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Present Camera using UIKit

The CameraViewController class is responsible for displaying an interface to interact with the camera. It provides user interface elements among others to enable the flash, toggle the camera and choose a filter.

Configure and create the view controller#

In order to record and access photos in the camera roll the NSCameraUsageDescription and NSPhotoLibraryUsageDescription key need to be present in your Info.plist file.

Before instantiating the CameraViewController we can configure some basic properties.

By default, the camera view controller does not show a cancel button, so that it can be embedded into any other view controller. But since it is presented modally in this example, a cancel button should be visible.

We also only want to enable recording photos with the camera to be passed to the editor and not videos, so we set allowedRecordingModes to [.photo]. Finally, we instantiate the view controller and pass the configuration object to the constructor.

For more detail on configuration the camera view refer to this guides sections.

Handle cancellation#

The camera view controller's cancelBlock will be called when the user taps the cancel button. You can use the block to dismiss the presenting controller and handle any clean up tasks.

Handle photo recording completion#

The completionBlock will be called when the user selects a photo from the camera roll or finishes recording a photo.

Inside the block, we dismiss the camera view, create a photo object from the data passed to the block and instantiate a PhotoEditViewController passing in the photo. It is necessary to pass in the PhotoEditModel of the camera view controller to preserve any filters that might have been selected.

Note, that we have to make the current class the delegate of the PhotoEditViewController in order to handle export and cancellation there.

Present the camera view controller#

We set modalPresentationStyle to .fullScreen to present the camera view inside a modal.

Next Steps#

import PhotoEditorSDK
import UIKit


class ShowPhotoCameraUIKitSwift: Example, PhotoEditViewControllerDelegate {
  override func invokeExample() {
    // Create a `Configuration` object.
    let configuration = Configuration { builder in
      builder.configureCameraViewController { options in
        // By default the camera view controller does not show a cancel button,
        // so that it can be embedded into any other view controller. But since it is
        // presented modally here, a cancel button should be visible.
        options.showCancelButton = true


        // Enable photo only.
        options.allowedRecordingModes = [.photo]
      }
    }


    // Create the camera view controller passing above configuration.
    let cameraViewController = CameraViewController(configuration: configuration)


    // The `cancelBlock` will be called when the user taps the cancel button.
    cameraViewController.cancelBlock = { [weak self] in
      // Dismiss the camera view controller.
      self?.presentingViewController?.dismiss(animated: true, completion: nil)
    }


    // The `completionBlock` will be called once a photo has been taken or when the user selects a photo from the camera roll.
    // The `Data` argument will contain the photo in JPEG format with all EXIF information.
    cameraViewController.completionBlock = { [weak self] result in
      // Create a `Photo` from the `Data` object.
      guard let data = result.data else { return }
      let photo = Photo(data: data)
      // Dismiss the camera view controller and open the photo editor after dismissal.
      self?.presentingViewController?.dismiss(animated: true, completion: {
        // Create and present the photo editor. Make this class the delegate of it to handle export and cancelation.
        // Passing the `result.model` to the editor to preserve selected filters.
        let photoEditViewController = PhotoEditViewController(photoAsset: photo, photoEditModel: result.model)
        photoEditViewController.delegate = self
        photoEditViewController.modalPresentationStyle = .fullScreen
        self?.presentingViewController?.present(photoEditViewController, animated: true, completion: nil)
      })
    }


    // Present the camera view controller.
    // To take photos, the camera will require the `NSCameraUsageDescription` key to be present in your Info.plist file.
    // To access photos in the camera roll, the camera will require the `NSPhotoLibraryUsageDescription` key to be present in your Info.plist file.
    // To record videos, the camera will require the `NSMicrophoneUsageDescription` key to be present in your Info.plist file.
    cameraViewController.modalPresentationStyle = .fullScreen
    presentingViewController?.present(cameraViewController, animated: true, completion: nil)
  }


  // MARK: - PhotoEditViewControllerDelegate


  func photoEditViewControllerShouldStart(_ photoEditViewController: PhotoEditViewController, task: PhotoEditorTask) -> Bool {
    // Implementing this method is optional. You can perform additional validation and interrupt the process by returning `false`.
    true
  }


  func photoEditViewControllerDidFinish(_ photoEditViewController: PhotoEditViewController, result: PhotoEditorResult) {
    // The image has been exported successfully and is passed as an `Data` object in the `result.output.data`.
    // To create an `UIImage` from the output, use `UIImage(data:)`.
    // See other examples about how to save the resulting image.
    presentingViewController?.dismiss(animated: true, completion: nil)
  }


  func photoEditViewControllerDidFail(_ photoEditViewController: PhotoEditViewController, error: PhotoEditorError) {
    // There was an error generating the photo.
    print(error.localizedDescription)
    // Dismissing the editor.
    presentingViewController?.dismiss(animated: true, completion: nil)
  }


  func photoEditViewControllerDidCancel(_ photoEditViewController: PhotoEditViewController) {
    // The user tapped on the cancel button within the editor. Dismissing the editor.
    presentingViewController?.dismiss(animated: true, completion: nil)
  }
}