I recently learned there seem to be multiple ways to display an image on a web page.
The first way is to directly assign the URL to an image element's URL
const img = new Image();
img.onload = () => {
document.querySelector("#myImage").src = url;
};
img.onerror = () => {};
img.src = imageUrl;
Another way I recently learned is using fetch
fetch(imageUrl)
.then((response)=>response.blob())
.then((blob)=>{
const objectUrl = URL.createObjectURL(blob)
document.querySelector("#myImage").src = objectUrl;
})
I have a few questions about both approaches:
I am familiar with fetch but I normally use it to fetch JSON. The second way of using fetch to get the image seems to me like we are fetching raw binary data of that image file over HTTP, while the first one we are delegating the browser to kick off a Get request to fetch that image. But from the server's perspective, there are no differences in terms of how it sends the image down? Am I understanding this right?
In what situations we should favor one approach over the other? I feel like the second approach is going to have a lot of CORS problems than the first one, but not sure exactly why.
Are there any other ways to display an image on a web page? I heard of base64 encoding/decoding a lot when people talk about images. Is base64 related to response.blob() i.e. the second approach? Or it is different? If so, can someone please give me an example of using base64 to show an image?
Lastly, I think displaying images has been a hole in my knowledge of frontend or web development. Please feel free to recommend any good resources on this subject.
To answer your questions
It's basically same from the server side, except for headers and information the browser could send along, whereas in fetch you have full control over headers
The fetch method could be used for more flexible or further parameters requiring requests or secure transfers you might implement in your server. For instance, requiring a post request that has header or body containing certain data to permit transfer of image... or for flexible transfers such as data that could be put in chunks that you could later assemble and manipulate before presenting.
Using base64 is almost the same as binary, though it is used to transfer images/data through mediums designed to transfer text. This is because base64 uses ascii number and letters to represent any data.
Here, you can see an image generated from base64 string characters, without any link
<img style="width:64px; height:64px;" src="data:image/png;base64,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"></img>
This is also helpful to embed image directly in code as text, pass it in as a url parameter or you can even put image in JSON file. In some cases, it also performs better than binary image with compression like gzip too.
Direct Answer
Yes the server can send any kind of data (anything is just a binary consecution of numbers, even text and characters). It is the client which tries to make sense of the content, usually following certain standards.
If you don't need to manipulate the image I suggest you to avoid any request since the browser can handle it for you. Note that only fetch is hardly subjected to CORS because it does not send cross-origin cookies (see MDN - using fetch). If you need more control you can use XMLHTTPRequest. The usage of blob is inherited from old web approaches, those times where ArrayBuffer were not invented, and it was the only wrapper for binary data in the web environments. It is still supported for many reason.
Actually less than you think (just 1)! Check explanation...
Image resources are widely dependent on what kind of processing you need... Just displaying an image? MDN and CSS-tricks are full of tips, you just need to search for them. If you want to process an image instead, you need to take a further look to canvas elements and the usual resources are scarce or almost about game making (for obviously reasons), MDN and something in CSS-tricks for resources.
Explanation
What is an image?
I think you have a bias toward the concept of a browser displaying an image.
So what a image really is? binary data.
Pratically there is only one way for your browser (or your computer in general) to display an image, that is to have a byte array that is a flatten view of the pixels of your image. So at the end of the day you will ALWAYS need to feed your broswer with binary data that is interpretable as a raw image (usually a set of rgb(a) pixels).
Yes, there is only "ONE" way to display an image on a computer. But there are different ways we can represent that image.
Encoding
At low level, different computers represent numbers in different ways, so the web standards decided to represent images in so called RGB8 or RGBA8 encoding (Red-Green-Blue(-Alpha)-NumBits, 8 bits = 1 Byte). This means that each pixel is represented by an array of 4 bytes (numbers), each varying from 0 to 255. This array is the only thing your browser see as image.
At the end your image is something like this:
// using color(x, y) to describe the image pixels
[ red(0, 0), green(0, 0), blue(0, 0), alpha(0, 0), red(1, 0), ... ] =
[ 124, 12, 123, 255, 122, ... ]
Now that you can see an image as a linear array of pixels, we can decide how to write it down on a piece of paper (our "code"). The browser (usually and historically) parse every packet sent on the web in an HTML file as plain text, so we must use characters to describe our image, the standard is to ONLY use UTF-8 (character encoding, superset of ASCII). We can write it in JS as an array of numbers for example.
But take a look to the number 255. Each time you send that number on the newtork you are sending 3 characters: '2', '5', '5'. Web comunicates only with characters so... Is there a way to make a compact representation of that number in order to send less bytes as possible (saving those guys who have slow connection!)?
Base64 is the most famous encoding used to describe that linear array in the most compact way, because it compress the 255 characters into just 1 or 2 characters (depending on the sequence). Instead of representing number in base of 10, we can take rid of some characters we usually use as letters to represent more digits. So '11' become 'a', '12' => 'b', '13' => 'c', ..., '32' => 'a', ..., '63' => 'Z', '64' => '10', '65' => '11', ..., '128' => '20', and so on. Furthermore this algorithm exploit more low level representation to encode more digits in one single character (that's why u will see some '=' at the end sometimes).
Take a look on different representation of the same image:
// JavaScript Array
[ /* pixel 1 */ 124, 12, 123, 255, /* pixel 2 */ 122, 12, 56, 255 ] // 67 characters
// (30 without spaces and comments)
// Base64
fAx7w796DDjDvw== // 16 characters
// Base32
3sc3r7v3qc1o7vAb== // 18 characters (always >= Base64)
It's easy to see why they choose base64 as common algorithm (and this example counts just for 2 pixels).
(Base32 image example)
Formats
Now imagine to send a 4K image on the web, which has a dimension of 3'656 × 2'664. This means that you are sending on the internet 9'739'584 of pixels, with 4 bytes each, for a grand total of 38'958'336 bytes (~39MB). Furthermore imagine what a waste if the image is completely black (we can describe the whole image just with one pixel)... That's too much (especially for low connections), for this reason they invented some algorithms which can describe the image in a more compact way, we call them image format. PNG and JPEG/JPG are example of formats which compress the image (jpg 4k image ~8MB, png 4k image can vary from ~2MB to ~22MB depending on certain parameters and the image itself).
Someone keep the compression thing to a further level, enstabilishing the gzip compression standard format (a generic compression algorithm over an already compressed image, or any other kind of file).
Drawing on the Browser
At the end of this journey you have just two different ways browsers allow you to draw content: URI and ArrayBuffer.
URI: you can use it with <img> and css, by setting src property of the element or by setting any style property which can get an image URL as input.
ArrayBuffer: by manipulating the <canvas>.context buffer (that is just the linear array we discussed above)
Obviously browsers allow also to convert or switch between the two ways.
URI
URI are the way we define a certain content, that can be a stored resource (URL - all protocols but data, for example http(s)://, ws(s):// or file://) or a properly buffer described by a string (the data protocol).
When you ask for an image, by setting the src property, your browser parses the URL and, if it is a remote content, makes a request to retrieve it and parse the content in the proper way (format & encoding). In the same way, when you make a fetch call you are asking the browser to request the remote content; the fetch function has the possibility to get the response in different ways:
textual, just a bunch of characters (usually used to parse JSON/DOM/XML)
binary data, divided in:
ArrayBuffer, which is a representation of the linear array of the image, we discussed above
Blob, which is an abstract representation of a generic file-like object (which also encapsulate an internal ArrayBuffer). The Blob is something like a pointer to a file-like entity in the browser cache, so you don't need to download/request the same file multiple times.
// ArrayBuffer from fetch:
fetch(myRequest).then(function(response) {
return response.arrayBuffer();
})
// Blob from fetch
fetch(myRequest).then(function(response) {
return response.blob();
})
// ArrayBuffer from Blob
blob.arrayBuffer();
So now you have to tell to the browser how to make sense of the content you get back from the response. You need to convert the data to a parsable url:
var encodedURI = `data:${format};${encoding},` + encodeBuffer(new Uint8Array(arrayBuffer));
image.src = encodedURI
// for base64 encoding
var encodeBuffer = function(buffer) { return window.btoa(String.fromCharCode.apply(null, buffer)); }
// for blobs
image.src = (window.URL || window.webkitURL).createObjectURL(blob);
Note that browsers supports other encodings than just base64, also base32 is available but, as we saw above, is not so convinient to use. Also there is no builtin function like btoa to encode a buffer in base32.
Note also that the format value can be any kind of MIME type such as image/png|jpg|gif|svg or text/plain|html|xml, application/octet, etc.. Obviously only image types are then shown as images.
When the resource is not requested from a remote server (with a file:// or data protocol) the image is usually loaded syncronously, so as soon you set the URL, the browser will read, decode and put the buffer to display in your image. This has two consequences:
The data is managed locally (no internet connection requirements)
The data is treated synchronously, so if the image is big your computer will stuck into the processing until the end (see why it is a bad practice to use data protocol for videos or huge data in the special section, at the end)
URL vs URI
URI is a generic identifier for a resource, URL is an identifier for a location where to retrieve the resource. Usually in a browser context are almost an overlapped concept, I found this image explain better than thousand words:
The data is pratically an URI, every request with a protocol is actually an URL
Side Note
In your question you write this as an alternative method by "setting the image element url":
fetch(imageUrl)
.then((response)=>response.blob())
.then((blob)=>{
const objectUrl = URL.createObjectURL(blob)
document.querySelector("#myImage").src = objectUrl; // <-- setting url!
})
But watch out: you actually setting an image element source URL!
Canvas
The <canvas> element gives you the full control over an image buffer, also to further process it. You can literally draw your array in it:
var canvas = document.getElementById('mycanvas');
// or offline canvas:
var canvas = document.createElement('canvas');
canvas.width = myWidth;
canvas.height = myHeight;
var context = canvas.getContext('2d');
// exemple from array buffer
var arrayBuffer = /* from fetch or Blob.arrayBuffer() or also with new ArrayBuffer(size) */
var buffer = new Uint8ClampedArray(arrayBuffer);
var imageData = new ImageData(buffer, width, height);
context.putImageData(iData, 0, 0);
// example image from array (2 pixels)
var data = [
// R G B A
255, 255, 255, 255, // white pixel
255, 0, 0, 255 // red pixel
];
var buffer = new Uint8ClampedArray(data);
var imageData = new ImageData(buffer, 2, 1);
context.putImageData(iData, 0, 0);
(Note ImageData wants a RGBA array)
To get back the ArrayBuffer (which you can also plug back in the image.src after) you can do:
var imageData = context.getImageData(0, 0, canvas.width, canvas.heigth);
var buffer = imageData.data; // Uint8ClampedArray
var arrayBuffer = buffer.buffer; // ArrayBuffer
This is an example on how to process an image:
// reading image
var image = document.getElementById('myimage');
image.onload = function() {
// load image in canvas
context.drawImage(image, 0, 0);
// process your image
context.fillRect(20, 20, 150, 100);
var imageData = context.getImageData(0, 0, canvas.width, canvas.height);
imageData.data[0] = 255;
// converting back to base64 url
var resultUrl = window.btoa(String.fromCharCode.apply(null, imageData.data.buffer));
// setting image url and disabling onload
image.onload = null;
image.src = resultUrl;
};
// note src setted after onload
image.src = 'ANY-URL';
For this part I suggest you to take a look to Canvas Tutorial - MDN
SPECIAL
Audio and Video are treated in the same way, but you must encode and format also the time and sound dimension in some way. You can load a audio/video from base64 string (not so good idea for videos) or display a video on a canvas
strait to the point. basically you need to fetch the image instead of adding the url source at the html when you dont want people to see where yow pic is hosted at. if I right click on the image and you have the url directly in the img tag literally err body will be able to download the image, and not only that if I play around with the posible parameters that it might have I could not only get the image, but also get other images. so if you dont want to expose where yow pic is at you can "hide" it.
there are 4 ways you can get an image
html
css
blob
base64
but those 4 ways can be separated in two groups.
handled by the browser
html
css
base64 ...kindof
handled by you
blob
base64 ...kindof
the first group is not relevant as the browser will remove the image when it doesnt need it any mow show it when need it and more stuff.
why base64 could be included in that group ? bcuz if the image is not need it any more the browser cleans the memory used by it. so you just have to parse the binary into base64 and the browser will free any resource used by the pic, but on the other hand blobs are entirely managed and handled by you. so if you dont free the resources used by the pic the memory used in other words wont be able to be used by some other process/program/app, probably you're thinking why blob is prefered over base64?
BLOB stands for Binary Large Object which could be anything - text, images, video, executable code, random bytes, etc. Most databases have a special BLOB type that allows storing this type of data.
Base64 is an encoding that lets you represent any data as plain text. It can be easily be shown on the screen and useful in cases where binary data could be difficult to work with. For example, I could copy/paste the Base64 in the text field here but I won’t be able to do that with binary data. Also, Base64URL encoding is often used in HTTP URLs.
not only the source of yow pic is exposed, it also becomes over 30% bigger/heavier
const fileSelect = document.getElementById("fileSelect"),
fileElem = document.getElementById("fileElem"),
fileList = document.getElementById("fileList");
fileSelect.addEventListener("click", function (e) {
if (fileElem) {
fileElem.click();
}
e.preventDefault(); // prevent navigation to "#"
}, false);
fileElem.addEventListener("change", handleFiles, false);
function handleFiles() {
if (!this.files.length) {
fileList.innerHTML = "<p>No files selected!</p>";
} else {
fileList.innerHTML = "";
const list = document.createElement("ul");
fileList.appendChild(list);
for (let i = 0; i < this.files.length; i++) {
const li = document.createElement("li");
list.appendChild(li);
const image = document.createElement("img");
image.src = URL.createObjectURL(this.files[i]);
image.onload = function() {
image.setAttribute("src", this.result)
URL.revokeObjectURL(this.result);
}
li.appendChild(img);
const info = document.createElement("span");
li.appendChild(info);
}
}
}
<input type="file" id="fileElem" multiple accept="image/*" style="display:none">
<button type="button" id="fileSelect">Select some files</button>
<div id="fileList">
<p>No files selected!</p>
</div>
if you run the example and you right click on them images you'll see an url created, try to open it in another tab or so and you'll see the pic is unreachable
The second way is called Data URL, which allow embed small files inline in HTML/CSS, for example:
<img src="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAA
ANSUhEUgAAAAUAAAAFCAYAAACNbyblAAAAHElEQVQI12P4
//8/w38GIAXDIBKE0DHxgljNBAAO9TXL0Y4OHwAAAABJRU
5ErkJggg==" alt="Red dot" />
this method can effectively reduce network requests during web page loading progress.
In the follwing situations, Data URL is applicable:
embed small files in html to reduct reqeusts
embed all assets in a single html for archive purpose
load resource dynamically generated by server
The base64 way is just Data URL, in addition to these two methods:
SVG image can directly embed in HTML by <svg> tag
Image can also be dynamically rendered using <canvas> API
Recommand a book to you The definitive guide to HTML5.
First of all, if you want to show image on webpage than we have 2 ways for that
Set image web URL to img property
Set binary code to img property
Option 1 is used when you have stored image to your server folder as a file
Option 2 is used when you have stored image as binary base64 to your database so you retrieve as binary code only or else you have create image from your binary code and than set as per option 1
i've just try to resize image in javascript before upload using canvas. I follow the instruction here: https://hacks.mozilla.org/2011/01/how-to-develop-a-html5-image-uploader/.
When I scale the image to 1, which mean, follow the original width and height, the output size of the image is almost double the size of original image. Before that, when I readDataAsURL using FileReader, the output string length is bigger than the image size. How to use html canvas and FileReader correctly?
Thank you.
You could consider using Blobs instead. Data-URI in the browser uses Base-64 encoding which increase the size by 33%, and some change in form of a data-uri header.
To use blobs instead you will need to have in mind that the code becomes asynchronous. Also, there are no guarantee that the resulting image is smaller than the original due to the simple fact that the exported image from the browser is always in RGBA format, while the original PNG source image can be indexed, gray-scale, RGB only, have better compression and so forth.
In the case of FileReader you can use the File object directly with createObjectURL() bypassing the use of FileReader. A File object is basically a Blob with some extended information such as file name etc.
Example Reading Blob/File wo/FileReader
This assumes the input field uses changeHandler below to handle the event (and this example only handles a single file):
function changeHandler() {
var img = new Image();
img.onload = drawImageToCanvas;
img.src = (URL || webkitURL).createObjectURL(this.files[0]);
}
function drawImageToCanvas() {
// modify canvas size here if needed
ctx.drawImage(this, 0, 0); // draw image to canvas
// since we're async., continue from here (or use promises)
}
Example Blob Export (toBlob)
Exporting using blob:
canvas.toBlob(function(blob) {
// blob now contains the PNG file
// This code is called asynchronous, so continue from here.
}, "image/png");
You can now upload the blob instead which will be smaller compared to a Data-URL.
Some browsers may need a polyfill for toBlob() (or simply do a feature detect and use toDataURL() as a fallback in those browsers).
I can capture a full canvas with .todataurl without a problem. But I do not see or know if there is anyway to capture only a portion of the canvas and save that to image.
e.i. Mr. Potatohead script draws hats, hands feet faces etc etc. mixed all over the canvas and you can drag and drop them onto the mr potato in the center of the canvas. Press a button save the image of mr potato looking all spiffy to jpg for you. Without all the extra hats/feet/faces in the image.
I have resigned myself to the fact that this is impossible based on everything I've read. But you folks have proven to be smarter than google (or atleast google in my hands) a few times so i am taking a shot.
Sorry no code to post this time... unless you want this:
var canvas = document.getElementById("mrp");
var dataUrl = canvas.toDataURL();
window.open(dataUrl, "toDataURL() image", "width=800, height=600");
But that is just the example of dataurl i am working off of.. and it works outside of the fact it doesnt cap just the mr potato
My fallback is to pass the image to php and work with it there to cut out everything i dont want then pass it back.
EDIT
tmcw had a method for doing this. Not sure if its the way it SHOULD be done but it certainly works.
document.getElementById('grow').innerHTML="<canvas id='dtemp' ></canvas>";
var SecondaryCanvas = document.getElementById("dtemp");
var SecondaryCanvas_Context = SecondaryCanvas.getContext ("2d");
SecondaryCanvas_Context.canvas.width = 600;
SecondaryCanvas_Context.canvas.height = 600;
var img = new Image();
img.src = MainCanvas.toDataURL('image/png');
SecondaryCanvas_Context.drawImage(img, -400, -300);
var du = SecondaryCanvas.toDataURL();
window.open(du, "toDataURL() image", "width=600, height=600");
document.getElementById('grow').innerHTML="";
grow is an empty span tag, SecondaryCanvas is a var created just for this
SecondaryCanvas_Context is the getcontext of SecondaryCanvas
img created just to store the .toDataURL() of the main canvas containing the Mr. PotatoHead
drawImage with negative (-) offsets to move image of MainCanvas so that just the portion i want is showing.
Then cap the new canvas that was just created and open a new window with the .png
on and if you get an error from the script saying security err 18 its because you forgot to rename imgTop to img with the rest of the variables you copy pasted and chrome doesnt like it when you try to save local content images like that.
Here's a method that uses an off-screen canvas:
var canvas = document.createElement('canvas');
canvas.width = desiredWidth;
canvas.height = desiredHeight;
canvas.getContext('2d').drawImage(originalCanvas,x,y,w,h,0,0,desiredWidth, desiredHeight);
result = canvas.toDataURL()
Create a new Canvas object of a specific size, use drawImage to copy a specific part of your canvas to a specific area of the new one, and use toDataURL() on the new canvas.
A bit more efficient (and maybe a cleaner) way of extracting part of the image:
// x,y are position in the original canvas you want to take part of the image
// desiredWidth,desiredHeight is the size of the image you want to have
// get raw image data
var imageContentRaw = originalCanvas.getContext('2d').getImageData(x,y,desiredWidth,desiredHeight);
// create new canvas
var canvas = document.createElement('canvas');
// with the correct size
canvas.width = desiredWidth;
canvas.height = desiredHeight;
// put there raw image data
// expected to be faster as tere are no scaling, etc
canvas.getContext('2d').putImageData(imageContentRaw, 0, 0);
// get image data (encoded as bas64)
result = canvas.toDataURL("image/jpeg", 1.0)
you can give left,top,width and Height parameters to toDataURL function.. Here is the code to get data image depending on the object on canvas.
mainObj = "your desired Object"; // for example canvas._objects[0];
var image = canvas.toDataURL({ left: mainObj.left, top:mainObj.top,
width: mainObj.width*mainObj.scaleX, height: mainObj.height*mainObj.scaleY});
I have a Uint32Array I am trying to convert to a texture for WebGL. To do this I'm writing the array as RGBA values on a Canvas and getting a base64 encoded PNG from the canvas to send as a texture.
Whenever I set a pixel value to have an alpha of 0, the corresponding RGB channels are also zeroed upon conversion to a PNG. Is this an implementation detail? If I were to create PNGs in some other non-HTML5 program could I have an (RGBA) quadruplet of (255,255,255,0)? I tried using an alpha value of 1 and all other channels remain intact, so this is not an issue of premultiplied alpha.
Here is some javascript code to reproduce this effect:
var img = new Image();
var canvasObj = $('<canvas width="1" height="1"></canvas>');
var context = canvasObj[0].getContext('2d');
var imgd = context.getImageData(0,0,1,1);
var pix = imgd.data;
pix[0]=255; pix[1]=255; pix[2]=255; pix[3]=0;
context.putImageData(imgd,0,0);
img.src = canvasObj[0].toDataURL("image/png");
context.drawImage(img,0,0);
var imgd2 = context.getImageData(0,0,1,1);
var pix2 = imgd2.data;
pix2 will be all 0s.
Thanks!
It appears to be part of the PNG specification (http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/spec/1.2/png-1.2-pdg.html).
...fully transparent pixels should all be assigned the same
color value for best compression.
I couldn't find a direct source, but it seems like this particular implementation sets all the channels to zero.