Is it possible to make a gradient-transparent/layer masking image using canvas?
I've aded some code here: https://code.google.com/archive/p/canvasimagegradient/ that adds a drawImageGradient function to the CanvasRenderingContext2D. You can draw an image with a linear or radial gradient. It doesn't work in IE, even with excanvas, due to the lack of getImageData/putImageData support.
The following code for example will draw an image with a radial gradient (context retrieve and image load not shown):
var radGrad = ctx.createRadialGradient(
img.width / 2, img.height / 2, 10,
img.width / 2, img.height / 2, img.width/2);
radGrad.addColorStop(0, "transparent");
radGrad.addColorStop(1, "#000");
ctx.drawImageGradient(img, 112.5, 130, radGrad);
The code works as follows:
- Create a canvas element dynamically and draw the image on it.
- Retrieve the imageData for this new canvas.
- Retrieve the imageData for the location on the canvas you want to draw the image on to.
- Iterate through the destination imageData and update each pixel adding together a percentage (derived from the gradient transparency value) of the image and destination pixel values.
- Finally put the updated image data back onto the destination canvas.
Obviously performance is an issue as images get larger. The image on https://code.google.com/archive/p/canvasimagegradient/ it takes about 6-10ms to draw. A 1024x768 image takes about 100ms-250ms to draw. Still usable though as long as you're not animating.
To correctly merge two images using a transparency mask it's first necessary to take one of the two images and put it into an off screen canvas, and add the desired transparency mask using context.globalCompositeOperation = destination-out
per @Tommyka's answer
var offscreen = document.createElement('canvas'); // detached from DOM
var context = offscreen.getContext('2d');
context.drawImage(image1, 0, 0, image1.width, image1.height);
var gradient = context.createLinearGradient(0, 0, 0, img.height);
gradient.addColorStop(0, "rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.5)");
gradient.addColorStop(1, "rgba(255, 255, 255, 1.0)");
context.globalCompositeOperation = "destination-out";
context.fillStyle = gradient;
context.fillRect(0, 0, image1.width, image1.height);
Then, to actually merge the two images you then need to draw the other image into another canvas, and then simply draw the alpha-composited offscreen canvas on top of that:
var onscreen = document.getElementById('mycanvas');
var context2 = onscreen.getContext('2d');
context2.drawImage(image2, 0, 0, image2.width, image2.height);
context2.drawImage(offscreen, 0, 0, onscreen.width, onscreen.height);
Demo at http://jsfiddle.net/alnitak/rfdjoh31/4/
Its possible to use context.globalCompositeOperation to make the the mask
context.drawImage(img, 0, 0, img.width, img.height, 0,0, img.width, img.height);
context.globalCompositeOperation = "destination-out";
gradient = context.createLinearGradient(0, 0, 0, img.height);
gradient.addColorStop(0, "rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.5)");
gradient.addColorStop(1, "rgba(255, 255, 255, 1.0)");
context.fillStyle = gradient;
context.fillRect(0, 0, img.width, img.height);
This do not do per pixel manipulation and should be faster