Camera Kit

HUAWEI Camera Kit encapsulates the Google Camera2 API to support multiple enhanced camera capabilities.

Unlike other camera APIs, Camera Kit focuses on bringing the full capacity of your camera to your apps. Well, dear readers think like this, many other social media apps have their own camera features yet output given by their camera is somehow always worse than the camera quality that your phone actually provides. For example, your camera may support x50 zoom or super night mode or maybe wide aperture mode but we all know that full extent of our phones’ camera becomes useless no matter the price or the feature that our phone has when we are trying the take a shot from any of the 3rd party camera APIs.

HUAWEI Camera Kit provides a set of advanced programming APIs for you to integrate powerful image processing capabilities of Huawei phone cameras into your apps. Camera features such as wide aperture, Portrait mode, HDR, background blur, and Super Night mode can help your users shoot stunning images and vivid videos anytime and anywhere.

Features

Unlike the rest of the open-source APIs Camera Kit access the devices’ original camera features and is able to unleash them in your apps.

• Front Camera HDR: In a backlit or low-light environment, front camera High Dynamic Range (HDR) improves the details in both the well-lit and poorly-lit areas of photos to present more life-like qualities.
• Super Night Mode: This mode is used for you to take photos with sufficient brightness by using a long exposure at night. It also helps you to take photos that are properly exposed in other dark environments.
• Wide Aperture: This mode blurs the background and highlights the subject in a photo. You are advised to be within 2 meters of the subject when taking a photo and to disable the flash in this mode.
• Recording: This mode helps you record HD videos with effects such as different colors, filters, and AI film. Effects: Video HDR, Video background blurring
• Portrait: Portraits and close-ups
• Photo Mode: This mode supports the general capabilities that include but are not limited to Rear camera: Flash, color modes, face/smile detection, filter, and master AI. Front camera: Face/Smile detection, filter, SensorHdr, and mirror reflection.
• Super Slow-Mo Recording: This mode allows you to record super slow-motion videos with a frame rate of over 960 FPS in manual or automatic (motion detection) mode.
• Slow-mo Recording: This mode allows you to record slow-motion videos with a frame rate lower than 960 FPS. This mode allows you to record slow-motion videos with a frame rate lower than 960 FPS.
• Pro Mode (Video): The Pro mode is designed to open the professional photography and recording capabilities of the Huawei camera to apps to meet diversified shooting requirements.
• Pro Mode (Photo): This mode allows you to adjust the following camera parameters to obtain the same shooting capabilities as those of Huawei camera: Metering mode, ISO, exposure compensation, exposure duration, focus mode, and automatic white balance.

Integration Process

Registration and Sign-in

Before you get started, you must register as a HUAWEI developer and complete identity verification on the HUAWEI Developer website. For details, please refer to Register a HUAWEI ID.

Signing the HUAWEI Developer SDK Service Cooperation Agreement

When you download the SDK from SDK Download, the system prompts you to sign in and sign the HUAWEI Media Service Usage Agreement…

Environment Preparations

Android Studio v3.0.1 or later is recommended.

Huawei phones equipped with Kirin 980 or later and running EMUI 10.0 or later are required.

Code Part (Portrait Mode)

Now let us do an example for Portrait Mode. On our manifest lets set up some permissions:

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.CAMERA" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.WRITE_INTERNAL_STORAGE" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.READ_INTERNAL_STORAGE" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.RECORD_AUDIO" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION" />
<uses-feature android:name="android.hardware.camera" />
<uses-feature android:name="android.hardware.camera.autofocus" />

View for the camera doesn’t provided by Camera Kit so we have to write our own view first:

public class OurTextureView extends TextureView {
private int mRatioWidth = 0;
private int mRatioHeight = 0;
public OurTextureView(Context context) {
this(context, null);
}
public OurTextureView(Context context, AttributeSet attrs) {
this(context, attrs, 0);
}
public OurTextureView(Context context, AttributeSet attrs, int defStyle) {
super(context, attrs, defStyle);
}
public void setAspectRatio(int width, int height) {
if ((width < 0) || (height < 0)) {
throw new IllegalArgumentException("Size cannot be negative.");
}
mRatioWidth = width;
mRatioHeight = height;
requestLayout();
}
@Override
protected void onMeasure(int widthMeasureSpec, int heightMeasureSpec) {
super.onMeasure(widthMeasureSpec, heightMeasureSpec);
int width = MeasureSpec.getSize(widthMeasureSpec);
int height = MeasureSpec.getSize(heightMeasureSpec);
if ((0 == mRatioWidth) || (0 == mRatioHeight)) {
setMeasuredDimension(width, height);
} else {
if (width < height * mRatioWidth / mRatioHeight) {
setMeasuredDimension(width, width * mRatioHeight / mRatioWidth);
} else {
setMeasuredDimension(height * mRatioWidth / mRatioHeight, height);
}
}
}
}

.xml part:

<com.huawei.camerakit.portrait.OurTextureView
android:id="@+id/texture"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_alignParentStart="true"
android:layout_alignParentTop="true" />

Let’s look at our variables:

private Mode mMode;
private @Mode.Type int mCurrentModeType = Mode.Type.PORTRAIT_MODE;
private CameraKit mCameraKit;

Our permissions:

@Override
public void onRequestPermissionsResult(int requestCode, @NonNull String[] permissions,
@NonNull int[] grantResults) {
Log.d(TAG, "onRequestPermissionsResult: ");
if (!PermissionHelper.hasPermission(this)) {
Toast.makeText(this, "This application needs camera permission.", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
finish();
}
}

First, in our code let us check if the Camera Kit is supported by our device:

private boolean initCameraKit() {
mCameraKit = CameraKit.getInstance(getApplicationContext());
if (mCameraKit == null) {
Log.e(TAG, "initCamerakit: this devices not support camerakit or not installed!");
return false;
}
return true;
}

captureImage() method to capture image 🙂

private void captureImage() {
Log.i(TAG, "captureImage begin");
if (mMode != null) {
mMode.setImageRotation(90);
// Default jpeg file path
mFile = new File(getExternalFilesDir(null), System.currentTimeMillis() + "pic.jpg");
// Take picture
mMode.takePicture();
}
Log.i(TAG, "captureImage end");
}

Callback method for our actionState:

private final ActionStateCallback actionStateCallback = new ActionStateCallback() {
@Override
public void onPreview(Mode mode, int state, PreviewResult result) {
}
@Override
public void onTakePicture(Mode mode, int state, TakePictureResult result) {
switch (state) {
case TakePictureResult.State.CAPTURE_STARTED:
Log.d(TAG, "onState: STATE_CAPTURE_STARTED");
break;
case TakePictureResult.State.CAPTURE_COMPLETED:
Log.d(TAG, "onState: STATE_CAPTURE_COMPLETED");
showToast("take picture success! file=" + mFile);
break;
default:
break;
}
}
};