How to draw images using Image views

Paul Hudson @twostraws October 12th 2019

Fully updated for Xcode 11.2

Use the Image view to render images inside your SwiftUI layouts. These can load images from your bundle, from system icons, from a UIImage, and more, but those three will be the most common.

To load an image from your bundle and display it inside an image view, you’d just use this:

var body: some View {
    Image("example-image")
}

Note: I’m not going to repeat the var body: some View { part from now on – you get the idea. In the future I’ll show it only when it really matters.

To load icons from Apple’s San Francisco Symbol set, use the Image(systemName:) initializer, passing in the icon string to load, like this:

Image(systemName: "cloud.heavyrain.fill")

Finally, you can create an image view from an existing UIImage. As this requires more code, you’ll need to use the return keyword explicitly:

guard let img = UIImage(named: "example-image") else {
    fatalError("Unable to load image")
}

return Image(uiImage: img)

If you’re using the system icon set, the image you get back is scalable and colorable, which means you can tint the image using the same foregroundColor() modifier you’ve already seen:

Image(systemName: "cloud.heavyrain.fill")
    .foregroundColor(.red)

And it also means you can ask SwiftUI to scale up the image to match whatever Dynamic Type text style it accompanies, if any:

Image(systemName: "cloud.heavyrain.fill")
    .font(.largeTitle)

Save 50% on all books and bundles

The biggest ever Hacking with Swift sale is now on, letting you save 50% on all books and bundles. Learn something new with Swift and enjoy great savings while the sale lasts!

Click here to save 50% in our Black Friday sale!

How to draw images using Image views

Save 50% on all books and bundles

Similar solutions…