UIImagePickerController how to do animated switch from rear to front camera?

Question

I have been using custom overlay for UIImagePickerController controller, and everything is working fine. I have added button to switch between front and rear camera via -

 - (IBAction)changeCamera:(id)sender {
if (self.imagePicker.cameraDevice == UIImagePickerControllerCameraDeviceRear) {
    self.imagePicker.cameraDevice = UIImagePickerControllerCameraDeviceFront;
}
else {
    self.imagePicker.cameraDevice = UIImagePickerControllerCameraDeviceRear;
}
}

Problem is, switch is not animated. I have been using apple camera app which is built on top of UIImagePicker, and the switch is happening animated. How do I do this?

I am using UIBarButtonItem. With switch i mean change from rear to front camera animated, like in apple app where it is flipping horizontal. — MegaManX, Oct 09 '12 at 08:47
Have a look at [`transitionFromView:toView:duration:options:completion:`](http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/uikit/reference/uiview_class/uiview/uiview.html#//apple_ref/occ/clm/UIView/transitionFromView:toView:duration:options:completion:) — David Rönnqvist, Oct 09 '12 at 08:52
UIImagePickerController does have view property, but i am not one that is making transition between views, that is done automatically after i set camera device property. — MegaManX, Oct 09 '12 at 09:06

score 25 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 12 '13 at 04:57

25

I was trying to do this today, and I was able to get it working with the following code:

[UIView transitionWithView:imagePickerController.view duration:1.0 options:UIViewAnimationOptionAllowAnimatedContent | UIViewAnimationOptionTransitionFlipFromLeft animations:^{
            imagePickerController.cameraDevice = UIImagePickerControllerCameraDeviceRear;
        } completion:NULL];

I hope this helps anyone who comes across this question.

answered Mar 12 '13 at 04:57

Pablo

317
5
8

Thanks for the answer. It provides the right transition that I'm looking for but the transition between the camera views still flickers a bit (the cameraDevice isn't set before the transition is done). I'm hesitant to just increase the animation duration because that value might be different on older iPads. Any thoughts? I was thinking of taking a screen shot and transition from that to the image picker. – Kevin Zych Aug 23 '13 at 15:37
Yeh I have the same issue - the transform is a nice idea - but Apple gives you no completion callback so timing it is not accurate. – daihovey Feb 18 '14 at 07:05
1

The problem with this solution is that it also flips camera overlay view, which is not the way Apple does it in their own camera app. – HiveHicks Aug 20 '14 at 05:31

score 6 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 08 '16 at 07:26

Here's the Swift code for the accepted answer in case someone needs it:

UIView.transitionWithView(imagePickerController.view!, duration: 1.0, options: [.AllowAnimatedContent, .TransitionFlipFromLeft], animations: {() -> Void in
            imagePickerController.cameraDevice = .Rear
            }, completion: nil)

Thanks Pablo!

UIImagePickerController how to do animated switch from rear to front camera?

2 Answers2

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