Take pictures with the internal camera

[Erel]

The new Camera library allows you to take pictures using the back facing camera.

The following steps are required for taking a picture:
- Initialize a camera object. The Initialize method expects a Panel. The preview images will be displayed on this panel.
- Wait for the Ready event.
- In the Ready event Sub, call Camera.StartPreview to show the images preview.
- Call TakePicture to take a picture.
- The PictureTaken event will be raised with the picture passed as a bytes array (in JPEG format).
- Call StartPreview again to restart the images preview.

Only one process can access the camera at a time. Therefore you should release the camera when your activity is paused.
Usually you will initialize the camera during Activity_Resume and pause it during Activity_Pause.



The following code saves the image:

Sub Camera1_PictureTaken (Data() As Byte)
    Dim out As OutputStream
    out = File.OpenOutput(File.DirRootExternal, "1.jpg", False)
    out.WriteBytes(data, 0, data.Length)
    out.Close
    ToastMessageShow("Image saved: " & File.Combine(File.DirRootExternal, "1.jpg"), True)

You can see in the attached code that the "take picture" button is only enabled when the camera is ready.

For now the camera orientation is always set to landscape mode. Usually you will want to force the activity to also be in landscape mode. This is done by checking 'Lansdcape' in Project - Orientations Supported menu.

On the emulator the preview images will show a moving check board.

[Cor]

great

thanks

grCor

[mshihrer]

when I run this example, I get an error after I click on the button to take a picture. Here is what it says:

An error has occurred in sub:main_camera1_picturetaken
(java line:225)
java.io.FileNotFoundException: /sdcard/1.jpg
Continue?

also, after looking at the code, I noticed there is a SUB that NEVER gets called, the sub is :

Sub Camera1_Ready (Success As Boolean)
    If success Then
        Camera1.StartPreview
        btnTakePicture.Enabled = True
    Else
        ToastMessageShow("Cannot open camera.", True)
    End If
End Sub

not sure what if I am doing something wrong.

edit:

unless after you create Camera1, this sub becomes an event. This is so confusing.

[Erel]

The Ready event is clearly described in the first post.

Do you have an external card mounted? Make sure that it is not locked for some reason (like when the device is connected as a USB storage).

[mshihrer]

ok, thanks, that was it. I still had it connected to usb.
Sorry about the event question, I get it now. I never noticed the section in the documentation for the libraries that list the events. All good now, thanks again.

[karmacomposer]

How would we use this to take VIDEO? Also, my tablet has a front facing camera only, will this still work?

Mike

[Erel]

How would we use this to take VIDEO?

Only still images are supported for now.

Also, my tablet has a front facing camera only, will this still work?

Assuming that Android treats it as the primary camera then it should work properly.

[jota]

Hi, I found that if the orientation of the application is Both the preview does not display if the orientation is Portrait everything goes right. How can we solve this? Thanks


my English = google translator (sorry)

[Erel]

Currently only landscape is supported (this is the native camera orientation).

[jota]

And is there any way to change the view of an activity without fixing the view of the entire application?