pygame.Surface
pygame object for representing images
Surface((width, height), flags=0, depth=0, masks=None) -> Surface
Surface((width, height), flags=0, Surface) -> Surface
draw another surface onto this one
draw many images onto another
draw many surfaces onto the calling surface at their corresponding location and the same special_flags
change the pixel format of an image
change the pixel format of an image including per pixel alphas
create a new copy of a Surface
fill Surface with a solid color
Shift the surface image in place
Set the transparent colorkey
Get the current transparent colorkey
set the alpha value for the full Surface image
get the current Surface transparency value
lock the Surface memory for pixel access
unlock the Surface memory from pixel access
test if the Surface requires locking
test if the Surface is current locked
Gets the locks for the Surface
get the color value at a single pixel
set the color value for a single pixel
get the mapped color value at a single pixel
get the color index palette for an 8-bit Surface
get the color for a single entry in a palette
set the color palette for an 8-bit Surface
set the color for a single index in an 8-bit Surface palette
convert a color into a mapped color value
convert a mapped integer color value into a Color
set the current clipping area of the Surface
get the current clipping area of the Surface
create a new surface that references its parent
find the parent of a subsurface
find the top level parent of a subsurface
find the position of a child subsurface inside a parent
find the absolute position of a child subsurface inside its top level parent
get the dimensions of the Surface
get the width of the Surface
get the height of the Surface
get the rectangular area of the Surface
get the rectangular area of the Surface
get the bit depth of the Surface pixel format
get the bytes used per Surface pixel
get the additional flags used for the Surface
get the number of bytes used per Surface row
the bitmasks needed to convert between a color and a mapped integer
set the bitmasks needed to convert between a color and a mapped integer
the bit shifts needed to convert between a color and a mapped integer
sets the bit shifts needed to convert between a color and a mapped integer
the significant bits used to convert between a color and a mapped integer
find the smallest rect containing data
return a buffer view of the Surface's pixels.
acquires a buffer object for the pixels of the Surface.
pixel buffer address
returns a copy of the surface with the RGB channels pre-multiplied by the alpha channel.

A pygame Surface is used to represent any image. The Surface has a fixed resolution and pixel format. Surfaces with 8-bit pixels use a color palette to map to 24-bit color.

Call pygame.Surface()pygame object for representing images to create a new image object. The Surface will be cleared to all black. The only required arguments are the sizes. With no additional arguments, the Surface will be created in a format that best matches the display Surface.

The pixel format can be controlled by passing the bit depth or an existing Surface. The flags argument is a bitmask of additional features for the surface. You can pass any combination of these flags:

HWSURFACE    (obsolete in pygame 2) creates the image in video memory
SRCALPHA     the pixel format will include a per-pixel alpha

Both flags are only a request, and may not be possible for all displays and formats.

Advance users can combine a set of bitmasks with a depth value. The masks are a set of 4 integers representing which bits in a pixel will represent each color. Normal Surfaces should not require the masks argument.

Surfaces can have many extra attributes like alpha planes, colorkeys, source rectangle clipping. These functions mainly effect how the Surface is blitted to other Surfaces. The blit routines will attempt to use hardware acceleration when possible, otherwise they will use highly optimized software blitting methods.

There are three types of transparency supported in pygame: colorkeys, surface alphas, and pixel alphas. Surface alphas can be mixed with colorkeys, but an image with per pixel alphas cannot use the other modes. Colorkey transparency makes a single color value transparent. Any pixels matching the colorkey will not be drawn. The surface alpha value is a single value that changes the transparency for the entire image. A surface alpha of 255 is opaque, and a value of 0 is completely transparent.

Per pixel alphas are different because they store a transparency value for every pixel. This allows for the most precise transparency effects, but it also the slowest. Per pixel alphas cannot be mixed with surface alpha and colorkeys.

There is support for pixel access for the Surfaces. Pixel access on hardware surfaces is slow and not recommended. Pixels can be accessed using the get_at() and set_at() functions. These methods are fine for simple access, but will be considerably slow when doing of pixel work with them. If you plan on doing a lot of pixel level work, it is recommended to use a pygame.PixelArraypygame object for direct pixel access of surfaces, which gives an array like view of the surface. For involved mathematical manipulations try the pygame.surfarraypygame module for accessing surface pixel data using array interfaces module (It's quite quick, but requires NumPy.)

Any functions that directly access a surface's pixel data will need that surface to be lock()'ed. These functions can lock() and unlock() the surfaces themselves without assistance. But, if a function will be called many times, there will be a lot of overhead for multiple locking and unlocking of the surface. It is best to lock the surface manually before making the function call many times, and then unlocking when you are finished. All functions that need a locked surface will say so in their docs. Remember to leave the Surface locked only while necessary.

Surface pixels are stored internally as a single number that has all the colors encoded into it. Use the map_rgb() and unmap_rgb() to convert between individual red, green, and blue values into a packed integer for that Surface.

Surfaces can also reference sections of other Surfaces. These are created with the subsurface() method. Any change to either Surface will effect the other.

Each Surface contains a clipping area. By default the clip area covers the entire Surface. If it is changed, all drawing operations will only effect the smaller area.

blit()
draw another surface onto this one
blit(source, dest, area=None, special_flags=0) -> Rect

Draws another Surface onto this Surface.

Parameters
  • source

    The Surface object to draw onto this Surface. If it has transparency, transparent pixels will be ignored when blittting to an 8-bit Surface.

  • dest

    The source draw position onto this Surface. It can be a coordinate (x, y) or a Rect (using its top-left corner). If a Rect is passed, its size will not affect the blit.

  • area (optional)

    The rectangular portion of the source to draw. It can be a Rect object representing that section. If None or not provided, the entire source surface will be drawn. If the Rect has negative position, the final blit position will be dest - Rect.topleft.

  • special_flags (optional)

    Controls how the colors of the source are combined with this Surface. If not provided it defaults to BLENDMODE_NONE (0). See special flags for a list of possible values.

Return

A pygame.Rectpygame object for storing rectangular coordinates object representing the affected area of this Surface that was modified by the blit operation. This area includes only the pixels within this Surface or its clipping area (see set_clip()). Generally you don't need to use this return value, as it was initially designed to pass it to pygame.display.update()Update all, or a portion, of the display. For non-OpenGL displays. to optimize the updating of the display. Since modern computers are fast enough to update the entire display at high speeds, this return value is rarely used nowadays.

Example Use
# create a surface of size 50x50 and fill it with red color
red_surf = pygame.Surface((50, 50))
red_surf.fill("red")

# draw the surface on another surface at position (0, 0)
another_surface.blit(red_surf, (0, 0))
Notes
  • When self-blitting and there is a colorkey or alpha transparency set, resulting colors may appear slightly different compared to a non-self blit.

  • The blit is ignored if the source is positioned completely outside this Surface's clipping area. Otherwise only the overlapping area will be drawn.

blits()
draw many images onto another
blits(blit_sequence=((source, dest), ...), doreturn=True) -> [Rect, ...] or None
blits(((source, dest, area), ...)) -> [Rect, ...]
blits(((source, dest, area, special_flags), ...)) -> [Rect, ...]

The blits method efficiently draws a sequence of surfaces onto this Surface.

Parameters

blit_sequence

A sequence that contains each surface to be drawn along with its associated blit arguments. See the Sequence Item Formats section below for the possible formats.

doreturn (optional)

The doreturn parameter controls the return value. When set to True, it returns a list of rectangles representing the changed areas. When set to False, returns None.

Return

A list of rectangles or None.

Sequence Item Formats

(source, dest)
  • source: Surface object to be drawn.

  • dest: Position where the source Surface should be blitted.

(source, dest, area)
  • area: (optional) Specific area of the source Surface to be drawn.

(source, dest, area, special_flags)
  • special_flags: (optional) Controls the blending mode for drawing colors. See special flags for a list of possible values.

Notes

  • blits is an advanced method. It is recommended to read the documentation of blit() first.

  • To draw a Surface with a special flag, you must specify an area as well, e.g., (source, dest, None, special_flags).

  • Prefer using blits() over blit() when drawing a multiple images for better performance. Use blit() if you need to draw a single image.

  • For drawing a sequence of (source, dest) pairs with whole source Surface and a singular special_flag, use the fblits() method.

New in pygame 1.9.4.

fblits()
draw many surfaces onto the calling surface at their corresponding location and the same special_flags
fblits(blit_sequence=((source, dest), ...), special_flags=0, /) -> None

This method takes a sequence of tuples (source, dest) as input, where source is a Surface object and dest is its destination position on this Surface. It draws each source Surface fully (meaning that unlike blit() you cannot pass an "area" parameter to represent a smaller portion of the source Surface to draw) on this Surface with the same blending mode specified by special_flags. The sequence must have at least one (source, dest) pair.

Parameters:
  • blit_sequence -- a sequence of (source, dest)

  • special_flags -- the flag(s) representing the blend mode used for each surface. See special flags for a list of possible values.

Returns:

None

Note

This method only accepts a sequence of (source, dest) pairs and a single special_flags value that's applied to all surfaces drawn. This allows faster iteration over the sequence and better performance over blits(). Further optimizations are applied if blit_sequence is a list or a tuple (using one of them is recommended).

New in pygame-ce 2.1.4.

convert()
change the pixel format of an image
convert(surface, /) -> Surface
convert(depth, flags=0, /) -> Surface
convert(masks, flags=0, /) -> Surface
convert() -> Surface

Creates a new copy of the Surface with the pixel format changed. The new pixel format can be determined from another existing Surface. Otherwise depth, flags, and masks arguments can be used, similar to the pygame.Surface()pygame object for representing images call.

If no arguments are passed the new Surface will have the same pixel format as the display Surface. This is always the fastest format for blitting. It is a good idea to convert all Surfaces before they are blitted many times.

The converted Surface will have no pixel alphas. They will be stripped if the original had them. See convert_alpha() for preserving or creating per-pixel alphas.

The new copy will have the same class as the copied surface. This lets as Surface subclass inherit this method without the need to override, unless subclass specific instance attributes also need copying.

convert_alpha()
change the pixel format of an image including per pixel alphas
convert_alpha() -> Surface

Creates a new copy of the surface with the desired pixel format. The new surface will be in a format suited for quick blitting to the display surface with per pixel alpha.

Unlike the convert() method, the pixel format for the new image will not be exactly the same as the display surface, but it will be optimized for fast alpha blitting to it.

As with convert() the returned surface has the same class as the converted surface.

Changed in pygame-ce 2.4.0: 'Surface' argument deprecated.

copy()
create a new copy of a Surface
copy() -> Surface

Makes a duplicate copy of a Surface. The new surface will have the same pixel formats, color palettes, transparency settings, and class as the original. If a Surface subclass also needs to copy any instance specific attributes then it should override copy(). Shallow copy and deepcopy are supported, Surface implements __copy__ and __deepcopy__ respectively.

New in pygame-ce 2.3.1: Added support for deepcopy by implementing __deepcopy__, calls copy() internally.

fill()
fill Surface with a solid color
fill(color, rect=None, special_flags=0) -> Rect

Fill the Surface with a solid color. If no rect argument is given the entire Surface will be filled. The rect argument will limit the fill to a specific area. The fill will also be contained by the Surface clip area.

The color argument can be an RGB sequence, an RGBA sequence, a string (for Named Colors), or a mapped color index. If using RGBA, the Alpha (A part of RGBA) is ignored unless the surface uses per pixel alpha (Surface has the SRCALPHA flag).

The special_flags argument controls how the colors are combined. See special flags for a list of possible values.

This will return the affected Surface area.

scroll()
Shift the surface image in place
scroll(dx=0, dy=0, /) -> None

Move the image by dx pixels right and dy pixels down. dx and dy may be negative for left and up scrolls respectively. Areas of the surface that are not overwritten retain their original pixel values. Scrolling is contained by the Surface clip area. It is safe to have dx and dy values that exceed the surface size.

New in pygame 1.9.

set_colorkey()
Set the transparent colorkey
set_colorkey(color, flags=0, /) -> None
set_colorkey(None) -> None

Set the current color key for the Surface. When blitting this Surface onto a destination, any pixels that have the same color as the colorkey will be transparent. The color can be an RGB color, a string (for Named Colors), or a mapped color integer. If None is passed, the colorkey will be unset.

The colorkey will be ignored if the Surface is formatted to use per pixel alpha values. The colorkey can be mixed with the full Surface alpha value.

The optional flags argument can be set to pygame.RLEACCEL to provide better performance on non accelerated displays. An RLEACCEL Surface will be slower to modify, but quicker to blit as a source.

get_colorkey()
Get the current transparent colorkey
get_colorkey() -> RGB or None

Return the current colorkey value for the Surface. If the colorkey is not set then None is returned.

set_alpha()
set the alpha value for the full Surface image
set_alpha(value, flags=0, /) -> None
set_alpha(None) -> None

Set the current alpha value for the Surface. When blitting this Surface onto a destination, the pixels will be drawn slightly transparent. The alpha value is an integer from 0 to 255, 0 is fully transparent and 255 is fully opaque. If None is passed for the alpha value, then alpha blending will be disabled, including per-pixel alpha.

This value is different than the per pixel Surface alpha. For a surface with per pixel alpha, blanket alpha is ignored and None is returned.

Changed in pygame 2.0: per-surface alpha can be combined with per-pixel alpha.

The optional flags argument can be set to pygame.RLEACCEL to provide better performance on non accelerated displays. An RLEACCEL Surface will be slower to modify, but quicker to blit as a source.

get_alpha()
get the current Surface transparency value
get_alpha() -> int_value

Return the current alpha value for the Surface.

lock()
lock the Surface memory for pixel access
lock() -> None

Lock the pixel data of a Surface for access. On accelerated Surfaces, the pixel data may be stored in volatile video memory or nonlinear compressed forms. When a Surface is locked the pixel memory becomes available to access by regular software. Code that reads or writes pixel values will need the Surface to be locked.

Surfaces should not remain locked for more than necessary. A locked Surface can often not be displayed or managed by pygame.

Not all Surfaces require locking. The mustlock() method can determine if it is actually required. There is no performance penalty for locking and unlocking a Surface that does not need it.

All pygame functions will automatically lock and unlock the Surface data as needed. If a section of code is going to make calls that will repeatedly lock and unlock the Surface many times, it can be helpful to wrap the block inside a lock and unlock pair.

It is safe to nest locking and unlocking calls. The surface will only be unlocked after the final lock is released.

unlock()
unlock the Surface memory from pixel access
unlock() -> None

Unlock the Surface pixel data after it has been locked. The unlocked Surface can once again be drawn and managed by pygame. See the lock() documentation for more details.

All pygame functions will automatically lock and unlock the Surface data as needed. If a section of code is going to make calls that will repeatedly lock and unlock the Surface many times, it can be helpful to wrap the block inside a lock and unlock pair.

It is safe to nest locking and unlocking calls. The surface will only be unlocked after the final lock is released.

mustlock()
test if the Surface requires locking
mustlock() -> bool

Returns True if the Surface is required to be locked to access pixel data. Usually pure software Surfaces do not require locking. This method is rarely needed, since it is safe and quickest to just lock all Surfaces as needed.

All pygame functions will automatically lock and unlock the Surface data as needed. If a section of code is going to make calls that will repeatedly lock and unlock the Surface many times, it can be helpful to wrap the block inside a lock and unlock pair.

get_locked()
test if the Surface is current locked
get_locked() -> bool

Returns True when the Surface is locked. It doesn't matter how many times the Surface is locked.

get_locks()
Gets the locks for the Surface
get_locks() -> tuple

Returns the currently existing locks for the Surface.

get_at()
get the color value at a single pixel
get_at((x, y), /) -> Color

Return a copy of the RGBA Color value at the given pixel. If the Surface has no per pixel alpha, then the alpha value will always be 255 (opaque). If the pixel position is outside the area of the Surface an IndexError exception will be raised.

Getting and setting pixels one at a time is generally too slow to be used in a game or realtime situation. It is better to use methods which operate on many pixels at a time like with the blit, fill and draw methods - or by using pygame.surfarraypygame module for accessing surface pixel data using array interfaces/pygame.PixelArraypygame object for direct pixel access of surfaces.

This function will temporarily lock and unlock the Surface as needed.

Changed in pygame-ce 2.3.1: can now also accept both float coordinates and Vector2s for pixels.

Returning a Color instead of tuple. Use tuple(surf.get_at((x,y))) if you want a tuple, and not a Color. This should only matter if you want to use the color as a key in a dict.

New in pygame 1.9.

set_at()
set the color value for a single pixel
set_at((x, y), color, /) -> None

Set the color of a single pixel at the specified coordinates to be an RGB, RGBA, string (for Named Colors), or mapped integer color value. If the Surface does not have per pixel alphas, the alpha value is ignored. Setting pixels outside the Surface area or outside the Surface clipping will have no effect.

Getting and setting pixels one at a time is generally too slow to be used in a game or realtime situation.

This function will temporarily lock and unlock the Surface as needed.

Note

If the surface is palettized, the pixel color will be set to the most similar color in the palette.

Changed in pygame-ce 2.3.1: can now also accept both float coordinates and Vector2s for pixels.

get_at_mapped()
get the mapped color value at a single pixel
get_at_mapped((x, y), /) -> Color

Return the integer value of the given pixel. If the pixel position is outside the area of the Surface an IndexError exception will be raised.

This method is intended for pygame unit testing. It unlikely has any use in an application.

This function will temporarily lock and unlock the Surface as needed.

New in pygame 1.9.2.

Changed in pygame-ce 2.3.1: can now also accept both float coordinates and Vector2s for pixels.

get_palette()
get the color index palette for an 8-bit Surface
get_palette() -> [RGB, RGB, RGB, ...]

Return a list of up to 256 color elements that represent the indexed colors used in an 8-bit Surface. The returned list is a copy of the palette, and changes will have no effect on the Surface.

Returning a list of Color(with length 3) instances instead of tuples.

New in pygame 1.9.

get_palette_at()
get the color for a single entry in a palette
get_palette_at(index, /) -> RGB

Returns the red, green, and blue color values for a single index in a Surface palette. The index should be a value from 0 to 255.

New in pygame 1.9: Returning Color(with length 3) instance instead of a tuple.

set_palette()
set the color palette for an 8-bit Surface
set_palette([RGB, RGB, RGB, ...], /) -> None

Set the full palette for an 8-bit Surface. This will replace the colors in the existing palette. A partial palette can be passed and only the first colors in the original palette will be changed.

This function has no effect on a Surface with more than 8-bits per pixel.

set_palette_at()
set the color for a single index in an 8-bit Surface palette
set_palette_at(index, RGB, /) -> None

Set the palette value for a single entry in a Surface palette. The index should be a value from 0 to 255.

This function has no effect on a Surface with more than 8-bits per pixel.

map_rgb()
convert a color into a mapped color value
map_rgb(color, /) -> mapped_int

Convert an RGBA color into the mapped integer value for this Surface. The returned integer will contain no more bits than the bit depth of the Surface. Mapped color values are not often used inside pygame, but can be passed to most functions that require a Surface and a color.

See the Surface object documentation for more information about colors and pixel formats.

unmap_rgb()
convert a mapped integer color value into a Color
unmap_rgb(mapped_int, /) -> Color

Convert an mapped integer color into the RGB color components for this Surface. Mapped color values are not often used inside pygame, but can be passed to most functions that require a Surface and a color.

See the Surface object documentation for more information about colors and pixel formats.

set_clip()
set the current clipping area of the Surface
set_clip(rect, /) -> None
set_clip(None) -> None

Each Surface has an active clipping area. This is a rectangle that represents the only pixels on the Surface that can be modified. If None is passed for the rectangle the full Surface will be available for changes.

The clipping area is always restricted to the area of the Surface itself. If the clip rectangle is too large it will be shrunk to fit inside the Surface.

get_clip()
get the current clipping area of the Surface
get_clip() -> Rect

Return a rectangle of the current clipping area. The Surface will always return a valid rectangle that will never be outside the bounds of the image. If the Surface has had None set for the clipping area, the Surface will return a rectangle with the full area of the Surface.

subsurface()
create a new surface that references its parent
subsurface(rect, /) -> Surface

Returns a new Surface that shares its pixels with its new parent. The new Surface is considered a child of the original. Modifications to either Surface pixels will effect each other. Surface information like clipping area and color keys are unique to each Surface.

The new Surface will inherit the palette, color key, and alpha settings from its parent.

It is possible to have any number of subsurfaces and subsubsurfaces on the parent. It is also possible to subsurface the display Surface if the display mode is not hardware accelerated.

See get_offset() and get_parent() to learn more about the state of a subsurface.

A subsurface will have the same class as the parent surface.

get_parent()
find the parent of a subsurface
get_parent() -> Surface

Returns the parent Surface of a subsurface. If this is not a subsurface then None will be returned.

get_abs_parent()
find the top level parent of a subsurface
get_abs_parent() -> Surface

Returns the parent Surface of a subsurface. If this is not a subsurface then this surface will be returned.

get_offset()
find the position of a child subsurface inside a parent
get_offset() -> (x, y)

Get the offset position of a child subsurface inside of a parent. If the Surface is not a subsurface this will return (0, 0).

get_abs_offset()
find the absolute position of a child subsurface inside its top level parent
get_abs_offset() -> (x, y)

Get the offset position of a child subsurface inside of its top level parent Surface. If the Surface is not a subsurface this will return (0, 0).

get_size()
get the dimensions of the Surface
get_size() -> (width, height)

Return the width and height of the Surface in pixels.

get_width()
get the width of the Surface
get_width() -> width

Return the width of the Surface in pixels.

get_height()
get the height of the Surface
get_height() -> height

Return the height of the Surface in pixels.

get_rect()
get the rectangular area of the Surface
get_rect(**kwargs) -> Rect

Returns a new rectangle covering the entire surface. This rectangle will always start at (0, 0) with a width and height the same size as the image.

You can pass keyword argument values to this function. These named values will be applied to the attributes of the Rect before it is returned. An example would be mysurf.get_rect(center=(100, 100)) to create a rectangle for the Surface centered at a given position.

get_frect()
get the rectangular area of the Surface
get_frect(**kwargs) -> FRect

This is the same as Surface.get_rect() but returns an FRect. FRect is similar to Rect, except it stores float values instead.

You can pass keyword argument values to this function. These named values will be applied to the attributes of the FRect before it is returned. An example would be mysurf.get_frect(center=(100.5, 100.5)) to create a rectangle for the Surface centered at a given position.

get_bitsize()
get the bit depth of the Surface pixel format
get_bitsize() -> int

Returns the number of bits used to represent each pixel. This value may not exactly fill the number of bytes used per pixel. For example a 15 bit Surface still requires a full 2 bytes.

get_bytesize()
get the bytes used per Surface pixel
get_bytesize() -> int

Return the number of bytes used per pixel.

get_flags()
get the additional flags used for the Surface
get_flags() -> int

Returns a set of current Surface features. Each feature is a bit in the flags bitmask. Typical flags are RLEACCEL, SRCALPHA, and SRCCOLORKEY.

Here is a more complete list of flags. A full list can be found in SDL_video.h

SWSURFACE      0x00000000    # Surface is in system memory
HWSURFACE      0x00000001    # (obsolete in pygame 2) Surface is in video memory
ASYNCBLIT      0x00000004    # (obsolete in pygame 2) Use asynchronous blits if possible

See pygame.display.set_mode()Initialize a window or screen for display for flags exclusive to the display surface.

Used internally (read-only)

HWACCEL        0x00000100    # Blit uses hardware acceleration
SRCCOLORKEY    0x00001000    # Blit uses a source color key
RLEACCELOK     0x00002000    # Private flag
RLEACCEL       0x00004000    # Surface is RLE encoded
SRCALPHA       0x00010000    # Blit uses source alpha blending
PREALLOC       0x01000000    # Surface uses preallocated memory
get_pitch()
get the number of bytes used per Surface row
get_pitch() -> int

Return the number of bytes separating each row in the Surface. Surfaces in video memory are not always linearly packed. Subsurfaces will also have a larger pitch than their real width.

This value is not needed for normal pygame usage.

get_masks()
the bitmasks needed to convert between a color and a mapped integer
get_masks() -> (R, G, B, A)

Returns the bitmasks used to isolate each color in a mapped integer.

This value is not needed for normal pygame usage.

set_masks()
set the bitmasks needed to convert between a color and a mapped integer
set_masks((r, g, b, a), /) -> None

This is not needed for normal pygame usage.

Note

Starting in pygame 2.0, the masks are read-only and accordingly this method will raise a TypeError if called.

Deprecated since pygame 2.0.0.

New in pygame 1.8.1.

get_shifts()
the bit shifts needed to convert between a color and a mapped integer
get_shifts() -> (R, G, B, A)

Returns the pixel shifts need to convert between each color and a mapped integer.

This value is not needed for normal pygame usage.

set_shifts()
sets the bit shifts needed to convert between a color and a mapped integer
set_shifts((r, g, b, a), /) -> None

This is not needed for normal pygame usage.

Note

Starting in pygame 2.0, the shifts are read-only and accordingly this method will raise a TypeError if called.

Deprecated since pygame 2.0.0.

New in pygame 1.8.1.

get_losses()
the significant bits used to convert between a color and a mapped integer
get_losses() -> (R, G, B, A)

Return the least significant number of bits stripped from each color in a mapped integer.

This value is not needed for normal pygame usage.

get_bounding_rect()
find the smallest rect containing data
get_bounding_rect(min_alpha = 1) -> Rect

Returns the smallest rectangular region that contains all the pixels in the surface that have an alpha value greater than or equal to the minimum alpha value.

This function will temporarily lock and unlock the Surface as needed.

New in pygame 1.8.

get_view()
return a buffer view of the Surface's pixels.
get_view(kind='2', /) -> BufferProxy

Return an object which exports a surface's internal pixel buffer as a C level array struct, Python level array interface or a C level buffer interface. The new buffer protocol is supported.

The kind argument is the length 1 string '0', '1', '2', '3', 'r', 'g', 'b', or 'a'. The letters are case insensitive; 'A' will work as well. The argument can be either a Unicode or byte (char) string. The default is '2'.

'0' returns a contiguous unstructured bytes view. No surface shape information is given. A ValueError is raised if the surface's pixels are discontinuous.

'1' returns a (surface-width * surface-height) array of continuous pixels. A ValueError is raised if the surface pixels are discontinuous.

'2' returns a (surface-width, surface-height) array of raw pixels. The pixels are surface-bytesize-d unsigned integers. The pixel format is surface specific. The 3 byte unsigned integers of 24 bit surfaces are unlikely accepted by anything other than other pygame functions.

'3' returns a (surface-width, surface-height, 3) array of RGB color components. Each of the red, green, and blue components are unsigned bytes. Only 24-bit and 32-bit surfaces are supported. The color components must be in either RGB or BGR order within the pixel.

'r' for red, 'g' for green, 'b' for blue, and 'a' for alpha return a (surface-width, surface-height) view of a single color component within a surface: a color plane. Color components are unsigned bytes. Both 24-bit and 32-bit surfaces support 'r', 'g', and 'b'. Only 32-bit surfaces with SRCALPHA support 'a'.

The surface is locked only when an exposed interface is accessed. For new buffer interface accesses, the surface is unlocked once the last buffer view is released. For array interface and old buffer interface accesses, the surface remains locked until the BufferProxy object is released.

New in pygame 1.9.2.

get_buffer()
acquires a buffer object for the pixels of the Surface.
get_buffer() -> BufferProxy

Return a buffer object for the pixels of the Surface. The buffer can be used for direct pixel access and manipulation. Surface pixel data is represented as an unstructured block of memory, with a start address and length in bytes. The data need not be contiguous. Any gaps are included in the length, but otherwise ignored.

This method implicitly locks the Surface. The lock will be released when the returned pygame.BufferProxypygame object to export a surface buffer through an array protocol object is garbage collected.

New in pygame 1.8.

_pixels_address
pixel buffer address
_pixels_address -> int

The starting address of the surface's raw pixel bytes.

New in pygame 1.9.2.

premul_alpha()
returns a copy of the surface with the RGB channels pre-multiplied by the alpha channel.
premul_alpha() -> Surface

Returns a copy of the initial surface with the red, green and blue color channels multiplied by the alpha channel. This is intended to make it easier to work with the BLEND_PREMULTIPLED blend mode flag of the blit() method. Surfaces which have called this method will only look correct after blitting if the BLEND_PREMULTIPLED special flag is used.

It is worth noting that after calling this method, methods that return the colour of a pixel such as get_at() will return the alpha multiplied colour values. It is not possible to fully reverse an alpha multiplication of the colours in a surface as integer colour channel data is generally reduced by the operation (e.g. 255 x 0 = 0, from there it is not possible to reconstruct the original 255 from just the two remaining zeros in the colour and alpha channels).

If you call this method, and then call it again, it will multiply the colour channels by the alpha channel twice. There are many possible ways to obtain a surface with the colour channels pre-multiplied by the alpha channel in pygame, and it is not possible to tell the difference just from the information in the pixels. It is completely possible to have two identical surfaces - one intended for pre-multiplied alpha blending and one intended for normal blending. For this reason we do not store state on surfaces intended for pre-multiplied alpha blending.

Surfaces without an alpha channel cannot use this method and will return an error if you use it on them. It is best used on 32 bit surfaces (the default on most platforms) as the blitting on these surfaces can be accelerated by SIMD versions of the pre-multiplied blitter.

In general pre-multiplied alpha blitting is faster then 'straight alpha' blitting and produces superior results when blitting an alpha surface onto another surface with alpha - assuming both surfaces contain pre-multiplied alpha colours.

There is a tutorial on premultiplied alpha blending here. <tutorials/en/premultiplied-alpha>

New in pygame-ce 2.1.4.




Edit on GitHub