AVCaptureVideoPreviewLayer: taking a snapshot

Question

I\'m trying to emulate the animation seen in the default camera app, where a snapshot of the cameras viewfinder is animated into the corner of the apps display.

The

Answer 1

Starting in iOS 7, you can use UIView::snapshotViewAfterScreenUpdates to snapshot the UIView wrapping your AVCaptureVideoPreviewLayer. This is not the same as UIGetScreenImage, which will get your app rejected.

UIView *snapshot = [self.containerView snapshotViewAfterScreenUpdates:YES];

Recall the old-school way of turning a view into an image. For some reason it worked on everything except for camera previews:

UIGraphicsBeginImageContextWithOptions(self.containerView.bounds.size, NO, [UIScreen mainScreen].scale);
[self.containerView drawViewHierarchyInRect:self.containerView.bounds afterScreenUpdates:YES];
UIImage *image = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext();
UIGraphicsEndImageContext();