Mob.Camera (mob v0.6.2)

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Native camera capture for photos and videos.

Requires :camera permission (and :microphone for video). iOS additionally needs NSCameraUsageDescription (and NSMicrophoneUsageDescription for video) in Info.plist; Android needs CAMERA (and RECORD_AUDIO for video) in AndroidManifest.xml. The default mix mob.new templates ship both. See the permissions guide for the cross-platform table.

Opens the native OS camera UI. Results arrive as:

handle_info({:camera, :photo, %{path: path, width: w, height: h}}, socket)
handle_info({:camera, :video, %{path: path, duration: seconds}},   socket)
handle_info({:camera, :cancelled},                                   socket)

The path is a local temp file. Copy it elsewhere before the next capture.

iOS: UIImagePickerController. Android: TakePicture / CaptureVideo activity contracts.

Live frame stream

For real-time work (object detection, AR, custom filters) start_frame_stream/2 delivers per-frame pixel data as messages:

handle_info({:camera, :frame, %{bytes: bin, width: w, height: h,
                                 format: :rgb_f32,
                                 timestamp_ms: t, dropped: n}}, socket)

The native side handles resize + format conversion (vImage on iOS) so the BEAM never sees raw camera buffers. Late frames are dropped on the native side — the BEAM mailbox can't unbounded-grow if your receiver lags behind the camera's 30 fps cadence.

Summary

Functions

capture_photo(socket, opts \\ [])

Open the camera to capture a photo.

capture_video(socket, opts \\ [])

Open the camera to record a video.

frame_stream_opts(opts)

Build the option map passed to camera_start_frame_stream/1. Pure function exposed so tests can pin defaults + serialisation without going through the NIF.

start_frame_stream(socket, opts \\ [])

Start streaming camera frames to the calling process. Frames arrive as messages of shape

start_preview(socket, opts \\ [])

Start a live camera preview session. Pair with a :camera_preview component in your render tree to display the feed.

stop_frame_stream(socket)

Stop the camera frame stream. Safe to call when no stream is active. The visible preview (if start_preview/2 was called separately) is left untouched.

stop_preview(socket)

Stop the active camera preview session.

Functions

capture_photo(socket, opts \\ [])

@spec capture_photo(
  Mob.Socket.t(),
  keyword()
) :: Mob.Socket.t()

Open the camera to capture a photo.

Options:

  • quality: :high | :medium | :low (default :high) — JPEG compression level

capture_video(socket, opts \\ [])

@spec capture_video(
  Mob.Socket.t(),
  keyword()
) :: Mob.Socket.t()

Open the camera to record a video.

Options:

  • max_duration: integer — maximum clip length in seconds (default 60)

frame_stream_opts(opts)

@spec frame_stream_opts(keyword()) :: map()

Build the option map passed to camera_start_frame_stream/1. Pure function exposed so tests can pin defaults + serialisation without going through the NIF.

start_frame_stream(socket, opts \\ [])

@spec start_frame_stream(
  Mob.Socket.t(),
  keyword()
) :: Mob.Socket.t()

Start streaming camera frames to the calling process. Frames arrive as messages of shape:

handle_info({:camera, :frame, %{
  bytes:        binary(),      # pixel data, format-dependent
  width:        non_neg_integer(),
  height:       non_neg_integer(),
  format:       :rgb_f32 | :bgra_u8,
  timestamp_ms: non_neg_integer(),
  dropped:      non_neg_integer()  # frames skipped since last delivery
}}, socket)

Options

  • :width, :height — target frame size in pixels. Defaults to 640 × 640 (YOLO-friendly). Pass nil for both to receive the camera's native resolution. Mismatched aspect ratios are center-cropped on the long axis before scaling. Capped at ~4 MP to keep the BEAM mailbox bounded.

  • :format — pixel format. One of:

    • :rgb_f32 (default) — interleaved RGB floats normalised to [0.0, 1.0]. Byte size: width * height * 3 * 4. Ready for Nx.from_binary(bin, :f32, ...) |> Nx.reshape({1, h, w, 3}).
    • :bgra_u8 — raw 32-bit BGRA bytes, native iOS pixel layout. Byte size: width * height * 4. 4× smaller than :rgb_f32; useful for forwarding to another NIF or doing custom preprocessing.

  • :facing — :back (default) or :front. Same camera the preview uses; calling start_frame_stream/2 alone will activate the capture session without a visible preview.

  • :throttle_ms — minimum interval between deliveries (default 0). Native-side throttle, complementary to the OS's late-frame drop. Use throttle_ms: 100 for 10 Hz delivery when full camera-rate inference isn't needed.

Notes

Returns the socket immediately; frames begin arriving asynchronously once the OS has activated the capture session (typically <100 ms). Receiver is the calling process at the time of invocation — call from a Mob.Screen callback (mount, handle_info), not from a task or genserver running elsewhere.

start_preview(socket, opts \\ [])

@spec start_preview(
  Mob.Socket.t(),
  keyword()
) :: Mob.Socket.t()

Start a live camera preview session. Pair with a :camera_preview component in your render tree to display the feed.

Options:

  • facing: :back | :front (default :back)

stop_frame_stream(socket)

@spec stop_frame_stream(Mob.Socket.t()) :: Mob.Socket.t()

Stop the camera frame stream. Safe to call when no stream is active. The visible preview (if start_preview/2 was called separately) is left untouched.

stop_preview(socket)

@spec stop_preview(Mob.Socket.t()) :: Mob.Socket.t()

Stop the active camera preview session.