How does UIKit get pixels onto the screen?

gistfile1.md

UIView Drawing Model

-[UIView setNeedsDisplay]

You have some kind of custom UIView which implements some awesome drawing in -[UIView drawRect:]. In order to have UIKit draw it for you, you send the -[UIView setNeedsDisplay] to the view object to queue it up for drawing.

-[CALayer setNeedsDisplay]

     *------------*           *------------*
     |            |           |            |
     |   UIView   |  ------>  |   CALayer  |
     |            |           |            |
     *------------*           *------------*
-[UIView setNeedsDisplay] -[CALayer setNeedsDisplay]

The UIView object has another, special object backing it, a CALayer. When its convenient for the rendering system, it'll ask the view's CALayer to display by sending it the -[CALayer display] message.

Now, the CALayer creates a region of memory called a "Backing Store," a bitmap that stores the result of all the rendering operations.

     *------------*           *------------*          ..............
     |            |           |            |          .            .
     |   UIView   |  ------>  |   CALayer  |  ----->  .   Backing  .
     |            |           |            |          .    Store   .
     *------------*           *------------*          ..............
                            -[CALayer display]

This backing store image can be displayed on screen repeatedly until the view needs some different drawing (e.g., for a highlighted state). At that point, the process would start over by sending the view the -[UIView setNeedsDisplay] message.

For a better walk through, check out the in-depth aside on UIView drawing in the WWDC 2012 presentation, Building Concurrent User Interfaces on iOS by Andy Matuschak (video requires an ADC login).