Are there any built in abilities to maintain the contents of a CALayer between drawLayer:inContext: calls? Right now I am copying the layer to a buffer and redrawing an image from the buffer every time I called back in drawLayer:inContext: but I'm wondering if CALayer has a way to do this automatically...
I don't believe so. The 'drawInContext' will clear the underlying buffer so that you can draw to it. However, if you forego the drawInContext or drawRect methods, you can set your layer.contents to a CGImage and that will be retained.
I personally do this for almost all of my routines. I overwrite - (void) setFrame:(CGRect)frame to check to see if the frame size has changed. If it has changed I redraw the image using my normal drawing routines but into the context: UIGraphicsBeginImageContextWithOptions(size, _opaque, 0);. I can then grab that image and set it to the imageCache: cachedImage = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext();. Then I set the layer.Contents to the CGImage. I use this to help cache my drawings, especially on the new iPad which is slow on many drawing routines the iPad 2 doesn't even blink on.
Other advantages to this method: You can share cached images between views if you set up a separate, shared cache. This can really help your memory footprint if you manage your cache well. (Tip: I use NSStringFromCGSize as a dictionary key for shared images). Also, you can actually spin off your drawing routines on a different thread, and then set your layer contents when it's done. This prevents your drawing routines from blocking the main thread (the current image may be stretched in this case though until the new image is set).