Stop the viewfinder

When you're not using the camera, you can stop the image buffers from streaming. You should also disconnect from (close) the camera if you're done using it.

To use the Camera library, you would have called camera_open(), typically with read/write permissions, and started the viewfinder (streaming image buffers), as shown in the code snippet below. For brevity, we've omitted error checking and handling, but your production application code should do this.

...
...
camera_handle_t cameraHandle;
camera_open(CAMERA_UNIT_1, CAMERA_MODE_RW | CAMERA_MODE_ROLL, &cameraHandle);
camera_set_vf_mode(cameraHandle, CAMERA_VFMODE_VIDEO);
camera_start_viewfinder(cameraHandle, NULL, NULL, NULL);
...
...

To stop streaming image buffers from the camera, call camera_stop_viewfinder(). But before your application is done using the camera, ensure that you call the corresponding camera_stop_*() functions. Here are some examples of the camera_stop_*() calls to make before you call camera_close():

If you called camera_start_video_group(), call camera_stop_video_group().
If you called camera_start_encode() or camera_start_video() to encode or record a video file, respectively, call the corresponding camera_stop_encode() or camera_stop_video() function.
If you're using streams, deallocate any buffers that you consumed for the Stream objects. For more information about using Streams, see “Use streams.”
Call camera_stop_viewfinder() to stop streaming image buffers from the camera.

After you have called the camera_stop_* functions, only then can you call camera_close() to disconnect from the camera and free its resources and also the camera handle. If you called camera_open() with the CAMERA_MODE_WRITE mode, but you don't call camera_close(), other applications can't access the viewfinder, camera configuration settings, or camera roll (CAMERA_MODE_ROLL mode).

Note: If you are using Screen, you must release the resources allocated by Screen. This requires deallocating windows or contexts that you created, including the viewfinder window that you created and the parent window if you no longer require it. For instance, you can call screen_destroy_window() and screen_destroy_context(). For more information, see the Screen Developer's Guide.

Here's a code snippet demonstrating how to stop the viewfinder and disconnect from the camera. Again, we've excluded error handling for brevity.

// Code from first snippet, which includes declaring cameraHandle, goes here
...
...
camera_stop_viewfinder(cameraHandle);
camera_close(cameraHandle);

The handle that you pass to camera_close() must be the handle you got from calling camera_open(), otherwise undefined results may occur.