Using Camera in Android

Sunday, November 28, 2010

This is a simple how to on how I solved the issue of taking pictures in one application, storing and showing them later.

I found that this simple task was not at all clear for me in the documentation, nor did I found a complete guide to get this task done. I hope if people find the same problem, this article may help them.





Device
HTC Desire with Android 2.2.

Contents
1. Take picture and save it, along with a thumbnail
2. Show thumbnail
3. Show full size image
4. Sample project


Taking picture and saving it

Taking picture
I'm using the camera Intent to take the picture... No extra parameters passed.
//
      Intent intent = new Intent(MediaStore.ACTION_IMAGE_CAPTURE);
      startActivityForResult(intent, TAKE_PICTURE);
      return true;

... and saving it
Closing the camera causes android to callback the onActivityResult method. I'm using a the static int TAKE_PICTURE=1 variable to identify the action that triggered this function request.
//
    //Called on intent return... used to grab pic 
    @Override
    protected void onActivityResult(int requestCode, int resultCode, Intent data) {
      if (requestCode == TAKE_PICTURE) {
        if (data != null) {
          
          //Full size pic stored automatically by the intent
          //lets grab the ContentProvider id for the image
          imageid = data.getData().getLastPathSegment();

          //Set thumbnail IMAGE_ID value, holding the reference to the full size picture
          ContentValues values = new ContentValues(1);          
          values.put(MediaStore.Images.Thumbnails.IMAGE_ID, imageid);
          
          //insert (thumbnail) record into MediaStore content provider
          Uri uri = getContentResolver().insert(MediaStore.Images.Thumbnails.EXTERNAL_CONTENT_URI, values);

          //write the actual thumbnail to "disk"
          try {
            OutputStream outStream = getContentResolver().openOutputStream(uri);
            Bitmap mBitmap = data.getParcelableExtra("data"); //thumbnail
            mBitmap.compress(Bitmap.CompressFormat.JPEG, 50, outStream);
            outStream.close();
          } catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
            // TODO Auto-generated catch block
            e.printStackTrace();
          }catch (IOException e) {
            // TODO Auto-generated catch block
            e.printStackTrace();
          }
        }
      }
    }



Retrieve thumbnail
Just use the id from the code before to retrieve the thumbnail from MediaStore content provider.

Bitmap thumbnail = MediaStore.Images.Thumbnails.getThumbnail(getContentResolver(), imageId, MediaStore.Images.Thumbnails.MINI_KIND, null);


Show full size image
Using the same id...
//
    Uri uri = Uri.withAppendedPath(MediaStore.Images.Media.EXTERNAL_CONTENT_URI, ""+id); 
    Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW);
    intent.setData(uri);
    startActivity(intent);


Sample Project
Download full source from here (Eclipse project).


Feedback
Please let me know if you found any errors in this code or problems with other devices.

6 comments :

test December 21, 2010 at 9:42 PM

wine.getImageId() gives me an error? Can you please post the declaration for wine.

Filipe December 27, 2010 at 3:27 PM

Sorry Faheem,
That code is wrong... You should use the imageId (line 10 in the save picture method) instead of wine.getImageId()... evil copy/past.

The full source should be clear and working fine (I hope).

Sorry for the late reply.
kimile

Renee March 14, 2011 at 1:24 PM

When retrieving the thumbnail, where does the imageId come from? The imageid from the code is a String, but getThumbnail is looking for a long. This doesn't seem to be in the source code, either.

Maxim Postoronca April 13, 2011 at 4:29 AM

Hello thank you for your example,
i downloaded the project and this line is throwing an Exception

imageid = data.getDataString()().getLastPathSegment(); //returns full pic id

changing it to
imageid = data.getDataString(); //returns full pic id

makes it work partially, the show picture always says take picture firest

yekmer June 1, 2011 at 9:46 AM

Thanks it helped a lot

soft_developer March 27, 2012 at 3:51 AM

Hi i am using the above code to open camera to capture image.
It is able to open camera successfully but onActivityResult the value of the intent is null and the application turns directly to RESULT_CANCELED.
How can I fix this issue please?
Thanks