Using android.view.SurfaceView with a camera on part of the screen

Question

I trying to put together an Android app that will take a picture and process it in some way. I\'d like the layout to be similar to Google Goggles. Meaning, camera preview

Answer 1

Yes you can use a surfaceView. From the surfaceView you can get the SurfaceHolder which then can be used to set the camera's previewDisplay.

        SurfaceView preview = (SurfaceView) findViewById(R.id.cameraPreview);
    SurfaceHolder previewHolder = preview.getHolder();
    previewHolder.addCallback(surfaceCallback);
    previewHolder.setType(SurfaceHolder.SURFACE_TYPE_PUSH_BUFFERS);

You'll need to implement the SurfaceHolder.Callback method in order to update the preview size properly. In surfaceCreated set the previewDisplay of the camera. On surfaceChanged update the previewSize for the camera.

camera.setPreviewDisplay(previewHolder);

In fact the example mentioned before is a very good reference!