Camera preview and media projection

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Camera preview

Camera is one of the most important Android apps. The camera viewfinder is a window into the app, a rendering of the camera sensor output (the camera preview).

Camera sensors have a fixed position and fixed aspect ratio and typically output their image data in landscape orientation. The viewfinder, however, must conform to portrait and landscape device orientations, folded and unfolded states of foldable devices, and different window sizes in multi‑window mode.

In multi‑window mode and on foldables, the viewfinder can be portrait on landscape devices or landscape on portrait devices. Camera apps often must rotate the image preview to match the orientation of the viewfinder. And even when the viewfinder and camera sensor are in the same orientation, their aspect ratios can differ.

Your app has the challenge of orienting and scaling the camera sensor image to match the orientation and aspect ratio of the app's UI as the UI changes orientation and size.

To learn how to manage camera preview, see the following developer guides:

Media projection

Media projection captures the contents of a device screen or app window and displays the captured content on another device, such as a TV.

Media projection apps must register a service permission, manage user consent, orient and scale the captured content to match the orientation and aspect ratio of the target device, and enable customization of the projection.

For implementation details, see Media projection.