Image Faker

Image Faker is a PHP application built to generate images dynamically, using simple urls.

Example

Calling to this URL:

http://example.org/6d3353/300x150.png

Will return the next image:

Demo

Are you interested? Test Image Faker by yourself!

URL parameters

You can customize 4 aspects of the images:

• Size (width and height)
• Extension
• Background color
• Font color

Size

You can define the width and height of the image in pixels, separated with x. The maximum default value for both is 2000.

http://example.org/300x150.png

Height is optional. If not defined, it will be equal to width.

http://example.org/300.png

Some standard sizes are available (ntsc, pal, hd720, hd1080).

http://example.org/ntsc.png

Extension

It can be jpg, png or gif.

http://example.org/300.jpg

Background color

Optional. Hexadecimal code, 6 (or 3) characters. The default color is 000000 (black).

http://example.org/6d3353/300x150.png

Font color

Optional, defined after background color. Hexadecimal code, 6 (or 3) characters. If not defined, is automatically calculated to contrast with the background color.

http://example.org/555555/ffff00/300x150.png

Standard image sizes

To ease image creation, some standard image sizes are available:

• ntsc: 720x480
• pal: 768x576
• hd720: 1280x720
• hd1080: 1920x1080

You can define your own sizes.

HTTP cache

Creating images dynamically is an "complex" task executed by the server. If images are too big or a lot of requests are made at the same time, the overhead can become a problem. Luckily HTTP cache is here to help, storing responses temporarily and improving communication between users and server.

Installation

Get the source code of the project from GitHub. You have two options:

A. Clone it:

git clone git@github.com:rmhdev/image-faker.git

B. Download it:

Check the latest release and copy it to your installation folder.

Project dependencies

Retrieve all the dependencies using Composer. Install it and then run the install command:

php composer.phar install

Server configuration

This project is built using Silex. The official docs will give you more information about how to configure your server. Make sure that:

• the document root points to the image-faker/web/ directory.
• folders in image-faker/var/ must be writable by the web server.

Play with Image Faker

If you are using PHP 5.4+, its built-in web server will help you to play with this project:

cd image-faker/
php -S localhost:8080 -t web web/index.php

Easy, right? Just open a browser and enter http://localhost:8080

Customization

The default parameters are defined in config/parameters.dist.php:

$app["image_faker.parameters"] = array(
    "library"           => "gd",    // choose between "gd", "imagick" and "gmagick"
    "background_color"  => null,    // hexadecimal
    "color"             => null,    // hexadecimal
    "cache_ttl"         => 3600,    // seconds
    "max_width"         => 2000,    // pixels
    "max_height"        => 2000,    // pixels
    "sizes"             => array(
        // "lorem" => "300x400"
    ), 
);

If you want to customize them, just copy the file and rename it to parameters.php.

Unit tests

Check the Travis page to see the build status. If you want to run the tests by yourself, execute the next command:

php ./vendor/bin/phpunit

You'll need to install PHPUnit via composer if you haven't yet.

Code

I started this project with some goals in mind:

• Practice TDD.
• Play with Composer and Git.
• Try to create good code ;-)

Image Faker uses Silex, a PHP microframework created by Fabien Potencier and Igor Wiedler. The images are generated using Imagine, a PHP library for image manipulation created by Bulat Shakirzyanov.

License

Image Faker's code is under the open-source MIT License. The documentation is under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0).

This project is inspired in Dynamic Dummy Image Generator by Russell Heimlich.

Change log

• 2.0.0 (October 18, 2015): customizable app parameters.
• 1.4.0 (July 23, 2013): work with GD, Imagick and Gmagick.
• 1.3.0 (July 5, 2013): use HTTP cache.
• 1.2.0 (June 23, 2013): font color can be indicated.
• 1.1.0 (June 22, 2013): added first standard image sizes (NTSC, PAL, HD720 and HD1080).
• 1.0.0 (June 9, 2013): initial release.

Road map

• Info about colors when no image is requested.

Author

My name is Rober Martín (@rmhdev). I'm a developer from Donostia / San Sebastián.