kCVPixelFormatType_420YpCbCr8BiPlanarFullRange frame to UIImage conversion

Question

I have an app that capture live video in kCVPixelFormatType_420YpCbCr8BiPlanarFullRange format to process Y channel. According to Apple\'s documentation:

Answer 1

I'm not aware of any accessible built-in way to convert a biplanar Y / CbCr image to RGB in iOS. However you should be able to perform the conversion yourself in software, e.g.

uint8_t clamp(int16_t input)
{
    // clamp negative numbers to 0; assumes signed shifts
    // (a valid assumption on iOS)
    input &= ~(num >> 16);

    // clamp numbers greater than 255 to 255; the accumulation
    // of the mask looks odd but is an attempt to avoid
    // pipeline stalls
    uint8_t saturationMask = num >> 8;
    saturationMask |= saturationMask << 4;
    saturationMask |= saturationMask << 2;
    saturationMask |= saturationMask << 1;
    num |= saturationMask;

    return num&0xff;
}

...

CVPixelBufferLockBaseAddress(imageBuffer, 0);

size_t width = CVPixelBufferGetWidth(imageBuffer);
size_t height = CVPixelBufferGetHeight(imageBuffer);

uint8_t *baseAddress = CVPixelBufferGetBaseAddress(imageBuffer);
CVPlanarPixelBufferInfo_YCbCrBiPlanar *bufferInfo = (CVPlanarPixelBufferInfo_YCbCrBiPlanar *)baseAddress;

NSUInteger yOffset = EndianU32_BtoN(bufferInfo->componentInfoY.offset);
NSUInteger yPitch = EndianU32_BtoN(bufferInfo->componentInfoY.rowBytes);

NSUInteger cbCrOffset = EndianU32_BtoN(bufferInfo->componentInfoCbCr.offset);
NSUInteger cbCrPitch = EndianU32_BtoN(bufferInfo->componentInfoCbCr.rowBytes);

uint8_t *rgbBuffer = malloc(width * height * 3);
uint8_t *yBuffer = baseAddress + yOffset;
uint8_t *cbCrBuffer = baseAddress + cbCrOffset;

for(int y = 0; y < height; y++)
{
    uint8_t *rgbBufferLine = &rgbBuffer[y * width * 3];
    uint8_t *yBufferLine = &yBuffer[y * yPitch];
    uint8_t *cbCrBufferLine = &cbCrBuffer[(y >> 1) * cbCrPitch];

    for(int x = 0; x < width; x++)
    {
        // from ITU-R BT.601, rounded to integers
        uint8_t y = yBufferLine[x] - 16;
        uint8_t cb = cbCrBufferLine[x & ~1] - 128;
        uint8_t cr = cbCrBufferLine[x | 1] - 128;

        uint8_t *rgbOutput = &rgbBufferLine[x*3];

        rgbOutput[0] = clamp(((298 * y + 409 * cr - 223) >> 8) - 223);
        rgbOutput[1] = clamp(((298 * y - 100 * cb - 208 * cr + 136) >> 8) + 136);
        rgbOutput[2] = clamp(((298 * y + 516 * cb - 277) >> 8) - 277);
    }

}

Just written directly into this box and untested, I think I've got the cb/cr extraction correct. You'd then use CGBitmapContextCreate with rgbBuffer to create a CGImage and hence a UIImage.