How to make any view to draw to canvas?

I have a short question:

Suppose I have a (mutable) bitmap that I need to modify (add images, texts, etc...) .

Instead of messing around with many special classes for drawing to the canvas (paint, canvas, matrices and so on), I was thinking why not use the built in classes of Android for this task and only if i need really customized operations i could still use the canvas ?

So, for example, in order to show any kind of view (that has no parent, of course) on the bitmap, I could call the next function :

public void drawViewToBitmap(Bitmap b, View v, Rect rect) {
    Canvas c = new Canvas(b);
    // <= use rect to let the view to draw only into this boundary inside the bitmap
    view.draw(c);
}

Is such a thing possible? maybe that's even the way that it works behind the scenes?

what should i write in the part between the drawing and the creation of the canvas?

EDIT: i've tried the next code , but it didn't work:

public void drawFromViewToCanvas(final View view, final Rect rect, final Canvas canvas) {
    final int widthSpec = View.MeasureSpec.makeMeasureSpec(rect.width(), View.MeasureSpec.EXACTLY);
    final int heightSpec = View.MeasureSpec.makeMeasureSpec(rect.height(), View.MeasureSpec.EXACTLY);
    view.measure(widthSpec, heightSpec);
    // Lay the view out with the known dimensions
    view.layout(0, 0, rect.width(), rect.height());
    // Translate the canvas so the view is drawn at the proper coordinates
    canvas.save();
    canvas.translate(rect.left, rect.top);
    // Draw the View and clear the translation
    view.draw(canvas);
    canvas.restore();
}

example of usage:

final int imageSize = 50;
rect = new Rect(35, 344 , 35 + imageSize, 344  + imageSize);
final ImageView imageView = new ImageView(mContext);
imageView.setImageBitmap(bitmap);
imageView.setScaleType(ScaleType.CENTER_CROP);
drawFromViewToCanvas(imageView, getRect(), canvas);

EDIT: there is a sample on sony's website:

int measureWidth = View.MeasureSpec.makeMeasureSpec(bitmapWidth, View.MeasureSpec.EXACTLY);
int measuredHeight = View.MeasureSpec.makeMeasureSpec(bitmapHeight, View.MeasureSpec.EXACTLY);
view.measure(measureWidth, measuredHeight);
view.layout(0, 0, bitmapWidth, bitmapHeight);
view.draw(canvas);

wonder if it works.

Source: View source