A high performance, fully featured, rock solid camera library for React Native applications


Keywords
android, camera, ios, react-native
License
MIT
Install
npm install react-native-camera-kit@14.0.0-beta13

Documentation

🎈 React Native Camera Kit

A high performance, easy to use, rock solid
camera library for React Native apps.

React Native Camera Kit is released under the MIT license. Current npm package version.

  • Cross Platform (iOS and Android)

  • Optimized for performance and high photo capture rate

  • QR / Barcode scanning support

  • Camera preview support in iOS simulator

Installation (RN > 0.60)

yarn add react-native-camera-kit
cd ios && pod install && cd ..

Android: Add Kotlin to your project

Permissions

You must use a separate library for prompting the user for permissions before rendering the <Camera .../> component.
We recommend zoontek's library, react-native-permissions: https://github.com/zoontek/react-native-permissions#ios-flow

If you fail to prompt for permission, the camera will appear blank / black.

Why no permissions API?

Conceptually, permissions are simple: Granted / Denied.
However, in reality it's not that simple due to privacy enhancements on iOS and Android.

Here's an example diagram from react-native-permissions's README, which illustrates the complexity of the user-experience, which we don't want to duplicate in a camera library:

   ┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
   ┃ check(PERMISSIONS.IOS.CAMERA) ┃
   ┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
                   β”‚
       Is the feature available
           on this deviceΒ ?
                   β”‚           ╔════╗
                   β”œβ”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β•‘ NO ║──────────────┐
                   β”‚           β•šβ•β•β•β•β•              β”‚
                ╔═════╗                            β–Ό
                β•‘ YES β•‘                 β”Œβ”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”
                β•šβ•β•β•β•β•β•                 β”‚ RESULTS.UNAVAILABLE β”‚
                   β”‚                    β””β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”˜
           Is the permission
             requestableΒ ?
                   β”‚           ╔════╗
                   β”œβ”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β•‘ NO ║──────────────┐
                   β”‚           β•šβ•β•β•β•β•              β”‚
                ╔═════╗                            β–Ό
                β•‘ YES β•‘                  β”Œβ”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”
                β•šβ•β•β•β•β•β•                  β”‚ RESULTS.BLOCKED / β”‚
                   β”‚                     β”‚ RESULTS.LIMITED / β”‚
                   β”‚                     β”‚  RESULTS.GRANTED  β”‚
                   β–Ό                     β””β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”˜
          β”Œβ”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”
          β”‚ RESULTS.DENIED β”‚
          β””β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”˜
                   β”‚
                   β–Ό
  ┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
  ┃ request(PERMISSIONS.IOS.CAMERA) ┃
  ┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
                   β”‚
         Does the user accept
            the requestΒ ?
                   β”‚           ╔════╗
                   β”œβ”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β•‘ NO ║──────────────┐
                   β”‚           β•šβ•β•β•β•β•              β”‚
                ╔═════╗                            β–Ό
                β•‘ YES β•‘                   β”Œβ”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”
                β•šβ•β•β•β•β•β•                   β”‚ RESULTS.BLOCKED β”‚
                   β”‚                      β””β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”˜
                   β–Ό
          β”Œβ”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”
          β”‚ RESULTS.GRANTED β”‚
          β””β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”˜

In earlier versions of react-native-camera-kit, permissions were provided with an API, but for the above reasons, these APIs will be removed.

Android

Add the following uses-permission to your AndroidManifest.xml (usually found at: android/src/main/)

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.CAMERA" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE"/>

iOS

Add the following usage descriptions to your Info.plist (usually found at: ios/PROJECT_NAME/)

<key>NSCameraUsageDescription</key>
<string>For taking photos</string>

<key>NSPhotoLibraryUsageDescription</key>
<string>For saving photos</string>

Running the example project

  • yarn bootstrap
  • yarn example ios or yarn example android

Components

Camera

Barebones camera component if you need advanced/customized interface

import { Camera, CameraType } from 'react-native-camera-kit';
<Camera
  ref={(ref) => (this.camera = ref)}
  cameraType={CameraType.Back} // front/back(default)
  flashMode='auto'
/>

Barcode / QR Code Scanning

Additionally, the Camera can be used for barcode scanning

<Camera
  ...
  // Barcode props
  scanBarcode={true}
  onReadCode={(event) => Alert.alert('QR code found')} // optional
  showFrame={true} // (default false) optional, show frame with transparent layer (qr code or barcode will be read on this area ONLY), start animation for scanner, that stops when a code has been found. Frame always at center of the screen
  laserColor='red' // (default red) optional, color of laser in scanner frame
  frameColor='white' // (default white) optional, color of border of scanner frame
/>

Camera Props (Optional)

Props Type Description
ref Ref Reference on the camera view
style StyleProp<ViewStyle> Style to apply on the camera view
flashMode 'on'/'off'/'auto' Camera flash mode. Default: auto
focusMode 'on'/'off' Camera focus mode. Default: on
zoomMode 'on'/'off' Enable the pinch to zoom gesture. Default: on
zoom number Control the zoom. Default: 1.0
maxZoom number Maximum zoom allowed (but not beyond what camera allows). Default: undefined (camera default max)
onZoom Function Callback when user makes a pinch gesture, regardless of what the zoom prop was set to. Returned event contains zoom. Ex: onZoom={(e) => console.log(e.nativeEvent.zoom)}.
torchMode 'on'/'off' Toggle flash light when camera is active. Default: off
cameraType CameraType.Back/CameraType.Front Choose what camera to use. Default: CameraType.Back
onOrientationChange Function Callback when physical device orientation changes. Returned event contains orientation. Ex: onOrientationChange={(event) => console.log(event.nativeEvent.orientation)}. Use import { Orientation } from 'react-native-camera-kit'; if (event.nativeEvent.orientation === Orientation.PORTRAIT) { ... } to understand the new value
Android only
onError Function Android only. Callback when camera fails to initialize. Ex: onError={(e) => console.log(e.nativeEvent.errorMessage)}.
shutterPhotoSound boolean Android only. Enable or disable the shutter sound when capturing a photo. Default: true
iOS only
ratioOverlay 'int:int' Show a guiding overlay in the camera preview for the selected ratio. Does not crop image as of v9.0. Example: '16:9'
ratioOverlayColor Color Any color with alpha. Default: '#ffffff77'
resetFocusTimeout number Dismiss tap to focus after this many milliseconds. Default 0 (disabled). Example: 5000 is 5 seconds.
resetFocusWhenMotionDetected Boolean Dismiss tap to focus when focus area content changes. Native iOS feature, see documentation: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/avfoundation/avcapturedevice/1624644-subjectareachangemonitoringenabl?language=objc). Default true.
scanThrottleDelay number Duration between scan detection in milliseconds. Default 2000 (2s)
Barcode only
scanBarcode boolean Enable barcode scanner. Default: false
showFrame boolean Show frame in barcode scanner. Default: false
laserColor Color Color of barcode scanner laser visualization. Default: red
frameColor Color Color of barcode scanner frame visualization. Default: yellow
onReadCode Function Callback when scanner successfully reads barcode. Returned event contains codeStringValue. Default: null. Ex: onReadCode={(event) => console.log(event.nativeEvent.codeStringValue)}

Imperative API

Note: Must be called on a valid camera ref

capture()

Capture image as JPEG.

A temporary file is created. You must move this file to a permanent location (e.g. the app's 'Documents' folder) if you need it beyond the current session of the app as it may be deleted when the user leaves the app. You can move files by using a file system library such as react-native-fs or expo-filesystem. (On Android we currently have an unsupported outputPath prop but it's subject to change at any time).

Note that the reason you're getting a URL despite it being a file is because Android 10+ encourages URIs. To keep things consistent regardless of settings or platform we always send back a URI.

const { uri } = await this.camera.capture();
// uri = 'file:///data/user/0/com.myorg.myapp/cache/ckcap123123123123.jpg'

If you want to store it permanently, here's an example using react-native-fs:

import RNFS from 'react-native-fs';
// [...]
let { uri } = await this.camera.capture();
if (uri.startsWith('file://')) {
  // Platform dependent, iOS & Android uses '/'
  const pathSplitter = '/';
  // file:///foo/bar.jpg => /foo/bar.jpg
  const filePath = uri.replace('file://', '');
  // /foo/bar.jpg => [foo, bar.jpg]
  const pathSegments = filePath.split(pathSplitter);
  // [foo, bar.jpg] => bar.jpg
  const fileName = pathSegments[pathSegments.length - 1];

  await RNFS.moveFile(filePath, `${RNFS.DocumentDirectoryPath}/${fileName}`);
  uri = `file://${destFilePath}`;
}

checkDeviceCameraAuthorizationStatus (iOS only)

const isCameraAuthorized = await Camera.checkDeviceCameraAuthorizationStatus();

return values:

AVAuthorizationStatusAuthorized returns true

AVAuthorizationStatusNotDetermined returns -1

otherwise, returns false

requestDeviceCameraAuthorization (iOS only)

const isUserAuthorizedCamera = await Camera.requestDeviceCameraAuthorization();

AVAuthorizationStatusAuthorized returns true

otherwise, returns false

Using with Expo

If you are using Expo Managed Workflow, you can use this library with a third-party plugin expo-react-native-camera-kit.

See more here

Contributing

  • Pull Requests are welcome, if you open a pull request we will do our best to get to it in a timely manner
  • Pull Request Reviews are even more welcome! we need help testing, reviewing, and updating open PRs
  • If you are interested in contributing more actively, please contact us.

License

The MIT License.

See LICENSE