Every once in a while I start a new computer vision project with Android. And I am always facing the same question: “What do I need again to retrieve a camera image ready for processing?”. While there are great tutorials around I just want a downloadable project with a minimum amount of code – not taking pictures, not setting resolutions, just the continuous retrieval of incoming camera frames.

So here they are – two different “Hello World” for computer vision. I will show you some excerpts from the code and then provide a download link for each project.

Pure Android API

The main problem to solve is how to store the camera image into a processable image format – in this case the android.graphics.Bitmap .

@Override
public void surfaceChanged(SurfaceHolder holder, int format, int width,
		int height) {
	if(camera != null) {
		camera.release();
		camera = null;
	}
	camera = Camera.open();
	try {
		camera.setPreviewDisplay(holder);
	} catch (IOException e) {
		e.printStackTrace();
	}
	camera.setPreviewCallback(new PreviewCallback() {

		public void onPreviewFrame(byte[] data, Camera camera) {
			System.out.println("Frame received!"+data.length);
			Size size = camera.getParameters().getPreviewSize();
			/*
			 * Directly constructing a bitmap from the data would be possible if the preview format
			 * had been set to RGB (params.setPreviewFormat() ) but some devices only support YUV.
			 * So we have to stick with it and convert the format
			 */
			int[] rgbData = convertYUV420_NV21toRGB8888(data, size.width, size.height);
			Bitmap bitmap = Bitmap.createBitmap(rgbData, size.width, size.height, Bitmap.Config.ARGB_8888);
			/*
			 * TODO: now process the bitmap
			 */
		}
	});
	camera.startPreview();
}

Notice the function convertYUV420_NV21toRGB8888() which is needed since the internal representation of camera frames does not match any supported Bitmap format.



    

        

            

            

                
Hello World (Android CV)
                
 1 file(s)  566.23 KB
            
            

                Download
            
        
    



Using OpenCV
This is even more straight-forward. We just use OpenCV’s JavaCameraView. If you are new to Android+OpenCV, here is a good tutorial for you.
cameraView = (CameraBridgeViewBase) findViewById(R.id.cameraView);
cameraView.setCvCameraViewListener(this);




    

        

            

            

                
HelloArActivity.java
                
 1 file(s)  17.09 KB
            
            

                Download