Native Camera for Android & iOS [Open Source]

Hello there,

NativeCamera is a native Unity plugin that helps you take pictures/record videos with your device's camera on Android and iOS. It has built-in support for runtime permissions, as well.

Asset Store: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/integration/native-camera-for-android-ios-117802
Also available at: https://github.com/yasirkula/UnityNativeCamera
Discord: https://discord.gg/UJJt549AaV
GitHub Sponsors ☕

FAQ

• Audio is muted on iOS after calling NativeCamera.RecordVideo

Please see: https://forum.unity.com/threads/native-camera-for-android-ios-open-source.529560/page-9#post-8207157

• Can't use the camera, it says "java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: com.yasirkula.unity.NativeCamera" in Logcat

If you are sure that your plugin is up-to-date, then enable Custom Proguard File option from Player Settings and add the following line to that file:

-keep class com.yasirkula.unity.* { *; }

Enjoy!

 

Now available on Asset Store!

 

Hello,

Not able to get this to work.

I've done:

1. set Write Permission to External (SDCard) in Player Settings
2. Changed my manifest according to recomendations:

Code (CSharp):

1. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
2. <manifest
3.     xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
4.     package="com.unity3d.player"
5.     xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
6.     android:installLocation="preferExternal"
7.     android:versionCode="1"
8.     android:versionName="1.0">
9.     <uses-feature android:name="android.hardware.camera" android:required="true" />
10.     <supports-screens
11.         android:smallScreens="true"
12.         android:normalScreens="true"
13.         android:largeScreens="true"
14.         android:xlargeScreens="true"
15.         android:anyDensity="true"/>
16.  
17.     <application
18.         android:theme="@style/UnityThemeSelector"
19.         android:icon="@drawable/app_icon"
20.         android:label="@string/app_name"
21.         android:debuggable="true">
22.         <activity android:name="com.unity3d.player.UnityPlayerActivity"
23.                   android:label="@string/app_name">
24.             <intent-filter>
25.                 <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
26.                 <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
27.             </intent-filter>
28.             <meta-data android:name="unityplayer.UnityActivity" android:value="true" />
29.         </activity>
30.         <provider
31.               android:name="com.furiogames.unity.NativeCameraContentProvider"
32.               android:authorities="furiogames"
33.               android:exported="false"
34.               android:grantUriPermissions="true"
35.          </provider>
36.     </application>
37. </manifest>

3. created a gameobject with this script attached:

Code (CSharp):

1. using System.Collections;
2. using System.Collections.Generic;
3. using UnityEngine;
4. using UnityEngine.UI;
5.  
6. public class PicFromCamera : MonoBehaviour {
7.  
8.  
9.     public Text textUIValue;
10.  
11.     Vector3 currentPositon = new Vector3();
12.  
13.     private int updateCount;
14.  
15.     void Update()
16.     {
17.         updateCount++;
18.         textUIValue.text = "Update Count: " + updateCount.ToString();
19.         if( Input.GetMouseButtonDown( 0 ) )
20.         {
21.             textUIValue.text = "Registered MouseDown";
22.             // Don't attempt to use the camera if it is already open
23.             if( NativeCamera.IsCameraBusy() )
24.                 return;
25.  
26.             if( Input.mousePosition.x < Screen.width / 2 )
27.             {
28.                 // Take a picture with the camera
29.                 // If the captured image's width and/or height is greater than 512px, down-scale it
30.                 TakePicture( 512 );
31.             }
32.             else
33.             {
34.                 // Record a video with the camera
35.                 RecordVideo();
36.             }
37.         }
38.  
39.         if (Input.touchCount > 0) {
40.             textUIValue.text = "TouchCount > 0";
41.             if( NativeCamera.IsCameraBusy() )
42.                 return;
43.        
44.             Touch touch = Input.GetTouch (0); // get first touch since touch count is greater than zero
45.             currentPositon = Camera.main.ScreenToWorldPoint (new Vector3 (touch.position.x, touch.position.y, 10));
46.  
47.  
48.             if (touch.phase == TouchPhase.Began) {
49.                 textUIValue.text = "Touch Began";
50.  
51.  
52.                 if(currentPositon.x < Screen.width / 2 )
53.                 {
54.                     // Take a picture with the camera
55.                     // If the captured image's width and/or height is greater than 512px, down-scale it
56.                     TakePicture( 512 );
57.                 }
58.                 else
59.                 {
60.                     // Record a video with the camera
61.                     RecordVideo();
62.                 }
63.             }
64.  
65.             if (touch.phase == TouchPhase.Ended || touch.phase == TouchPhase.Canceled) {
66.             }
67.  
68.             if (touch.phase == TouchPhase.Moved) {
69.                 textUIValue.text = "Registered Touch Began";
70.                 if(currentPositon.x < Screen.width / 2 )
71.                 {
72.                     // Take a picture with the camera
73.                     // If the captured image's width and/or height is greater than 512px, down-scale it
74.                     TakePicture( 512 );
75.                 }
76.                 else
77.                 {
78.                     // Record a video with the camera
79.                     RecordVideo();
80.                 }
81.  
82.             }
83.         }
84.  
85.     }
86.  
87.     private void TakePicture( int maxSize )
88.     {
89.         NativeCamera.Permission permission = NativeCamera.TakePicture( ( path ) =>
90.             {
91.                 textUIValue.text = "Image path: " + path;
92.  
93.                 Debug.Log( "Image path: " + path );
94.                 if( path != null )
95.                 {
96.                     // Create a Texture2D from the captured image
97.                     Texture2D texture = NativeCamera.LoadImageAtPath( path, maxSize );
98.                     if( texture == null )
99.                     {
100.                         Debug.Log( "Couldn't load texture from " + path );
101.                         return;
102.                     }
103.  
104.                     // Assign texture to a temporary quad and destroy it after 5 seconds
105.                     GameObject quad = GameObject.CreatePrimitive( PrimitiveType.Quad );
106.                     quad.transform.position = Camera.main.transform.position + Camera.main.transform.forward * 2.5f;
107.                     quad.transform.forward = Camera.main.transform.forward;
108.                     quad.transform.localScale = new Vector3( 1f, texture.height / (float) texture.width, 1f );
109.  
110.                     Material material = quad.GetComponent<Renderer>().material;
111.                     if( !material.shader.isSupported ) // happens when Standard shader is not included in the build
112.                         material.shader = Shader.Find( "Legacy Shaders/Diffuse" );
113.  
114.                     material.mainTexture = texture;
115.  
116.                     Destroy( quad, 5f );
117.  
118.                     // If a procedural texture is not destroyed manually,
119.                     // it will only be freed after a scene change
120.                     Destroy( texture, 5f );
121.                 }
122.             }, maxSize );
123.  
124.         Debug.Log( "Permission result: " + permission );
125.     }
126.  
127.     private void RecordVideo()
128.     {
129.         NativeCamera.Permission permission = NativeCamera.RecordVideo( ( path ) =>
130.             {
131.                 textUIValue.text = "Video path: " + path;
132.  
133.                 Debug.Log( "Video path: " + path );
134.                 if( path != null )
135.                 {
136.                     // Play the recorded video
137.                     Handheld.PlayFullScreenMovie( "file://" + path );
138.                 }
139.             } );
140.  
141.         Debug.Log( "Permission result: " + permission );
142.     }
143. }
144.  

I see various debugs in editor correctly (can't access camera of course which is understandable) but on mobile the update counter just stops and nothing else when I touch screen. I assume the camera is trying to be accessed? I get a dialog asking permission and of course I grant access when app starts up.

Using Samsung Galaxy S8, Unity 2017.1.0f3, mono 5.9.6

Sorry for the post length but I just wanted to be thorough.

Any ideas?

Your Gallery asset works perfectly on device so not sure why this would not?

Sample project is here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fyjs4MwyRH778pnS27osSSCGww07p_GN/view?usp=sharing

Thanks!

Joseph

 

The only fatal issue I could spot was this:

android:name="com.furiogames.unity.NativeCameraContentProvider"

You shouldn't change the value of android:name (leave it as com.yasirkula.unity.NativeCameraContentProvider) because it specifies the path of the content provider class. Please let me know if that works.

 

Thanks for the response!

I did have it as your name originally and still no go. Decided to change to mine just to see and forgot to change it back. Just changed it back to yours and still no go.

Very strange it isn't working. Does the project I sent work for you? If so then this may be an issue with my setup in some way.

 

The crucial part here is to move AndroidManifest.xml from Plugins/NativeCamera/Android to Plugins/Android. It is a must. Otherwise, Unity just ignores the manifest.

I also had to change

</provider>

to

/>

and tweak Update like this:

Code (CSharp):

1. void Update()
2. {
3.     updateCount++;
4.     textUIValue.text = "Update Count: " + updateCount.ToString();
5.     if( Input.GetMouseButtonDown( 0 ) )
6.     {
7.         textUIValue.text = "Registered MouseDown";
8.         // Don't attempt to use the camera if it is already open
9.         if( NativeCamera.IsCameraBusy() )
10.             return;
11.  
12.         if( Input.mousePosition.x < Screen.width / 2 )
13.         {
14.             // Take a picture with the camera
15.             // If the captured image's width and/or height is greater than 512px, down-scale it
16.             TakePicture( 512 );
17.         }
18.         else
19.         {
20.             // Record a video with the camera
21.             RecordVideo();
22.         }
23.     }
24.        
25.     if (Input.touchCount > 0) {
26.         //    Ray ray = Camera.main.ScreenPointToRay(Input.GetTouch(i).position);
27.         textUIValue.text = "Registered TouchCount > 0";
28.     }
29. }

 

Wow! Thank you for taking your time to help with this!

I updated to Unity 2018.1.0 made your changes, updated Android SDK (to get API level 25) and it mostly works now.

Having a small issue with if I take a photo it isn't returning to displaying on plane. It stays at camera. If I take a second pic then it switches back to display on plane fine. It does this with vid also. I'll play with it some more.

Thanks again!

UPDATE: Just switched take pic/vid from screen touch to buttons and now there is no issue.

 

That's great news! Thanks for the info.

 

Hi, how do you grab the camera's pixels and save them to a texture like WebCamTexture but not directly to a file? I need to preview them like any camera app does.

Thanks.

 

NativeCamera doesn't support live preview inside Unity. Why don't you use WebCamTexture for this?

 

Hi, First, thanks a lot for making this plugin freely available. It has been really really helpful.

I have been using this plugin successfully in iOS and android. As per our current requirement, we need as lowest resolution as possible for video recording.
We tested on various android devices and found the lowest is 640X480. Just wanted to know if there is any way we can manually specify the resolution to go below it.

 

Unfortunately not. AFAIK, resolution only depends on EXTRA_VIDEO_QUALITY on Android and UIImagePickerController.videoQuality on iOS, and they don't accept custom resolutions. If you really need a lower resolution, you'll probably have to use another plugin that renders the camera output directly inside Unity.

 

Hi, I'm getting a "Can't find ContentProvider, camera is inaccessible!"

I didn't see anyone else post it, so trying my luck here.

I added the provider to the manifest. Here's the code, rather simple:

Code (CSharp):

1.  
2.             NativeCamera.Permission permission = NativeCamera.TakePicture((path) =>
3.             {
4.                 Debug.Log(path);
5.             });
6.  

It does prompt for the needed permissions, but then Unity freezes after that.

By the way, huge fan. Thanks for all the assets you have released. Probably the best asset provider I know of, up there along with the usefulness of Catlike Coding. Keep being awesome.

 

After building your project to Android, can you check the contents of PROJECT_PATH/Temp/StagingArea/AndroidManifest.xml and verify that the provider exists? If it does exist, can I see it?

 

Sure. It's the same though, except as 1 line.

<provider android:name="com.yasirkula.unity.NativeCameraContentProvider" android:authorities="3DBear_Camera_Authority" android:exported="false" android:grantUriPermissions="true" />

 

Hmm, can you try this

android:authorities

: "bearcameraauth"

 

Hey, sorry for wasting your time! It was a pretty obvious error on my side, I had put the snippet into an 'activity' that was under 'application'. Gotta hate the XML format... thanks for helping!

 

Nice job- Thank you for creating this open source plugin!

 

Hey bros really amazing pluggin, all ok but, how can i make the image more big and more light? its little and dark. thanks

 

Is NativeCamera image smaller than an image captured via native camera app? What are their resolutions? Are there no quality settings in the camera overlay in NativeCamera?

To decrease the darkness, you should play with the exposure settings in the camera overlay. Please note that NativeCamera simply starts the native camera app and fetches the captured image from it, the rest is up to the camera app itself.

 

Thanks for the fast reply bro, i fixed the darkness of the picture , the only problem is after i take the picture, the image that return is too small, i have been playing with this code line

quad.transform.localScale = new Vector3( 1f, texture.height / (float) texture.width, 1f );

how can i do to make the image get the phone width and height? to adapt on all phones

this is the image i get later from taking with native camera https://ibb.co/fn2v0z

 

Oh, you mean small like that, lol. I thought you were talking about the resolution of the image. The code that instantiates that small quad is for demonstration purposes only; if you want to show the image in full screen, you should ideally create a full screen RawImage object and assign the camera texture to its texture property.

 

Bro could you be more explicit please? i did all ok but still can´t do that, image still little

 

In essence, you can use the Texture2D texture object however you want. For example, to display the captured image in full screen, add a

public UnityEngine.UI.RawImage rawImg;

variable to your script and call

rawImg.texture = texture;

inside NativeCamera.TakePicture. Then, create a fullscreen UI-Raw Image object in your scene and assign it to the Raw Img variable of your script.

 

Bro simply amazing, thanks a lot for the help, you are a nice man, cheers bro, i did it ok

 

Hello ! I'd like to know if I can record video without on screen feedback ? I'd like to record the from camera while the user is playing.

 

Unfortunately not. This plugin can record videos with device's native camera app only.

 

Hi I just wanted some clarity..

First of all, thank you fro creating such amazing free assets, I'm already using the camera to take a screenshot for an AR project.

I'd also like to add in a feature where the use can record the video feed of their AR experience on android/iso similar to the ARStickers app.

Is there a way to record the camera feed and include the UI and AR parts? I tried to use the Record method, but the app froze maybe because the camera is already open....

Do you have any recommendations for recording camera feed with the UI and AR... Or continuous screen recording?

Thank you

 

For screen recording, there are two powerful solutions:

- Everyplay - developed by Unity team but discontinued, free, tested it myself with Vuforia AR
- NatCorder - paid, haven't tested it myself but has a 5-star rating

 

Hello,

We've run into a bit of a problem on Android with 16M (5312x2988, 16:9) pictures crashing the app in the background. 12M (3984x2988, 4:3) and below seem to work fine on our test device. Currently using Unity 2018.2.8f1. The device logs seem pretty barren of anything helpful.

iOS and video recording work fine.

Any help or ideas would be much appreciated, thanks!

 

If you don't do anything in NativeCamera's callback, does it still crash the app? If not, then try putting Debug.Log lines in between each line in the callback function to pinpoint the problematic line.

 

The callback into Unity is never called when taking a 16M picture. If the crash happened in our app's callback function it'd be much easier to find the problem, but as it is I can't get any decent logs out. From the user's perspective, after pressing "Ok" in the camera to confirm the photo taken, the app restarts itself in the background and the callback cannot find its intended target since it doesn't exist anymore. At least that's what I'm assuming is what happens.

 

It seems like Android OS kills Unity app to free up some memory. This happens when device runs out of memory. Please try your app on a newer device or a more powerful emulator and see if the issue persists.

 

Thank you for the information, greatly appreciated!

 

Hi,
When using the provided TakePicture example code I witnessed the images were available in my Android's gallery. That worked for awhile, but now I no longer see the images added to gallery. I've tracked down the path on my device to see if the image exists and it appears to not be there. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, or witnessed an anomaly that should never have happened. Either way just curious if there would be a way for me to provide a path to save a captured image to the file system? Thanks

 

Images shouldn't appear in the gallery, a segment of the code is actually dedicated to deleting those images. In NativeCamera's callback function, you can copy the file to a specific path, if you want.

 

Awesome thanks for the quick response. Now that i think of it I didnt see the images in the gallery using your plugin.

 

Hello, everything is working great with the asset but the video that is recorded doesn't seem to be saved in memory, only the picture that is taken is being saved in device memory.
Thanks for all the work though, great job.

 

Do you mean that NativeCamera.RecordVideo's CameraCallback returns a path that does not point to an existing file, or does it simply return null?

 

hey, there, looking at the image properties

Code (CSharp):

1. #if !UNITY_EDITOR && UNITY_ANDROID
2.         string value = AJC.CallStatic<string>( "GetImageProperties", Context, imagePath );
3. #elif !UNITY_EDITOR && UNITY_IOS
4.         string value = _NativeGallery_GetImageProperties( imagePath );
5. #else
6.         string value = null;
7. #endif
8.  
9. string[] properties = value.Split( '>' );
10. if( properties != null && properties.Length >= 4 )

Are there any other properties accessible on that object other than the ones that are being returned? Specifically looking for the last modified date of the image.

 

Try using

new System.IO.FileInfo(imagePath).LastWriteTime

for this.

 

For some reason when i use my camera feature it ask for gallery permission? Is it me or that something i don't know?

 

NativeCamera requests WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permission (probably the cause of the gallery permission you are seeing) for two things:

- to save the camera output to a public directory that both Unity and the camera app can access
- to read the contents of the Gallery after an image is taken to see if a higher quality version of the captured image is saved to the Gallery instead of the specified public directory (happens for some devices) and also to detect if the camera has saved a copy of that image to the Gallery (in which case, that copy is deleted)

 

Oh I see thanks for the head out ~

 

My requirement is to get the image saved to a specific location in android mobile device. Could you tell me what specific code is dedicated to delete the images. and how am i suppose to get the images save to gallery using this plug in.
BTW this is awesome work it has been really hepful

 

Only some devices save the captured image to the Gallery, so it is a device-dependent thing. However, you can use my NativeGallery plugin to easily save the captured image to the Gallery on all devices: https://forum.unity.com/threads/native-gallery-for-android-ios-open-source.519619/

 

Hi, thanks for your work!

So far I literally copied and pasted the example code you made in the GitHub page and included the snippet in the AndroidManifest file but I have some issues:

1) I debugged the "path" string and it shows me this: "/data/user/0/(my bundle id)/cache/IMG_camera.jpg but I can't find it anywhere in my device and therefore I can't find the picture file. Am I missing something?

2) The texture attached to the quad created after the picture is taken is missing (it's pink) even though the (texture == null) check has been done. This issue might me related to the previous one, I think.

Thanks for your help

 

Hi!

1) It looks like an internal directory. You can copy the image file to e.g. Application.persistentDataPath, if you want to access it via the file browser. You can also use NativeGallery to save the image to gallery: https://forum.unity.com/threads/native-gallery-for-android-ios-open-source.519619/

2) It sounds like a shader issue. If you are using a scriptable render pipeline (LWRP or HDRP), try adding a cube object to your test scene and see if it resolves the issue.

 

I managed to save the image into the gallery using both persistent data path and your NativeGallery plugin, thanks! I am trying to do the same with videos but I can't find a way to save the video recorded as data (I used File.WriteAllBytes to save the texture2D of the picture). Is there something like the NativeCamera.LoadImageAtPath(path) method I can use to do the trick?

EDIT: Ok, I just needed to call the ShareVideoToGallery using the path given by NativeCamera plugin, solved

 

Hi, when I run the function RecordVideo my phone freeze, and I have to finish the app, it's something extra that I need to do? or I have to configure something in the code, thanks.

Code (CSharp):

1. private void RecordVideo(){
2.         NativeCamera.Permission permission = NativeCamera.RecordVideo((AndroidPath) => {
3.             if(AndroidPath != null){
4.                 Handheld.PlayFullScreenMovie("file://"+AndroidPath);
5.             }
6.         });
7.     }

In the Logcat show this message: Can't find ContentProvider, camera is inaccessible!