ImageFormat

Compressed JPEG format.

This format is always supported as an output format for the android.hardware.camera2 API, and as a picture format for the older Camera API

YCbCr format, used for video.

For the android.hardware.camera2 API, the YUV_420_888 format is recommended for YUV output instead.

Whether this format is supported by the old camera API can be determined by getSupportedPreviewFormats().

YCrCb format used for images, which uses the NV21 encoding format.

This is the default format for Camera preview images, when not otherwise set with setPreviewFormat(int).

For the android.hardware.camera2 API, the YUV_420_888 format is recommended for YUV output instead.

Android 10-bit raw format

This is a single-plane, 10-bit per pixel, densely packed (in each row), unprocessed format, usually representing raw Bayer-pattern images coming from an image sensor.

In an image buffer with this format, starting from the first pixel of each row, each 4 consecutive pixels are packed into 5 bytes (40 bits). Each one of the first 4 bytes contains the top 8 bits of each pixel, The fifth byte contains the 2 least significant bits of the 4 pixels, the exact layout data for each 4 consecutive pixels is illustrated below (Pi[j] stands for the jth bit of the ith pixel):

This format assumes

• a width multiple of 4 pixels
• an even height

size = row stride * height

Since this is a densely packed format, the pixel stride is always 0. The application must use the pixel data layout defined in above table to access each row data. When row stride is equal to width * (10 / 8), there will be no padding bytes at the end of each row, the entire image data is densely packed. When stride is larger than width * (10 / 8), padding bytes will be present at the end of each row.

For example, the Image object can provide data in this format from a CameraDevice (if supported) through a ImageReader object. The Image#getPlanes() will return a single plane containing the pixel data. The pixel stride is always 0 in getPixelStride(), and the getRowStride() describes the vertical neighboring pixel distance (in bytes) between adjacent rows.

General raw camera sensor image format, usually representing a single-channel Bayer-mosaic image. Each pixel color sample is stored with 16 bits of precision.

The layout of the color mosaic, the maximum and minimum encoding values of the raw pixel data, the color space of the image, and all other needed information to interpret a raw sensor image must be queried from the CameraDevice which produced the image.

RGB format used for pictures encoded as RGB_565. See setPictureFormat(int).

Multi-plane Android YUV format

This format is a generic YCbCr format, capable of describing any 4:2:0 chroma-subsampled planar or semiplanar buffer (but not fully interleaved), with 8 bits per color sample.

Images in this format are always represented by three separate buffers of data, one for each color plane. Additional information always accompanies the buffers, describing the row stride and the pixel stride for each plane.

The order of planes in the array returned by Image#getPlanes() is guaranteed such that plane #0 is always Y, plane #1 is always U (Cb), and plane #2 is always V (Cr).

The Y-plane is guaranteed not to be interleaved with the U/V planes (in particular, pixel stride is always 1 in yPlane.getPixelStride()).

The U/V planes are guaranteed to have the same row stride and pixel stride (in particular, uPlane.getRowStride() == vPlane.getRowStride() and uPlane.getPixelStride() == vPlane.getPixelStride(); ).

For example, the Image object can provide data in this format from a CameraDevice through a ImageReader object.

YCbCr format used for images, which uses YUYV (YUY2) encoding format.

For the android.hardware.camera2 API, the YUV_420_888 format is recommended for YUV output instead.

This is an alternative format for Camera preview images. Whether this format is supported by the camera hardware can be determined by getSupportedPreviewFormats().

Android YUV format.

This format is exposed to software decoders and applications.

YV12 is a 4:2:0 YCrCb planar format comprised of a WxH Y plane followed by (W/2) x (H/2) Cr and Cb planes.

This format assumes

• an even width
• an even height
• a horizontal stride multiple of 16 pixels
• a vertical stride equal to the height

 y_size = stride * height
 c_stride = ALIGN(stride/2, 16)
 c_size = c_stride * height/2
 size = y_size + c_size * 2
 cr_offset = y_size
 cb_offset = y_size + c_size

For the android.hardware.camera2 API, the YUV_420_888 format is recommended for YUV output instead.

For the older camera API, this format is guaranteed to be supported for Camera preview images since API level 12; for earlier API versions, check getSupportedPreviewFormats().

Note that for camera preview callback use (see setPreviewCallback(Camera.PreviewCallback)), the stride value is the smallest possible; that is, it is equal to:

stride = ALIGN(width, 16)

Use this function to retrieve the number of bits per pixel of an ImageFormat.