Slice Android style 9-patch images, resize and preview them interactively.

See https://developer.android.com/tools/help/draw9patch.html for a 9-patch description.

Installation

If you want to use the interactive viewer read the additional installation notes under "Interactive viewer".

$ pip install ninepatch

Python usage

from ninepatch import Ninepatch
ninepatch = Ninepatch('ninepatch_bubble.9.png')
print(ninepatch.content_area)  # content_area(left=23, top=20, right=27, bottom=59)

# render the image to a specific size
scaled_image = ninepatch.render(500, 400) # creates a new PIL image

# render the image so it's content area fits (width, height)
image_fit = ninepatch.render_fit(300, 200)

# render the image so it wraps another PIL image
image_to_wrap = Image.open('image_to_wrap.png')
wrapped_image = ninepatch.render_wrap(image_to_wrap)

Command line usage

Your image must be a PNG image with a transparent background. The scale and fill guide color must be 100% opaque black.

Scale and open image in a viewer (PIL image.show()):

$ ninepatch render ninepatch_bubble.9.png 300 300

Save the scaled image to a new file:

$ ninepatch render ninepatch_bubble.9.png 300 300 scaled.png

Render an image so it's content area fits a given width and height

$ ninepatch fit ninepatch_bubble.9.png 150 150 fit.png

Render an image to include another image

$ ninepatch wrap ninepatch_bubble.9.png image_to_wrap.png wrapped.png

Slice the 9patch into tiles:

$ ninepatch slice ninepatch_bubble.9.png ./outputdir

Slice the 9patch and return a JSON reprensentation of the slicing data:

$ ninepatch info ninepatch_bubble.9.png

{
    "marks": {
        "fill": {
            "x": [
                23,
                231
            ],
            "y": [
                20,
                82
            ]
        },
        "scale": {
            "x": [
                [
                    49,
                    49
                ],
                [
                    89,
                    196
                ]
            ],
            "y": [
                [
                    42,
                    63
                ]
            ]
        }
    },
    "size": [
        258,
        141
    ]
}

Interactive viewer

Interactively resize and preview an image in a Tkinter viewer:

$ ninepatch_viewer ninepatch_bubble.9.png

or just:

$ ninepatch_viewer

without arguments to see the demo image

If you want to use the viewer then python-pil.imagetk has to be installed.

On Ubuntu do:

$ sudo apt-get install python-pil.imagetk

If you want to install into a virtualenv, pip needs the following packages to compile PIL with Tkinter support:

$  sudo apt-get install python-tk tk8.6-dev

(You can trigger a recompile of PIL with: "pip install -I ninepatch")

Changelog

0.2.0

: - allow 0-size tiles, now works with pillow >=10.0.0

0.1.22

: - fixed error that prevented the ninepatch_viewer to work

0.1.21

: - fixed bug in wrap()

0.1.20

: - new commands fit and wrap courtesy of Nicolas Laurance

0.1.19

: - fixed error in caching

0.1.18

: - optional caching for slice() and render()

0.1.17

: - new method export_slices() - changed command line parameters (render/slice)

...