How to Take Screenshots Fast in Java

How to take a screenshot of desktop fast with Java in Windows (ffmpeg, etc.)?

Using the built-in Robots class is way easier than other Java libraries and should probably fit your needs.

If you need a smooth video with >= 30fps (more than 30 screenshots per second), you should first try the Robots approach plus performance improvements there using asynchronous storing of the screenshots.

If it doesn't work for you, try using JNA and that is (even though it's more complex) almost guaranteed to work for smooth screen capturing.

Approach with Robots

The robots class is indeed capable of doing what you want, the problem most screen capturing approaches with Robots have is the saving of the screenshots. An approach could look like that: Looping over the captureScreen() method, grabbing the screen into a BufferedImage, convert it to a byte array and save it with an asynchronous file writer to a target file after adding the future reference of your image to the ArrayList to be able to keep going while storing the image data.

// Pseudo code
while (capturing)
{
    grab bufferedImage (screenCapture) from screen
    convert bufferImage to byte array
    start asynchronous file channel to write to the output file
      and add the future reference (return value) to the ArrayList
}

Approach with JNA

Original Question:
How to take screenshots fast in Java?

As it is bad practice to just link, I will post the example here:

import java.awt.Rectangle;
import java.awt.image.BufferedImage;
import java.awt.image.ColorModel;
import java.awt.image.DataBuffer;
import java.awt.image.DataBufferInt;
import java.awt.image.DataBufferUShort;
import java.awt.image.DirectColorModel;
import java.awt.image.Raster;
import java.awt.image.WritableRaster;

import com.sun.jna.Native;
import com.sun.jna.platform.win32.W32API;
import com.sun.jna.win32.W32APIOptions;

public class JNAScreenShot
{

    public static BufferedImage getScreenshot(Rectangle bounds)
    {
        W32API.HDC windowDC = GDI.GetDC(USER.GetDesktopWindow());
        W32API.HBITMAP outputBitmap = GDI.CreateCompatibleBitmap(windowDC, bounds.width, bounds.height);
        try
        {
            W32API.HDC blitDC = GDI.CreateCompatibleDC(windowDC);
            try
            {
                W32API.HANDLE oldBitmap = GDI.SelectObject(blitDC, outputBitmap);
                try
                {
                    GDI.BitBlt(blitDC, 0, 0, bounds.width, bounds.height, windowDC, bounds.x, bounds.y, GDI32.SRCCOPY);
                }
                finally
                {
                    GDI.SelectObject(blitDC, oldBitmap);
                }
                GDI32.BITMAPINFO bi = new GDI32.BITMAPINFO(40);
                bi.bmiHeader.biSize = 40;
                boolean ok = GDI.GetDIBits(blitDC, outputBitmap, 0, bounds.height, (byte[]) null, bi, GDI32.DIB_RGB_COLORS);
                if (ok)
                {
                    GDI32.BITMAPINFOHEADER bih = bi.bmiHeader;
                    bih.biHeight = -Math.abs(bih.biHeight);
                    bi.bmiHeader.biCompression = 0;
                    return bufferedImageFromBitmap(blitDC, outputBitmap, bi);
                }
                else
                {
                    return null;
                }
            }
            finally
            {
                GDI.DeleteObject(blitDC);
            }
        }
        finally
        {
            GDI.DeleteObject(outputBitmap);
        }
    }

    private static BufferedImage bufferedImageFromBitmap(GDI32.HDC blitDC, GDI32.HBITMAP outputBitmap, GDI32.BITMAPINFO bi)
    {
        GDI32.BITMAPINFOHEADER bih = bi.bmiHeader;
        int height = Math.abs(bih.biHeight);
        final ColorModel cm;
        final DataBuffer buffer;
        final WritableRaster raster;
        int strideBits = (bih.biWidth * bih.biBitCount);
        int strideBytesAligned = (((strideBits - 1) | 0x1F) + 1) >> 3;
        final int strideElementsAligned;
        switch (bih.biBitCount)
        {
            case 16:
                strideElementsAligned = strideBytesAligned / 2;
                cm = new DirectColorModel(16, 0x7C00, 0x3E0, 0x1F);
                buffer = new DataBufferUShort(strideElementsAligned * height);
                raster = Raster.createPackedRaster(buffer, bih.biWidth, height, strideElementsAligned, ((DirectColorModel) cm).getMasks(), null);
                break;
            case 32:
                strideElementsAligned = strideBytesAligned / 4;
                cm = new DirectColorModel(32, 0xFF0000, 0xFF00, 0xFF);
                buffer = new DataBufferInt(strideElementsAligned * height);
                raster = Raster.createPackedRaster(buffer, bih.biWidth, height, strideElementsAligned, ((DirectColorModel) cm).getMasks(), null);
                break;
            default:
                throw new IllegalArgumentException("Unsupported bit count: " + bih.biBitCount);
        }
        final boolean ok;
        switch (buffer.getDataType())
        {
            case DataBuffer.TYPE_INT:
            {
                int[] pixels = ((DataBufferInt) buffer).getData();
                ok = GDI.GetDIBits(blitDC, outputBitmap, 0, raster.getHeight(), pixels, bi, 0);
            }
                break;
            case DataBuffer.TYPE_USHORT:
            {
                short[] pixels = ((DataBufferUShort) buffer).getData();
                ok = GDI.GetDIBits(blitDC, outputBitmap, 0, raster.getHeight(), pixels, bi, 0);
            }
                break;
            default:
                throw new AssertionError("Unexpected buffer element type: " + buffer.getDataType());
        }
        if (ok)
        {
            return new BufferedImage(cm, raster, false, null);
        }
        else
        {
            return null;
        }
    }

    private static final User32 USER = User32.INSTANCE;

    private static final GDI32 GDI = GDI32.INSTANCE;

}

interface GDI32 extends com.sun.jna.platform.win32.GDI32
{
    GDI32 INSTANCE = (GDI32) Native.loadLibrary(GDI32.class);

    boolean BitBlt(HDC hdcDest, int nXDest, int nYDest, int nWidth, int nHeight, HDC hdcSrc, int nXSrc, int nYSrc, int dwRop);

    HDC GetDC(HWND hWnd);

    boolean GetDIBits(HDC dc, HBITMAP bmp, int startScan, int scanLines, byte[] pixels, BITMAPINFO bi, int usage);

    boolean GetDIBits(HDC dc, HBITMAP bmp, int startScan, int scanLines, short[] pixels, BITMAPINFO bi, int usage);

    boolean GetDIBits(HDC dc, HBITMAP bmp, int startScan, int scanLines, int[] pixels, BITMAPINFO bi, int usage);

    int SRCCOPY = 0xCC0020;
}

interface User32 extends com.sun.jna.platform.win32.User32
{
    User32 INSTANCE = (User32) Native.loadLibrary(User32.class, W32APIOptions.UNICODE_OPTIONS);

    HWND GetDesktopWindow();
}

More information and approaches

• Increasing screen capture speed when using Java and awt.Robot

• http://www.dreamincode.net/forums/topic/234896-faster-screen-capture/

• How to get over 30FPS using Java in a Screen Capture Program?

• http://ffmpeg.org

See also

• http://www.thepcwizard.in/2012/12/java-screen-capturing-tutorial.html

• How to develop screen capture to video application

• http://www.javalobby.org/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=16400&tstart=0

• http://hiddensciencex.blogspot.co.at/2014/01/fast-screen-capture-in-java-example.html

• http://www.coderanch.com/t/340180/GUI/java/efficient-screenshot-Java

• http://www.javaworld.com/article/2071755/learn-java/capture-the-screen.html

• ffmpeg for screen capture?

• Java applet screen capture to a video

• Screen Capture of DirectX programs with Java

How to take screenshots fast in Java?

u should definitely give a shot to OpenCV

Is there a way to take a screenshot using Java and save it to some sort of image?

Believe it or not, you can actually use java.awt.Robot to "create an image containing pixels read from the screen." You can then write that image to a file on disk.

I just tried it, and the whole thing ends up like:

Rectangle screenRect = new Rectangle(Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getScreenSize());
BufferedImage capture = new Robot().createScreenCapture(screenRect);
ImageIO.write(capture, "bmp", new File(args[0]));

NOTE: This will only capture the primary monitor. See GraphicsConfiguration for multi-monitor support.

How to take a screenshot in Java?

Use Robot#createScreenCapture().

BufferedImage image = new Robot().createScreenCapture(new Rectangle(Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getScreenSize()));
ImageIO.write(image, "png", new File("/screenshot.png"));

How can I capture image of desktop screen in java?

Copy and paste following code in your Java class and invoke the method
captureScreen() with file name as argument. The screen shot will be
stored in the file that you specified in argument.

import java.awt.Dimension;
import java.awt.Rectangle;
import java.awt.Robot;
import java.awt.Toolkit;
import java.awt.image.BufferedImage;
import javax.imageio.ImageIO;
import java.io.File;

...

public void captureScreen(String fileName) throws Exception {

   Dimension screenSize = Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getScreenSize();
   Rectangle screenRectangle = new Rectangle(screenSize);
   Robot robot = new Robot();
   BufferedImage image = robot.createScreenCapture(screenRectangle);
   ImageIO.write(image, "png", new File(fileName));

}
...

Explained in the following link

how-to-take-screen-shots-in-java-taking-screenshots-jav

How to capture screenshot of all 'li' elements one after another with for loop

Try something like

 FileUtils.copyFile(screenshots,new File(location +  "img" + i + ".jpg"));

How to get over 30FPS using Java in a Screen Capture Program?

For operating systems following the X11 standard (Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, etc.), we can do it this way via JavaCV and FFmpeg:

import com.googlecode.javacv.*;

public class ScreenGrabber {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        int x = 0, y = 0, w = 1024, h = 768; // specify the region of screen to grab
        FFmpegFrameGrabber grabber = new FFmpegFrameGrabber(":0.0+" + x + "," + y);
        grabber.setFormat("x11grab");
        grabber.setImageWidth(w);
        grabber.setImageHeight(h);
        grabber.start();

        CanvasFrame frame = new CanvasFrame("Screen Capture");
        while (frame.isVisible()) {
            frame.showImage(grabber.grab());
        }
        frame.dispose();
        grabber.stop();
    }
}

I don't know about Windows or Mac OS X, but I suspect we would need to access native APIs directly. Nevertheless, JavaCPP could help with that.

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