Creating thumbnail from local video in swift

Question

How to create thumbnail in swift from a local video file ?

For example if the video file path is located here :

file:///Users/Dev/Library/Developer/CoreSimulator/Devices/F33222DF-D8F0-448B-A127-C5B03C64D0DC/data/Containers/Data/Application/4BC62DBF-0108-453C-9324-5BC0E356FE24/tmp/trim.059D11E6-F0EF-43DB-9E97-CA4F1F95D6B6.MOV

Thank you.

score 74 · Answer 1 · edited Jan 19 '19 at 16:56

74

BaseZen's answer translated Swift 3 / Swift 4

You need to set the location of the video you want to make a thumbnail of as the url asset path, like:

Don't forget to import AVFoundation

func generateThumbnail(path: URL) -> UIImage? {
    do {
        let asset = AVURLAsset(url: path, options: nil)
        let imgGenerator = AVAssetImageGenerator(asset: asset)
        imgGenerator.appliesPreferredTrackTransform = true
        let cgImage = try imgGenerator.copyCGImage(at: CMTimeMake(value: 0, timescale: 1), actualTime: nil)
        let thumbnail = UIImage(cgImage: cgImage)
        return thumbnail
    } catch let error {
        print("*** Error generating thumbnail: \(error.localizedDescription)")
        return nil
    }
}

For everyone having issues with this I have created the following drop in example hosted on Github

edited Jan 19 '19 at 16:56

Simon Bengtsson

7,573
3
58
87

answered Dec 06 '16 at 03:42

David Seek

16,783
19
105
136

Hey, thanks for the code, don't know why but its taking 10-15 secs to display the preview. Can anyone please help? – vivek takrani Dec 30 '16 at 18:37
@vivektakrani open a new thread and provide your code and logic – David Seek Dec 31 '16 at 00:27
since you've already got an answer, i have just upvoted it for you so you're break even again – David Seek Dec 31 '16 at 11:00
Very good. Sorry for the noob question, but what kind of video format are supported? – Mike97 Aug 09 '17 at 00:21
Error generating thumbnail: Cannot Open on iOS 11. Additional usage description is already there. – Sharad Chauhan Oct 12 '17 at 07:40
@sharadchauhan I have created the following GIT project for you: https://github.com/davidseek/ThumbnailTestProject check it out – David Seek Oct 12 '17 at 15:26
How can I get Thumbnail from duration (10 sec to 15 sec) using any video URL? – Anand Gautam Dec 03 '17 at 10:15
Not with this approach. You would need to create a function to get a sub video for your desired duration and then get a thumbnail from that sub video. – David Seek Dec 03 '17 at 21:21

BaseZen · Accepted Answer · 2019-02-28T14:11:18.723

73

Translated with some edits from:

First frame of a video using AVFoundation

    var err: NSError? = nil
    let asset = AVURLAsset(URL: NSURL(fileURLWithPath: "/that/long/path"), options: nil)
    let imgGenerator = AVAssetImageGenerator(asset: asset)
    let cgImage = imgGenerator.copyCGImageAtTime(CMTimeMake(0, 1), actualTime: nil, error: &err)
    // !! check the error before proceeding
    let uiImage = UIImage(CGImage: cgImage)
    let imageView = UIImageView(image: uiImage)
    // lay out this image view, or if it already exists, set its image property to uiImage

edited Feb 28 '19 at 14:11

answered Aug 03 '15 at 03:59

BaseZen

8,650
3
35
47

How can I get Thumbnail from duration (10 sec to 15 sec) using any video URL? – Anand Gautam Dec 03 '17 at 10:14
5

@AnandGautam I'll take a wild guess and say you provide a different CMTime? – ekscrypto Dec 12 '17 at 22:22
1

how to get a system cameraRoll video thumbnail? – liu pluto Jun 15 '18 at 06:32

CodeBender · Answer 3 · 2019-03-12T13:04:04.967

This is a cleaned up version of David's answer and tested against iOS 11 / Swift 4.x.

Please note the different calls for handling the initial time based on which version of Swift you are using.

func generateThumbnail(url: URL) -> UIImage? {
    do {
        let asset = AVURLAsset(url: url)
        let imageGenerator = AVAssetImageGenerator(asset: asset)
        imageGenerator.appliesPreferredTrackTransform = true
        // Select the right one based on which version you are using
        // Swift 4.2
        let cgImage = try imageGenerator.copyCGImage(at: .zero,
                                                     actualTime: nil)
        // Swift 4.0
        let cgImage = try imageGenerator.copyCGImage(at: kCMTimeZero,
                                                     actualTime: nil)


        return UIImage(cgImage: cgImage)
    } catch {
        print(error.localizedDescription)

        return nil
    }
}

Creates an AVURLAsset from the provided URL
Creates an AVAssetImageGenerator using the newly created AVURLAsset, is responsible for making the thumbnail
appliesPreferredTrackTransform informs the generator to apply the matrix to the thumbnail generation. The default value is false.
Attempts to create a CGImage at the first frame of the video track
Creates a UIImage using the newly created CGImage & returns it
If the image generation step fails, an error is caught and presented to the console along with a nil UIImage

Carl Smith · Answer 4 · 2016-06-28T22:32:43.347

13

BaseZen's answer translated to Swift 2:

import UIKit
import AVFoundation

do {
    let asset = AVURLAsset(URL: NSURL(fileURLWithPath: "/that/long/path"), options: nil)
    let imgGenerator = AVAssetImageGenerator(asset: asset)
    imgGenerator.appliesPreferredTrackTransform = true
    let cgImage = try imgGenerator.copyCGImageAtTime(CMTimeMake(0, 1), actualTime: nil)
    let uiImage = UIImage(CGImage: cgImage)
    let imageView = UIImageView(image: uiImage)
    // lay out this image view, or if it already exists, set its image property to uiImage
} catch let error as NSError {
    print("Error generating thumbnail: \(error)")
}

edited Jun 28 '16 at 22:32

answered Jan 29 '16 at 01:54

Carl Smith

1,236
15
18

1

sure, and `var err` is irrelevant now. – BaseZen Jan 29 '16 at 03:24
Thanks. I removed it. – Carl Smith Jun 28 '16 at 19:24
2

I found that some of my thumbnails did not have the same orientation as the original videos. Setting imgGenerator.appliesPreferredTrackTransform to true fixed that. – Carl Smith Jun 28 '16 at 22:34
How can I get Thumbnail from duration (10 sec to 15 sec) using any video URL? – Anand Gautam Dec 03 '17 at 10:15

Bilal Arslan · Answer 5 · 2020-07-08T12:42:07.023

It's better to write less and simple code for understanding. This is what I convert the solutions in Swift (3.1 ... 5.2)

import AVFoundation

func imagePreview(from moviePath: URL, in seconds: Double) -> UIImage? {
    let timestamp = CMTime(seconds: seconds, preferredTimescale: 60)
    let asset = AVURLAsset(url: moviePath)
    let generator = AVAssetImageGenerator(asset: asset)
    generator.appliesPreferredTrackTransform = true

    guard let imageRef = try? generator.copyCGImage(at: timestamp, actualTime: nil) else {
        return nil
    }
    return UIImage(cgImage: imageRef)
}

Hope it will help someone.

score 5 · Answer 6 · answered Nov 18 '20 at 18:03

Swift 5.3

As an alternative to other answers, with slight modification I decided to make an URL extension.

import AVFoundation

extension URL {
    func generateThumbnail() -> UIImage? {
        do {
            let asset = AVURLAsset(url: self)
            let imageGenerator = AVAssetImageGenerator(asset: asset)
            imageGenerator.appliesPreferredTrackTransform = true
            
            // Swift 5.3
            let cgImage = try imageGenerator.copyCGImage(at: .zero,
                                                         actualTime: nil)

            return UIImage(cgImage: cgImage)
        } catch {
            print(error.localizedDescription)

            return nil
        }
    }
}

Usage:

let image = someURL.generateThumbnail()

score 1 · Answer 7 · answered Dec 20 '21 at 06:39

Here is how you generate a thumbnail (first frame) of a video in swift 5:

import UIKit
import AVFoundation

class ViewController: UIViewController {

    @IBOutlet weak var imageView: UIImageView!
    override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()
    
        let video = AVURLAsset(url: URL(fileURLWithPath: Bundle.main.path(forResource: "sampleVideo", ofType: "mov")!))
        let thumbnailGenerator = AVAssetImageGenerator(asset: video)
    
        do
        {
            let cgImage = try thumbnailGenerator.copyCGImage(at: CMTimeMake(value: 0, timescale: 1), actualTime: nil)
            let UiImage = UIImage(cgImage: cgImage)
            imageView.image = UiImage
        }
        catch
        { print(error) }
    
    }

}

In this example the video name is sampleVideo.mov (change the file url to the name of your video file), make sure you import the video into your local Xcode project and add it to your app's target.

I have make a youtube explaining this here

score 0 · Answer 8 · edited Apr 18 '19 at 11:23

func saveImageDocumentDirectoryWithDate(tempImage:UIImage, block : @escaping (_ url: URL?) -> Void ){

    let documentsDirectoryURL = try! FileManager().url(for: .documentDirectory, in: .userDomainMask, appropriateFor: nil, create: true)

    let random : String =  randomString(length: 5)

    let fileURL = documentsDirectoryURL.appendingPathComponent(String(format:"CPImage%@.png",random))
    do { try tempImage.pngData()?.write(to: fileURL) }
    catch { block(nil) }
    block(fileURL)}

Shivam Garg · Answer 9 · 2022-06-20T13:43:14.183

You can use Kingfisher to generate the thumbnail.

Note:- It will handle all the cache work for you.

Usage:-

Step 1

import Kingfisher

Step 2

guard let url = URL(string: videoUrlString) else { return }
self.imageView.kf.setImage(with: AVAssetImageDataProvider(assetURL: url, seconds: 1))

Here is the link of Kingfisher SDK

https://github.com/onevcat/Kingfisher

Note:- It will work fine with latest version of kingfisher/ higher or equals to version 7.2.3

Creating thumbnail from local video in swift

9 Answers9

Linked