Add camera preview as layer for Mapview in Android

Question

Currently, I'm working on a App which contain Map. in this I would like to add my camera preview as Mapview's background or layer. which means, All place markers shows only one my camera preview. . Actually concept behind in this is, when I open my camera activity, it's shows nearby place marker on it. so when I click that marker, it's shows popup which contains place details. as shown in image. How can I implement this please. please give me any idea. I have tried with camera preview on background and mapview on foreground and setAlpha(0);, and remove all layers on mapview and so on. nothing workout for me. Kindly help me to found out the solution. Thanks in advance.

Update:

This is how I have add my camera preview:

 FrameLayout preview = (FrameLayout) findViewById(R.id.camera_preview);
    cameraSurfaceView = new CameraSurfaceView(this);
    preview.addView(cameraSurfaceView);

and this is how I have add my MapView:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<com.nutiteq.MapView
    android:id="@+id/mapView"
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="fill_parent"
    android:background="@color/transparent_background" />

<FrameLayout
    android:id="@+id/camera_preview"
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="fill_parent" />
        </RelativeLayout>


   mapView = (MapView) findViewById(R.id.mapView);

I have tried to mapView.setAlpha(0f); but this hide mapview together with marker. nothing could see .

I have tried to set

Canvas can =  new Canvas();
can.drawColor(0x7FFFFFFF);
mapView.draw(can);

but this one also not works.

there is some method called addLayer(); but I don't know how to convert my camera preview as layer.

Answer 1

I'm sorry, I was totally wrong by my concept. Now everything goes well after looking into augmented reality concepts. now I'm using BeyondAR Agumented Reality SDK from here enter link description here .

Answer 2

I am afraid using Nutiteq MapView on top of other views is not possible. MapView is based on GLSurfaceView class and its ordering vs other views is limited - it can be only the bottom most view. This is a GLSurfaceView limitation in Android.

Answer 3

I'm not sure if I have understood right, you want a drawable of a camera preview as background, don't you?

If that's what you want, then you can capture or screenshot your camera preview View like this

# Build the Drawing Cache
view.buildDrawingCache();

# Create Bitmap
Bitmap cache = view.getDrawingCache();

# Save Bitmap
saveBitmap(cache);
view.destroyDrawingCache(); 

Then you could work with this screenshot as you want.

I hope, this could help you.

Kind Regards

p.s. I found this info here to capture sights of my Views and since then I often use it.