How to enable USB Camera in Android Using Camera2 API
The Android platform supports the use of plug-and-play USB cameras, using the standard Android Camera2 API and the camera HIDL interface. Camera2 API was introduced by Google with the android version 5. Before the Camera2 API, the camera functions of any device were very limited. Camera app could just be used to preview and capture images and take a video. With Camera2 API, Google provided camera developers options to do more with the camera – control the shutter speed (ISO), focus, RAW capture, etc. This helped third-party developers to include more features in their applications with the tools they are given through the API.
Camera2 API is essential for Android devices in order to take full advantage of the camera features. In this whitepaper, we talk about –
- What Camera2 API is and how to enable USB camera in android Camera2 API?
- How to integrate V4L2 based USB camera with android camera stack on any embedded platform by enabling camera2 API and modifying latest HAL3 with V4L2 API to stream USB camera and provide preview and snapshot facilities?