How to draw a line interpolating 2 colors with opencv

The built-in opencv line() drawing function allows to draw a variety of lines. Unfortunately it does not allow drawing a gradient line interpolating the colors at its start and end.

However implementing this on our own is quite easy:

using namespace cv;

void line2(Mat& img, const Point& start, const Point& end, 
                     const Scalar& c1,   const Scalar& c2) {
    LineIterator iter(img, start, end, LINE_8);

    for (int i = 0; i < iter.count; i++, iter++) {
       double alpha = double(i) / iter.count;
       // note: using img.at<T>(iter.pos()) is faster, but 
       // then you have to deal with mat type and channel number yourself
       img(Rect(iter.pos(), Size(1, 1))) = c1 * (1.0 - alpha) + c2 * alpha;
    }
}