Blur image on separated thread

In this example, it will show a way to muddle a photo from a photo gallery using another thread and the WorkletsCore library.

Example result

Requirements

We must have the react-native-fast-opencv and react-native-worklets-core libraries installed.
We have a way to handle image from gallery and get it in Base64 format. For this purpose, I used the react-native-image-picker (opens in a new tab) library.

Code

Let's start with a simple code that allows us to select an image from the gallery in Base64 format.

import { useState } from 'react';
import { Button, SafeAreaView, Text } from 'react-native';
import { launchImageLibrary, type Asset } from 'react-native-image-picker';
 
export function ImageExample() {
  const [photo, setPhoto] = useState<Asset | null>(null);
 
  const getImageFromGallery = async () => {
    const result = await launchImageLibrary({
      mediaType: 'photo',
      includeBase64: true,
    });
    setPhoto(result.assets?.at(0) || null);
  };
 
  return (
    <SafeAreaView style={{ backgroundColor: 'white', flex: 1 }}>
      <Button title="Select photo" onPress={getImageFromGallery} />
      <Button title="Process" onPress={() => null} />
    </SafeAreaView>
  );
}

The next step will be to create a function to save the result on the JS thread when the job is done.

const [result, setResult] = useState<string>('');
 
const setImage = useRunOnJS((data: string) => {
  setResult(data);
}, []);

Now we will create code that will allow us to perform an action on another thread:

const worklet = useWorklet('default', () => {
  'worklet';
  if (photo?.base64) {
    // ...
  }
});

Our goal is to apply a simple blur operation using the blur function. Then we convert the value to Base64 and display the image.

const src = OpenCV.base64ToMat(photo.base64);
const dst = OpenCV.createObject(ObjectType.Mat, 0, 0, DataTypes.CV_8U);
const kernel = OpenCV.createObject(ObjectType.Size, 1, 1);
const point = OpenCV.createObject(ObjectType.Point, 0, 0);
 
OpenCV.invoke(
  'blur',
  src,
  dst,
  kernel,
  point,
  BorderTypes.BORDER_DEFAULT
);
const dstResult = OpenCV.toJSValue(dst);
 
setImage(dstResult.base64);

IMPORTANT. Remember to remove objects from the memory buffer at the end.

OpenCV.clearBuffers(); // REMEMBER TO CLEAN

And ready we can now blur the photo.

Example result

Real-time detection