Layering transparent images using Image.Draw.image

MarcusRiemer

I am attempting to stack multiple PNG images with transparency on top of each other. These are pixel art images for game characters and should work similar to “dressing” a paper doll. The pixels in my images are either fully transparent or fully opaque, there is no “partial” transparency going on.

I’m more or less porting code from a JavaScript canvas to a Phoenix Controller generating the image on the fly.

defmodule RenderCharacterController do
  use Web, :controller

  def get(conn, params) do
    result_image = Image.new!(832, 1344, color: [0, 0, 0, 0])

    gender = Map.get(params, "gender", "male")

    layers = [
      Image.open!("priv/static/lpc/body/#{gender}/light.png"),
      Image.open!("priv/static/lpc/head/#{gender}/light.png"),
      Image.open!("priv/static/lpc/hair/buzzcut/adult/blue.png"),
      Image.open!("priv/static/lpc/torso/longsleeve/#{gender}/red.png")
    ]

    result_image = Enum.reduce(layers, result_image, & Image.Draw.image!(&2, &1, 0, 0, mode: :VIPS_COMBINE_MODE_ADD))
    binary = Image.write!(result_image, :memory, suffix: ".png", minimize_file_size: true)

    conn
    |> put_resp_content_type("image/png")
    |> send_resp(200, binary)
  end

end

The result is however not what I expected. I’m sadly not allowed to upload images, so please bare with to imgur. You can also see them all at once: https://imgur.com/a/1kyhcWe

Combining body and head `works fine, these images have no overlap: https://imgur.com/0mNKRYm
For reference, this is the red shirt that should be overlayed: https://imgur.com/kFlYdGS
For reference, this is blue hair that should be overlayed: https://imgur.com/5aim1s2
The result has however very white colours and the body shines through: https://imgur.com/l0jRDYs

So clearly :VIPS_COMBINE_MODE_ADD is not the correct way to blend / draw transparent images on top of each other like a JavaScript Canvas would do. The only other mode is however :VIPS_COMBINE_MODE_SET and this ignores transparency and completely hides the first image behind the second image. I would require something along the line of :VIPS_COMBINE_MODE_SET_UNLESS_FULLY_TRANSPARENT.

Does anyone have an idea how to stack images like this using the Image library? Or any other library for that matter.

3 comments

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2025-03-12 09:55:27 UTC

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kip

ex_cldr Core Team

The appropriate way to do this is to use Image.compose/2.

The Image.Draw functions should be avoided since they mutate the image and break image pipelines.

(On my phone, will aim for a more comprehensive example later).

Post #1

kip

ex_cldr Core Team

There are some examples of how to compose here: Image - an image processing library based upon Vix - #17 by kip

Post #2

MarcusRiemer

Thanks alot! Swapping out the call made all the difference I wanted. If you are stumbling over this from the future, this is what worked for me:

layers = [
  Image.open!("priv/static/lpc/body/#{gender}/light.png"),
  Image.open!("priv/static/lpc/head/#{gender}/light.png"),
  Image.open!("priv/static/lpc/hair/buzzcut/adult/blue.png"),
  Image.open!("priv/static/lpc/torso/longsleeve/#{gender}/red.png")
]

result_image = Enum.reduce(layers, result_image, & Image.compose!(&2, &1, x: 0, y: 0))

Post #3

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