient, out of the box way to do that, one idea I had was to use:
bitmap.getPixels(pixels, offset, stride, x, y, width, height)
to Obtain the pixels. I assume, I'd have to use it as follows:
int width = bitmap.getWidth();
int height = bitmap.getHeight();
int [] pixels = new int [width * height];
bitmap.getPixels(pixels, 0, width, 0, 0, width, height);
However - I am not sure about a few things:
- In getPixels - does it make sense to simply pass the width as the "Stride" argument?
- I guess I'd have to evaluate the color information of each pixel and either switch it to black or white (And I'd write this value in a new target byte array which I would ultimately pass to the printer)?
- How to best evaluate each pixel color information in order to decide that it should be black or white? (The rendered Bitmap is black pain on a white background)
Does this approach make sense at all? Is there an easier way? It's not enough to just make the bitmap black & white, the main issue is to reduce the color information for each pixel into one bit.
UPDATE
As suggested by Reuben I'll first convert the Bitmap to a monochrome Bitmap. and then I'll iterate over each pixel:
int width = bitmap.getWidth();
int height = bitmap.getHeight();
int[] pixels = new int[width * height];
bitmap.getPixels(pixels, 0, width, 0, 0, width, height);
// Iterate over height
for (int y = 0; y < height; y++) {
int offset = y * height;
// Iterate over width
for (int x = 0; x < width; x++) {
int pixel = bitmap.getPixel(x, y);
}
}
Now Reuben suggested to "read the lowest byte of each 32-bit pixel" - that would relate to my question about how to evaluate the pixel color. My last question in this regard: Do I get the lowest byte by simply doing this:
// Using the pixel from bitmap.getPixel(x,y)
int lowestByte = pixel & 0xff;
]