Ios – Get Camera Preview to AVCaptureVideoPreviewLayer

After a lot of trial and error, I worked out how to do this.

Hint: Apple's official docs are - simply - wrong. The code they give you doesn't actually work.

I wrote it up here with step-by-step instructions:

http://red-glasses.com/index.php/tutorials/ios4-take-photos-with-live-video-preview-using-avfoundation/

Lots of code on the link, but in summary:

-(void) viewDidAppear:(BOOL)animated
{
    AVCaptureSession *session = [[AVCaptureSession alloc] init];
    session.sessionPreset = AVCaptureSessionPresetMedium;

    CALayer *viewLayer = self.vImagePreview.layer;
    NSLog(@"viewLayer = %@", viewLayer);

    AVCaptureVideoPreviewLayer *captureVideoPreviewLayer = [[AVCaptureVideoPreviewLayer alloc] initWithSession:session];

    captureVideoPreviewLayer.frame = self.vImagePreview.bounds;
    [self.vImagePreview.layer addSublayer:captureVideoPreviewLayer];

    AVCaptureDevice *device = [AVCaptureDevice defaultDeviceWithMediaType:AVMediaTypeVideo];

    NSError *error = nil;
    AVCaptureDeviceInput *input = [AVCaptureDeviceInput deviceInputWithDevice:device error:&error];
    if (!input) {
        // Handle the error appropriately.
        NSLog(@"ERROR: trying to open camera: %@", error);
    }
    [session addInput:input];

stillImageOutput = [[AVCaptureStillImageOutput alloc] init];
NSDictionary *outputSettings = [[NSDictionary alloc] initWithObjectsAndKeys: AVVideoCodecJPEG, AVVideoCodecKey, nil];
[stillImageOutput setOutputSettings:outputSettings];

[session addOutput:stillImageOutput];

    [session startRunning];
}

-(IBAction) captureNow
{
    AVCaptureConnection *videoConnection = nil;
    for (AVCaptureConnection *connection in stillImageOutput.connections)
    {
        for (AVCaptureInputPort *port in [connection inputPorts])
        {
            if ([[port mediaType] isEqual:AVMediaTypeVideo] )
            {
                videoConnection = connection;
                break;
            }
        }
        if (videoConnection) { break; }
    }

    NSLog(@"about to request a capture from: %@", stillImageOutput);
    [stillImageOutput captureStillImageAsynchronouslyFromConnection:videoConnection completionHandler: ^(CMSampleBufferRef imageSampleBuffer, NSError *error)
    {
         CFDictionaryRef exifAttachments = CMGetAttachment( imageSampleBuffer, kCGImagePropertyExifDictionary, NULL);
         if (exifAttachments)
         {
            // Do something with the attachments.
            NSLog(@"attachements: %@", exifAttachments);
         }
        else
            NSLog(@"no attachments");

        NSData *imageData = [AVCaptureStillImageOutput jpegStillImageNSDataRepresentation:imageSampleBuffer];
        UIImage *image = [[UIImage alloc] initWithData:imageData];

        self.vImage.image = image;
     }];
}

Thanks for looking into it, basically the solution is, orientation of connection should be set, and i was playing with the preview layer, so its affecting the preview layer but not the orientation.

here goes the code snippet

-(void) orientationChanged
{
    // get the new orientation from device 
    AVCaptureVideoOrientation newOrientation = [self videoOrientationFromDeviceOrientation];

    // set the orientation of preview layer :( which will be displayed in the device )
    [previewLayer.connection setVideoOrientation:newOrientation];

    // set the orientation of the connection: which will take care of capture
    [pCaptureConnection setVideoOrientation:newOrientation];

}