Android Tutorial Take pictures with the internal camera

It is recommend to use the new CameraEx class. It provides more functionality.
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.

 

[Erel]

Please start a new thread for this question (are you asking about the preview images?).

 

[appie21]

Hi

i have load the camera and i can take a picture, but if i will show the picture on a imageview it goes wrong the second time

i want if i take a picture directly load on to a image view.
When i take the first time a pictue it is ok but the seccond timme the application stopped

see

Sub Camera1_PictureTaken (Data() As Byte)
   camera1.StartPreview
   Dim out As OutputStream
   out = File.OpenOutput(File.DirInternalCache, "1.jpg", False)
   out.WriteBytes(Data, 0, Data.Length)
   out.Close
   ToastMessageShow("Image saved: " & File.Combine(File.DirInternalCache, "1.jpg"), True)
   btnTakePicture.Enabled = True
   ImageView1.Bitmap = LoadBitmap(File.DirInternalCache, "1.jpg")'this goes wrong second time
End Sub

what do i wrong?

 

[Erel]

Check the logs and find the error message.

In that case I'm 99% sure that you are getting an out of memory exception. You should use LoadBitmapSample instead of LoadBitmap.

 

[appie21]

thank you
this is the right one

ImageView1.Bitmap = LoadBitmapSample(File.DirRootExternal, "Image.jpg", 100,100)

 

[wheretheidivides]

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

When I run it, the video is stretched out across the screen. It is not a true image. Like when a SD television is stretched on a HD TV (4:3 aspect ratio to 16:9). I think it is because my phone has a longer aspect ratio. ANy ideas how to fix this?

 

[Erel]

I'm not sure if it will solve this issue, however I recommend you to use CameraEx class. It is much more powerful than this solution.

 

[Erel]

You are posting about CameraEx in the wrong thread. I replied to your question in the CameraEx thread.

 

[Erel]

You cannot change the original picture format. However once the image is loaded you can use Bitmap.GetPixel to get the color of a specific pixel.

 

[Alberto Iglesias]

Erel,

I try to use this library in a device with Android 2.2.1 and only Facing Camera, I use your simple example, the StartPreview works very weel, but when I push the button, the _PictureTaken Event not firing. In anothers devices with 2.35 and 4.1.2 works very well.

You know why?

I try anothers libraries, like FrontCamera (by vb1992) and not work too.

Can I get the picture capturing a frame or something like that?

the device I have to do this is: http://www.archos.com/products/home/archos_35_hc/index.html?country=us&lang=en


thank You

 

[Adam888]

Hi Erel,

How can I mirror the image in preview mode? I try to use "setDisplayOrientation" , but it only rotate the image in different direction.
Thank you

 

[Erel]

This is an old example. You should instead use this one: [Class] CameraEx - Extends the camera library functionality