How to take picture with camera using ARCore

Question

ARCore camera doesn't seem to support takePicture. https://developers.google.com/ar/reference/java/com/google/ar/core/Camera

Anyone know how I can take pictures with ARCore?

Answer 1

I am assuming you mean a picture of what the camera is seeing and the AR objects. At a high level you need to get permission to write to external storage to save the picture, copy the frame from OpenGL and then save it as a png (for example). Here are the specifics:

Add the WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permission to the AndroidManifest.xml

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

Then change CameraPermissionHelper to iterate over both the CAMERA and WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permissions to make sure they are granted

 private static final String REQUIRED_PERMISSIONS[] = {
          Manifest.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE,
          Manifest.permission.CAMERA
  };

  /**
   * Check to see we have the necessary permissions for this app.
   */
  public static boolean hasCameraPermission(Activity activity) {
    for (String p : REQUIRED_PERMISSIONS) {
      if (ContextCompat.checkSelfPermission(activity, p) !=
            PackageManager.PERMISSION_GRANTED) {
        return false;
      }
    }
    return true;
  }

  /**
   * Check to see we have the necessary permissions for this app,
   *   and ask for them if we don't.
   */
  public static void requestCameraPermission(Activity activity) {
    ActivityCompat.requestPermissions(activity, REQUIRED_PERMISSIONS,
            CAMERA_PERMISSION_CODE);
  }

  /**
   * Check to see if we need to show the rationale for this permission.
   */
  public static boolean shouldShowRequestPermissionRationale(Activity activity) {
    for (String p : REQUIRED_PERMISSIONS) {
      if (ActivityCompat.shouldShowRequestPermissionRationale(activity, p)) {
        return true;
      }
    }
    return false;
  }

Next, add a couple fields to HelloARActivity to keep track of the dimensions of the frame and boolean to indicate when to save the picture.

 private int mWidth;
 private int mHeight;
 private  boolean capturePicture = false;

Set the width and height in onSurfaceChanged()

 public void onSurfaceChanged(GL10 gl, int width, int height) {
     mDisplayRotationHelper.onSurfaceChanged(width, height);
     GLES20.glViewport(0, 0, width, height);
     mWidth = width;
     mHeight = height;
 }

At the bottom of onDrawFrame(), add a check for the capture flag. This should be done after all the other drawing happens.

         if (capturePicture) {
             capturePicture = false;
             SavePicture();
         }

Then add the onClick method for a button to take the picture, and the actual code to save the image:

  public void onSavePicture(View view) {
    // Here just a set a flag so we can copy
    // the image from the onDrawFrame() method.
    // This is required for OpenGL so we are on the rendering thread.
    this.capturePicture = true;
  }

  /**
   * Call from the GLThread to save a picture of the current frame.
   */
  public void SavePicture() throws IOException {
    int pixelData[] = new int[mWidth * mHeight];

    // Read the pixels from the current GL frame.
    IntBuffer buf = IntBuffer.wrap(pixelData);
    buf.position(0);
    GLES20.glReadPixels(0, 0, mWidth, mHeight,
            GLES20.GL_RGBA, GLES20.GL_UNSIGNED_BYTE, buf);

    // Create a file in the Pictures/HelloAR album.
    final File out = new File(Environment.getExternalStoragePublicDirectory(
            Environment.DIRECTORY_PICTURES) + "/HelloAR", "Img" +
            Long.toHexString(System.currentTimeMillis()) + ".png");

    // Make sure the directory exists
    if (!out.getParentFile().exists()) {
      out.getParentFile().mkdirs();
    }

    // Convert the pixel data from RGBA to what Android wants, ARGB.
    int bitmapData[] = new int[pixelData.length];
    for (int i = 0; i < mHeight; i++) {
      for (int j = 0; j < mWidth; j++) {
        int p = pixelData[i * mWidth + j];
        int b = (p & 0x00ff0000) >> 16;
        int r = (p & 0x000000ff) << 16;
        int ga = p & 0xff00ff00;
        bitmapData[(mHeight - i - 1) * mWidth + j] = ga | r | b;
      }
    }
    // Create a bitmap.
    Bitmap bmp = Bitmap.createBitmap(bitmapData,
                     mWidth, mHeight, Bitmap.Config.ARGB_8888);

    // Write it to disk.
    FileOutputStream fos = new FileOutputStream(out);
    bmp.compress(Bitmap.CompressFormat.PNG, 100, fos);
    fos.flush();
    fos.close();
    runOnUiThread(new Runnable() {
      @Override
      public void run() {
        showSnackbarMessage("Wrote " + out.getName(), false);
      }
    });
  }

Last step is to add the button to the end of activity_main.xml layout

<Button
    android:id="@+id/fboRecord_button"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:layout_alignStart="@+id/surfaceview"
    android:layout_alignTop="@+id/surfaceview"
    android:onClick="onSavePicture"
    android:text="Snap"
    tools:ignore="OnClick"/>