Taking Picture from Camera Without Preview

Android - Take picture without preview

You can't take a picture without a preview, but you don't have to show the preview on screen. You can direct the output to a SurfaceTexture instead (API 11+).

See this answer for more details.

Taking picture from camera without preview

it is really weird that camera on android platform can't stream video until it given valid preview surface. it seems that the architects of the platform was not thinking about 3rd party video streaming applications at all. even for augmented reality case the picture can be presented as some kind of visual substitution, not real time camera stream.

anyway, you can simply resize preview surface to 1x1 pixels and put it somewhere in the corner of the widget (visual element). please pay attention - resize preview surface, not camera frame size.

of course such trick does not eliminate unwanted data streaming (for preview) which consumes some system resources and battery.

Capture image in service without preview android

I solved my issue with help of this blog

So I capture the image within background service using this code:

@Override
public void onStart(Intent intent, int startId) {
    mCamera = getAvailableFrontCamera();     // globally declared instance of camera
    if (mCamera == null){
        mCamera = Camera.open();    //Take rear facing camera only if no front camera available
    }
    SurfaceView sv = new SurfaceView(getApplicationContext());
    SurfaceTexture surfaceTexture = new SurfaceTexture(10);

    try {
        mCamera.setPreviewTexture(surfaceTexture);
        //mCamera.setPreviewDisplay(sv.getHolder());
        parameters = mCamera.getParameters();

        //set camera parameters
        mCamera.setParameters(parameters);


        //This boolean is used as app crashes while writing images to file if simultaneous calls are made to takePicture
        if(safeToCapture) {
            mCamera.startPreview();
            mCamera.takePicture(null, null, mCall);
        }
    } catch (IOException e) {
        // TODO Auto-generated catch block
        e.printStackTrace();
    }


    //Get a surface
    sHolder = sv.getHolder();
    //tells Android that this surface will have its data constantly replaced
    sHolder.setType(SurfaceHolder.SURFACE_TYPE_PUSH_BUFFERS);
}

Camera.PictureCallback mCall = new Camera.PictureCallback()
{

    public void onPictureTaken(byte[] data, Camera camera)
    {
        safeToCapture = false;
        //decode the data obtained by the camera into a Bitmap

        FileOutputStream outStream = null;
        try{

            // create a File object for the parent directory
            File myDirectory = new File(Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory()+"/Test");
            // have the object build the directory structure, if needed.
            myDirectory.mkdirs();

            //SDF for getting current time for unique image name
            SimpleDateFormat curTimeFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("ddMMyyyyhhmmss");
            String curTime = curTimeFormat.format(new java.util.Date());

            // create a File object for the output file
            outStream = new FileOutputStream(myDirectory+"/user"+curTime+".jpg");
            outStream.write(data);
            outStream.close();
            mCamera.release();
            mCamera = null;

            String strImagePath = Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory()+"/"+myDirectory.getName()+"/user"+curTime+".jpg";
            sendEmailWithImage(strImagePath);
            Log.d("CAMERA", "picture clicked - "+strImagePath);
        } catch (FileNotFoundException e){
            Log.d("CAMERA", e.getMessage());
        } catch (IOException e){
            Log.d("CAMERA", e.getMessage());
        }

        safeToCapture = true;    //Set a boolean to true again after saving file.

    }
};

private Camera getAvailableFrontCamera (){

    int cameraCount = 0;
    Camera cam = null;
    Camera.CameraInfo cameraInfo = new Camera.CameraInfo();
    cameraCount = Camera.getNumberOfCameras();
    for (int camIdx = 0; camIdx < cameraCount; camIdx++) {
        Camera.getCameraInfo(camIdx, cameraInfo);
        if (cameraInfo.facing == Camera.CameraInfo.CAMERA_FACING_FRONT) {
            try {
                cam = Camera.open(camIdx);
            } catch (RuntimeException e) {
                Log.e("CAMERA", "Camera failed to open: " + e.getLocalizedMessage());
            }
        }
    }

    return cam;
}


//Send Email using javamail API as user will not be allowed to choose available
// application using a Chooser dialog for intent.
public void sendEmailWithImage(String imageFile){
    .
    .
    .
}

Following uses-features and permissions will be needed for this in manifest file:

<uses-feature
    android:name="android.hardware.camera"
    android:required="false" />
<uses-feature
    android:name="android.hardware.camera.front"
    android:required="false" />

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.SEND_MAIL" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.CAMERA" />

I have set property required to false, so that user will be able to install my app even without any of the Camera available. May be this can help someone in future.

Using Camera without preview or surface in android

You cannot take a picture without starting preview.

While some Android devices are more flexible, and allow takePicture to be called without preview running, this is technically against the API specifications.

It won't work on a large number of devices, so please don't rely on it. That tutorial is wrong, and presumably tested only on one of the devices that allows this behavior.

If you don't want a visible preview, see this question for ways to do that in Android versions >= 3.0.

Take Picture without preview Android

Use this permissions :

 <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.CAMERA" />
 <uses-feature android:name="android.hardware.camera" />

And you can instantiate a Camera object using this

Camera mycamera = Camera.open();

You can try the method described here is very simple if you are into simplicity:

http://developer.android.com/training/camera/photobasics.html

How to take picture without preview using camera Intent?

I found a good solution using adb shell

adb shell "am start -a android.media.action.STILL_IMAGE_CAMERA" && sleep 1 && adb shell "input keyevent 27"

Notice the action is STILL_IMAGE_CAMERA

Reference Android 4.4 won't allow me to save a picture when captured using adb commands

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