How to capture picture with AVCaptureSession in Swift?

Question

I have a UIViewController in which I use AVCaptureSession to show the camera and it is working just fine and fast. I placed a UIButton object on top of this camera view and added a IBAction for the button.

This is how it looks like right now:

Now I want to get the picture of the current camera view when the user taps the button:

@IBAction func takePicture(sender: AnyObject) {     // omg, what do do?! } 

I have no idea whatsoever on how I can do that. I imagined there could have been something like:

let captureSession = AVCaptureSession() var myDearPicture = captureSession.takePicture() as UIImage // something like it? 

The full link for the controller code is here https://gist.github.com/rodrigoalvesvieira/392d683435ee29305059, hope it helps

Answer 1

AVCaptureSession Sample

import UIKit import AVFoundation class ViewController: UIViewController {     let captureSession = AVCaptureSession()     let stillImageOutput = AVCaptureStillImageOutput()     var error: NSError?     override func viewDidLoad() {         super.viewDidLoad()         let devices = AVCaptureDevice.devices().filter{ $0.hasMediaType(AVMediaTypeVideo) && $0.position == AVCaptureDevicePosition.Back }         if let captureDevice = devices.first as? AVCaptureDevice  {              captureSession.addInput(AVCaptureDeviceInput(device: captureDevice, error: &error))             captureSession.sessionPreset = AVCaptureSessionPresetPhoto             captureSession.startRunning()             stillImageOutput.outputSettings = [AVVideoCodecKey:AVVideoCodecJPEG]             if captureSession.canAddOutput(stillImageOutput) {                 captureSession.addOutput(stillImageOutput)             }             if let previewLayer = AVCaptureVideoPreviewLayer(session: captureSession) {                 previewLayer.bounds = view.bounds                 previewLayer.position = CGPointMake(view.bounds.midX, view.bounds.midY)                 previewLayer.videoGravity = AVLayerVideoGravityResizeAspectFill                 let cameraPreview = UIView(frame: CGRectMake(0.0, 0.0, view.bounds.size.width, view.bounds.size.height))                 cameraPreview.layer.addSublayer(previewLayer)                 cameraPreview.addGestureRecognizer(UITapGestureRecognizer(target: self, action:"saveToCamera:"))                 view.addSubview(cameraPreview)             }         }     }     func saveToCamera(sender: UITapGestureRecognizer) {         if let videoConnection = stillImageOutput.connectionWithMediaType(AVMediaTypeVideo) {             stillImageOutput.captureStillImageAsynchronouslyFromConnection(videoConnection) {                 (imageDataSampleBuffer, error) -> Void in                 let imageData = AVCaptureStillImageOutput.jpegStillImageNSDataRepresentation(imageDataSampleBuffer)                  UIImageWriteToSavedPhotosAlbum(UIImage(data: imageData), nil, nil, nil)             }         }     }     override func didReceiveMemoryWarning() {         super.didReceiveMemoryWarning()     } } 

UIImagePickerController Sample

import UIKit  class ViewController: UIViewController, UINavigationControllerDelegate, UIImagePickerControllerDelegate {     let imagePicker = UIImagePickerController()     @IBOutlet weak var imageViewer: UIImageView!     override func viewDidLoad() {         super.viewDidLoad()         // Do any additional setup after loading the view, typically from a nib.     }     override func didReceiveMemoryWarning() {         super.didReceiveMemoryWarning()         // Dispose of any resources that can be recreated.     }     func imagePickerController(picker: UIImagePickerController, didFinishPickingImage image: UIImage!, editingInfo: [NSObject : AnyObject]!) {             dismissViewControllerAnimated(true, completion: nil)              imageViewer.image = image     }     @IBAction func presentImagePicker(sender: AnyObject) {          if UIImagePickerController.isCameraDeviceAvailable( UIImagePickerControllerCameraDevice.Front) {              imagePicker.delegate = self             imagePicker.sourceType = UIImagePickerControllerSourceType.Camera             presentViewController(imagePicker, animated: true, completion: nil)          }     } } 

Answer 2

As AVCaptureStillImageOutput is deprecated, I created another Swift example of using AVCaptureSession and AVCapturePhotoOutput in iOS 10. Check this out.