Pinch-to-zoom with multi-touch gestures In Android

.ScaleGestureDetector.md

ScaleGestureDetector

When learning a new concept I don't like using libraries or code dumps. I found a good description here and in the documentation of how to resize an image by pinching. This answer is a slightly modified summary. You will probably want to add more functionality later, but it will help you get started.

Animated gif: Scale image example Layout

The ImageView just uses the app logo since it is already available. You can replace it with any image you like, though.

-- layout.xml

Activity

We use a ScaleGestureDetector on the activity to listen to touch events. When a scale (ie, pinch) gesture is detected, then the scale factor is used to resize the ImageView.

-- MainActivity.java

Notes

Although the activity had the gesture detector in the example above, it could have also been set on the image view itself.

You can limit the size of the scaling with something like

mScaleFactor = Math.max(0.1f, Math.min(mScaleFactor, 5.0f));

Thanks again to Pinch-to-zoom with multi-touch gestures In Android
Documentation
Use Ctrl + mouse drag to simulate a pinch gesture in the emulator.

Going on

You will probably want to do other things like panning and scaling to some focus point. You can develop these things yourself, but if you would like to use a pre-made custom view, copy TouchImageView.java into your project and use it like a normal ImageView. It worked well for me and I only ran into one bug. I plan to further edit the code to remove the warning and the parts that I don't need. You can do the same. https://medium.com/quick-code/pinch-to-zoom-with-multi-touch-gestures-in-android-d6392e4bf52d

layout.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<RelativeLayout
    xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent">

    <ImageView
        android:id="@+id/imageView"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="match_parent"
        android:src="@mipmap/ic_launcher"
        android:layout_centerInParent="true"/>

</RelativeLayout>

MainActivity.java

public class MainActivity extends AppCompatActivity {

    private ScaleGestureDetector mScaleGestureDetector;
    private float mScaleFactor = 1.0f;
    private ImageView mImageView;

    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

        // initialize the view and the gesture detector
        mImageView = findViewById(R.id.imageView);
        mScaleGestureDetector = new ScaleGestureDetector(this, new ScaleListener());
    }

    // this redirects all touch events in the activity to the gesture detector
    @Override
    public boolean onTouchEvent(MotionEvent event) {
        return mScaleGestureDetector.onTouchEvent(event);
    }

    private class ScaleListener extends ScaleGestureDetector.SimpleOnScaleGestureListener {

        // when a scale gesture is detected, use it to resize the image
        @Override
        public boolean onScale(ScaleGestureDetector scaleGestureDetector){
            mScaleFactor *= scaleGestureDetector.getScaleFactor();
            mImageView.setScaleX(mScaleFactor);
            mImageView.setScaleY(mScaleFactor);
            return true;
        }
    }
}