Camera on Android Eclipse emulator:

Question

I don't have an embedded camera in the lid of my notebook. I'd be hooking up through an external USB camera.

The emulator runtime can pick this up right? I'll get the image displayed inside the AVD skin's screen in real time?

Answer 1

In the current release of the emulator (Ice Cream Sandwich, API14;Linux), web camera support is available . Google's documentation and most answers available on the web do not yet reflect this. The emulator itself does:

emulator -help
...
-fake-camera <mode>      set fake camera emulation mode
-webcam name=<name>[,dir=&lt;direction&gt;] setup web camera emulation
...
emulator -help-all

and further:

help for option -fake_camera

Use -fake-camera <mode> to control fake camera emulation. Valid values for <mode> are:

off   -> disable fake camera emulation
back  -> fake camera is facing back
front -> fake camera is facing front

help for option -webcam

• -webcam off to disable web camera emulation.
• -webcam list to list web cameras available for emulation.

• -webcam name=[,dir= <direction> ] to setup parameters for web camera emulation.

  • <name> platform-independent name identifying emulated camera device.

  • <direction> defines direction the camera is facing. Valid values are:

    • front -> emulate camera as facing front

    • back -> emulate camera as facing back

      Default direction value for emulated web camera is 'front'

Answer 2

Afaik the emulator wont show a realtime camera regardless.

If you need a live camera-source to use in your own app for debugging, there is a sollution at http://www.tomgibara.com/android/camera-source

Updated for newer android versions: http://www.inter-fuser.com/2009/09/live-camera-preview-in-android-emulator.html

Answer 3

Time to upgrade your ADK!

As of Android SDK version 14, the emulator supports webcams to simulate a camera:

General notes - Added webcam support to Android 4.0 or later platforms to emulate rear-facing cameras when one webcam is present, and to emulate both rear-facing and front-facing cameras when two webcams are present. Webcam suport is for Windows and Linux only. Mac support will come in a later release.

from: Android SDK Tools, SDK Tools, Revision 14

It works! I've tried this myself.

Answer 4

From the android documentation:

Emulator Limitations

In this release, the limitations of the emulator include:

...

No support for camera/video capture

...

In other words, no, you cannot access or preview the camera in the emulator.