Looping through pixels in an image

Question

My project is to input an image into a canvas tag in an HTML page, and then loop through the pixels and RGBA values of the pixels. While looping through the red values,so ev

Answer 1

I recommend you to use an image processing framework in order to focus on the algorithms instead of manipulating arrays of values. Some frameworks:

• fabric.js
• processing.js
• MarvinJ

In the case of MarvinJ, you can simply loop through pixels iterating column and row coordinates. I use the methods getIntComponentX() to access color components.

for(var y=0; y<image.getHeight(); y++){
    for(var x=0; x<image.getWidth(); x++){
        var red = image.getIntComponent0(x,y);
        var green = image.getIntComponent1(x,y);
        var blue = image.getIntComponent2(x,y);
    }
}

Therefore you don't need to worry about how the pixel data is represented. In order to check if a pixel is white:

// Is white?
if(red >= 250 && blue >= 250 && green >= 250){
    console.log("Pixel at "+x+","+y+" is white");
}

Runnable Example:

var canvas = document.getElementById("canvas");
image = new MarvinImage();
image.load("https://i.imgur.com/eLZVbQG.png", imageLoaded);

function imageLoaded(){
  
  var whitePixels=0;
  for(var y=0; y<image.getHeight(); y++){
    for(var x=0; x<image.getWidth(); x++){
      var red = image.getIntComponent0(x,y);
      var green = image.getIntComponent1(x,y);
      var blue = image.getIntComponent2(x,y);
      var alpha = image.getAlphaComponent(x,y);
      
      // Is white?
      if(red >= 250 && green >= 250 && blue >= 250 && alpha > 0){
        whitePixels++;
      }
    }
  }
  
  image.draw(canvas);
  
  document.getElementById("result").innerHTML = "white pixels: "+whitePixels;
}

<script src="https://www.marvinj.org/releases/marvinj-0.7.js"></script>
<canvas id="canvas" width="500" height="344"></canvas>
<div id="result"></div>

Answer 2

It's straightforward.

All the pixel data for a canvas are stored sequentially in an array.

The first pixel's data occupy array elements #0-3 (red=0/green=1/blue=2/alpha=3).

The second pixel's data occupy array elements #4-7 (red=4/green=5/blue=6/alpha=7).

And so on...

You can load that pixel data by using context.getImageData() and enumerating through the array:

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

// enumerate all pixels
// each pixel's r,g,b,a datum are stored in separate sequential array elements

for(const i = 0; i < data.length; i += 4) {
  const red = data[i];
  const green = data[i + 1];
  const blue = data[i + 2];
  const alpha = data[i + 3];
}

You can also change those array values and then save the array back to the image using context.putImageData().

// save any altered pixel data back to the context
// the image will reflect any changes you made

context.putImageData(imgData, 0, 0);

The image will then change according to the changes you made to its pixel array.

Each pixel contains 4 components red, green, blue, alpha - each of them is number 0-255. The loop starts from top-left to bottom-right.