Simple Vue Camera

A simple to use, but extensive, camera component for Vue 3 with Typescript support to create great camera experiences like this:

By default, this component does not render any UI elements on top of the video feed, so you can style it and make it your own.

Table of Contents

• Installation
• Usage
  • Basics
  • Snapshots
  • Camera
  • Component information

Installation

Install Simple Vue Camera with NPM:

npm install simple-vue-camera

or, with Yarn:

yarn install simple-vue-camera

After installation, you can register the Camera component globally in main.ts:

import { createApp } from "vue";
import App from "./App.vue";
import Camera from "simple-vue-camera";

createApp(App).component("camera", Camera).mount("#app");

or, register it to a specific component:

<script lang="ts">
import { defineComponent } from "vue";
import Camera from "simple-vue-camera";

export default defineComponent({
    components: {
        Camera,
    },
});

Usage

Basics

After registering the Camera component, you can use it as follows:

<template>
    <camera :resolution="{ width: 375, height: 812 }" autoplay></camera>
</template>

Use the available slot to overlay UI on top of the video feed:

<template>
    <camera :resolution="{ width: 375, height: 812 }" autoplay>
        <button>I'm on top of the video</button>
    </camera>
</template>

Snapshots

To create screenshots of the video feed, use the snapshot function on the component reference:

<template>
    <camera :resolution="{ width: 375, height: 812 }" ref="camera" autoplay></camera>
    <button @click="snapshot">Create snapshot</button>
</template>

<script lang="ts">
import Camera from "simple-vue-camera";

export default defineComponent({
    setup() {
        // Get a reference of the component
        const camera = ref<InstanceType<typeof Camera>>();

        // Use camera reference to call functions
        const snapshot = async () => {
            const blob = await camera.value?.snapshot();

            // To show the screenshot with an image tag, create a url
            const url = URL.createObjectURL(blob);
        }

        return {
            camera,
            snapshot
        }
    }
});

By default, when creating a snapshot, the resolution of the snapshot will be the same as the resolution of the camera feed. To change that, pass a Resolution with the function call:

const blob = await camera.value?.snapshot({ width: 1920, height: 1080 });

Or change the image type and quality:

const blob = await camera.value?.snapshot(
    { width: 1920, height: 1080 },
    "image/png",
    0.5
);

Camera

It is possible to change the camera. First request all videoinput devices:

const devices = camera.value?.devices(["videoinput"]);

Pick a device, e.g. with a dropdown, and pass the device ID to the changeCamera function:

const device = devices[0];
camera.value?.changeCamera(device.deviceId);

Note: When switching cameras, the camera component will restart and emit the loading and started events again.

Component information

Properties

Name	Type	Default	Description
resolution	Resolution	1920 x 1080	The resolution of the camera view
facingMode	string	environment
autoplay	boolean	true	Determines if the camera is automatically started when mounted, when set to false, you must start the camera programmatically
playsinline	boolean	true	Determines if the camera plays inline instead of starting full screen, when set to false some browsers open a fullscreen video player
constraints	MediaStreamConstraints		Change the default constraints

Functions

Name	Parameters	Description
devices	kinds: MediaDeviceKind[]	Returns a list of compatible devices which matches the allowed kinds
start		Starts the camera
stop		Stops the camera
pause		Pauses the video stream
resume		Resumes the video stream
changeCamera	deviceID: string	Changes the selected camera
snapshot	resolution: Resolution, type: string, quality: number	Creates a snapshot of the current video image
currentDeviceID		Returns the currently used device id of the mediastream

Events

The Camera component emits 7 different events.

<template>
    <camera
        @loading="loading"
        @started="started"
        @stopped="stopped"
        @paused="paused"
        @resumed="resumed"
        @camera-change="cameraChange"
        @snapshot="snapshot"
        @error="error"
    ></camera>
</template>

<script lang="ts">
import Camera from "simple-vue-camera";

export default defineComponent({
    setup() {
        const loading = () => console.log("Camera is loading and will start any second");
        const started = () => console.log("Camera has started");
        const stopped = () => console.log("Camera has stopped");
        const paused = () => console.log("Video feed has paused");
        const resumed = () => console.log("Video feed has resumed");
        const cameraChange = (deviceID: string) => console.log(`Camera has been changed to ${deviceID}`);
        const snapshot = (blob: Blob) => console.log("A snapshot has been taken");
        const error = (error: Error) => console.log("error");

        return {
            loading,
            started,
            stopped,
            paused,
            resumed,
            cameraChange,
            snapshot,
            error
        }
    }
});

Name	Parameters	Description
loading		Emitted when the camera is loading
started		Emitted when the camera is loaded and is visible
stopped		Emitted when the camera has stopped
paused		Emitted when the video has paused
resumed		Emitted when the video has resumed
camera-change	deviceID: string	Emitted when a camera change occurs
snapshot	blob: Blob	Emitted when a snapshot is taken
error	error: Error	Emitted when an error occurs

Licence

simple-vue-camera is available under the MIT licence. See the LICENCE for more info.