Pictures

Still pictures in the JPEG format can be captured by acting on the current CameraDevice. Support for more formats is planned to be available in future versions of ther SDK.

Make sure you declare CameraFeature.JpegPictureCameraFeature.jpegPicture during manager initialization.

Capturing pictures

Assuming you have correctly opened a device, capturing pictures takes a single API call.

swiftCopy
guard let device: CameraDevice = manager.currentDevice else { return } // Forgot to open?
let picture: Picture = try await device.takePicture(encoding: .jpeg, meterIfNeeded: true)

kotlinCopy
val device: CameraDevice = manager.currentDevice.value ?: return // Forgot to open?
val picture: Picture = device.takePicture(encoding = Picture.Encoding.Jpeg, meterIfNeeded = true)

You can use the extra parameter called meterIfNeeded to device whether you want to run the exposure, focus and white balance routines before the picture is taken. Defaults to true as this is recommended for higher quality results. Please check the metering docs for more information.

Picture results

As a result, you will receive an instance of the Picture type, with the following properties:

• id: an integer that can be used to uniquely identify the picture
• width and height: two integers representing the picture size. The size is always the maximum available size that the camera sensor can handle in its current configuration
• data: a java.nio.ByteBufferFoundation.Data reference with the actual image bytes that can, for example, be written to disk.

kotlinCopy
public fun Picture.toInputStream(release: Boolean = true): InputStream { ... }
public suspend fun Picture.toFile(file: File, release: Boolean = true) { ... }
public suspend fun Picture.toBitmap(maxSize: Int? = null, release: Boolean = true): Bitmap { ... }

Capturing snapshots

Snapshots provide a lower-quality, high speed alternative to pictures which can be useful in some scenarios. As the name suggests, snapshots are captured as a "screenshot" of what's seen in the current camera preview.

To capture snapshots, use the takeSnapshot API. You can use:

• Snapshot.Encoding.JpegSnapshot.Encoding.None for JPEG
• Snapshot.Encoding.NoneSnapshot.Encoding.none for raw pixel data

swiftCopy
guard let device: CameraDevice = manager.currentDevice else { return } // Forgot to open?
let snapshot: Snapshot = try await device.takeSnapshot(encoding: .jpeg, surface: "MyPreviewSurface")

kotlinCopy
val device: CameraDevice = manager.currentDevice.value ?: return // Forgot to open?
val snapshot: Snapshot = device.takeSnapshot(encoding = Snapshot.Encoding.Jpeg, surface = "MyPreviewSurface")

Now how it is possible to pass the name of a preview surface for the engine to determine the correct size and orientation of the final picture.

• When not passing any value, the engine will try to find the only available preview (covers most use cases)
• When explicitly passing null / nil, the snapshot will use the raw sensor orientation and size
• In case of multiple previews, use the desired surface name as declared during surface creation (createSurface)

Snapshot results

As a result, you will receive an instance of the Snapshot type, with the following properties:

• id: an integer that can be used to uniquely identify the snapshot
• width and height: two integers representing the snapshot size
• data: a java.nio.ByteBufferFoundation.Data reference with the actual bytes

kotlinCopy
public fun Snapshot.toInputStream(release: Boolean = true): InputStream { ... }
public suspend fun Snapshot.toFile(file: File, release: Boolean = true) { ... }
public suspend fun Snapshot.toBitmap(maxSize: Int? = null, release: Boolean = true): Bitmap { ... }