Monodroid Camera/imageview example

Question

Can someone post an example of how to use the camera, capture the image, preview the image in an image view, compress the image in jpg and upload the bytes to a remote server? The closest I have been able to find is below. We have the camera, and image capture but we need to know how to preview, compress/resize jpg to 640/480px and around 120kb size then upload bytes to a remote server. Thanks to all of you for your help. http://android-coding.blogspot.com/2010/12/intent-of-mediastoreactionimagecapture.html

Answer 1

Looking at your code there are some things i notice to be wrong:

-[ for the camera functionality ]-

1. Don't create a file yourself. This is not necessary. Use the ContentResolver.Insert function to give you back a file URI that will contain the picture, just like done here and also take over the isMounted if you want to check if there is external memory present.
2. You are checking if there's data and then checking if there is a thumbnail. If there's no thumbnail you'll get the full image. That doesn't make sense unless you want to make a thumb of the full version if the thumb is not given back?? Don't you just want to grab the full version or both but not this OR that?

3. You are retrieving a string value variable to get the URI to the full image? Just save the uri you get from the code in my first point as a property (let's say "myPhotoURI" in the activity class. In the OnActivityResult function that handles your camera intent result just recall that URI and use it as following (Yes, you're seeing it right; i'm not even using the data intent for this just the remembered uri):

   Bitmap imageFromCam = MediaStore.Images.Media.GetBitmap(this.ContentResolver, Android.Net.Uri.Parse(myPhotoURI));

4. To grab an image from the gallery just use the SelectImageFromStorage() function from this question's answer and retrieve the URI of the chosen image in the OnActivityResult check just use:

   Android.Net.Uri selectedImageUri = data.ToURI();

That's what worked like a charm for me.

-[sending the data to a webservice ]-

Assuming you're using a WCF or webservice that'll want to receive the image data as a byte array; the approved answer to this question gives a nice example of how to convert your image to an byte array (which is what a WCF webservice wants, anyway)

I think that these directions will get you going.

Answer 2

here is the closest example to date... this brings back Null data when the extra output is used. Still trying to get access to the full image/photo and not a thumbnail.

    private void saveFullImage() {
        Intent intent = new Intent(Android.Provider.MediaStore.ActionImageCapture);

        string file = System.IO.Path.Combine(Android.OS.Environment.DirectoryDcim.ToString(), "test.jpg");

        var outputFileUri = Android.Net.Uri.Parse(file);
        intent.PutExtra(Android.Provider.MediaStore.ExtraOutput, outputFileUri);
        StartActivityForResult(intent, TAKE_PICTURE);
    }

    protected override void OnActivityResult(int requestCode, Result resultCode, Intent data)
    {
        base.OnActivityResult(requestCode, resultCode, data);
        if (requestCode == TAKE_PICTURE)
        {
            Uri imageUri = null;
            // Check if the result includes a thumbnail Bitmap
            if (data != null)
            {
                if (data.HasExtra("data"))
                {
                    var thumbnail = data.GetParcelableArrayExtra("data");
                    // TODO Do something with the thumbnail
                }
            }
            else
            {
                var outputFileUri = data.GetParcelableArrayExtra("outputFileuri");
                // TODO Do something with the full image stored
                // in outputFileUri
            }
        }
    }