Take snapshot from built in webcam

Question

I'm thinking of trying to add a function in my app that can contact the onboard webcam and take a snapshot to a picturebox, I haven't really done anything with webcams before and there are a lot of confusing tutorials around that look very complex, with wrappers and importing classes and so on.

Is it a major task to contact webcams? or is there a basic namespace class or code that can be used on a windows forms app?

Vulpes · Answer

This isn't an easy thing to do as there's no support in the .NET Framework to my knowledge. You therefore have to fall back on COM and invoking unmanaged functions. Bechir wrote an article on this site a while back showing how you could capture a webcam image using a COM component called wiaaut.dll: http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/uploadfile/yougerthen/catch-a-snapshot-via-your-webcam-using-C-Sharp-part-vii/ Unfortunately this only works on Windows XP. If you're using Vista or Window 7 then you could take a look instead at a subsequent article he wrote which uses avicap32.dll: http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/uploadfile/yougerthen/integrate-the-web-webcam-functionality-using-C-Sharp-net-and-com-part-viii/