Images

Use this component to store graphical images on the device, you can then draw the images on compatible displays.

For showing images downloaded at runtime, take a look at the Online Image component.

image:
  - file: "image.png"
    type: binary
    id: my_image
    resize: 100x100

image:
  - file: mdi:alert-outline
    id: alert
    type: grayscale
    transparency: alpha_channel
    resize: 80x80

image:
  - file: https://esphome.io/_images/logo.png
    type: rgb565
    id: esphome_logo
    resize: 200x162

Configuration variables:

  • file (Required, string):

    • Local files: The path (relative to where the .yaml file is) of the image file.

    • Material Design Icons: Specify the Material Design Icon id in the format mdi:icon-name, and that icon will automatically be downloaded and added to the configuration.

    • Remote files: The URL of the image file.

  • id (Required, ID): The ID with which you will be able to reference the image later in your display code.

  • resize (Optional, string): If set, this will resize the image to fit inside the given dimensions WIDTHxHEIGHT and preserve the aspect ratio.

  • type (Required): Specifies how to encode image internally.

    • BINARY: Two colors, suitable for 1 color displays or 2 color image in color displays. Uses 1 bit per pixel, 8 pixels per byte. Only chroma_key transparency is available.

    • GRAYSCALE: Full scale grey. Uses 8 bits per pixel, 1 pixel per byte.

    • RGB565: Lossy RGB color stored. Uses 2 bytes per pixel, 3 with an alpha channel.

    • RGB: Full RGB color stored. Uses 3 bytes per pixel, 4 with an alpha channel.

  • transparency (Optional): If set the alpha channel of the input image will be taken into account. The possible values are opaque (default), chroma_key and alpha_channel. See discussion on transparency below.

  • dither (Optional): Specifies which dither method used to process the image, only used in GRAYSCALE and BINARY type image. Defaults to NONE. You can read more about it here and here.

    • NONE: Every pixel converts to its nearest color.

    • FLOYDSTEINBERG: Uses Floyd-Steinberg dither to approximate the original image luminosity levels.

Note

To use images you will need to have the python pillow package installed. Additionally, if you want to use SVG images (including MDI images), you will additionally need to have the python cairosvg package installed. These are automatically installed when setting up ESPHome via the usual methods.

Grouping images by type

You can group images by type to make it easier to manage them. This is useful when you have a lot of images to be encoded in the same way, and avoids having to repeat the same type for each image. The type name is used as the key for the group. For example:

image:
  grayscale:
    - file: "image1.png"
      id: image1
    - file: "image2.png"
      id: image2
    - file: "image3.png"
      id: image3

  rgb565:
    - file: "image4.png"
      id: image4
    - file: "image5.png"
      id: image5

In addition, the default transparency type can be set within a type group by using the transparency type as a key.

image:
  rgb565:
    alpha_channel:
    - file: "image1.png"
      id: image1
    - file: "image2.png"
      id: image2
    opaque:
    - file: "image2.png"

Displaying Images

Images may be used in LVGL configurations wherever an image is required. See the LVGL documentation for more information.

To display an image directly on an ESPHome display, you can use the image method in the display lambda.

display:
  - platform: ...
    # ...
    lambda: |-
      // Draw the image my_image at position [x=0,y=0]
      it.image(0, 0, id(my_image));

By default, ESPHome will align the image at the top left. That means if you enter the coordinates [0,10] for your image, the top left of the image will be at [0,10]. If you want to draw some image at the right side of the display, it is however sometimes useful to choose a different image alignment. When you enter [0,10] you’re really telling ESPHome that it should position the anchor point of the image at [0,10]. When using a different alignment, like TOP_RIGHT, the image will be positioned left of the anchor pointed, so that, as the name implies, the anchor point is a the top right corner of the image.

display:
  - platform: ...
    # ...
    lambda: |-
      // Aligned on left by default
      it.image(0, 0, id(my_image));

      // Aligned on right edge
      it.image(it.get_width(), 0, id(my_image), ImageAlign::TOP_RIGHT);

For binary images the image method accepts two additional color parameters which can be supplied to modify the color used to represent the on and off bits respectively. e.g.

display:
  - platform: ...
    # ...
    lambda: |-
      // Draw the image my_image at position [x=0,y=0]
      // with front color red and back color blue
      it.image(0, 0, id(my_image), id(red), id(blue));

      // Aligned on right edge
      it.image(it.get_width(), 0, id(my_image), ImageAlign::TOP_RIGHT, id(red), id(blue));

You can also use this to invert images in two color displays, use COLOR_OFF then COLOR_ON as the additional parameters.

Transparency options

By default transparency is not used. If transparency: chroma_key is set then a specific colour (0, 1, 0) will be used to replace any transparent or partially transparent portions of the image. This will not be drawn when rendering the image, allowing the background to be visible.

If transparency: alpha_channel is set, then each pixel of the image will be assigned an additional byte with a transparency value. This is useful mainly when using LVGL as the alpha_channel transparency will enable smooth blending of transparent images with the background. When using the display lambda image drawing functions these will draw or not draw the pixel, no blending with the background will be done. The BINARY format only permits chroma_key transparency, which effectively turns the image into an alpha mask with one bit per pixel. GRAYSCALE images with transparency store the alpha channel only, and remain 1 byte per pixel.