camera_desktop

A Flutter camera plugin for desktop platforms. Implements camera_platform_interface so it works seamlessly with the standard camera package and CameraController.

Platform Support

Platform	Backend	Status
Linux	GStreamer + V4L2	Included
macOS	AVFoundation	Included
Windows	Media Foundation	Included

Installation

Add camera_desktop alongside camera in your pubspec.yaml:

dependencies:
  camera: ^0.11.0
  camera_desktop: ^2.0.0

That's it. All three desktop platforms are covered, no additional packages needed.

Usage

Use the standard camera package API:

import 'package:camera/camera.dart';

final cameras = await availableCameras();
final controller = CameraController(cameras.first, ResolutionPreset.high);
await controller.initialize();

// Preview
CameraPreview(controller);

// Capture
final file = await controller.takePicture();

// Record
await controller.startVideoRecording();
final video = await controller.stopVideoRecording();

Advanced Settings

CameraController (camera 0.11.x+) accepts optional fps, videoBitrate, and audioBitrate parameters at construction time:

final controller = CameraController(
  cameras.first,
  ResolutionPreset.veryHigh,
  enableAudio: true,
  fps: 30,
  videoBitrate: 5000000,   // 5 Mbps
  audioBitrate: 128000,    // 128 kbps
);

These settings are applied during initialize(). To change them you must dispose() the controller and create a new one, see Limitations.

Platform-Specific Setup

Linux

Install GStreamer development libraries:

# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt install libgstreamer1.0-dev libgstreamer-plugins-base1.0-dev gstreamer1.0-plugins-good

# Fedora
sudo dnf install gstreamer1-devel gstreamer1-plugins-base-devel gstreamer1-plugins-good

# Arch
sudo pacman -S gstreamer gst-plugins-base gst-plugins-good

macOS

Add camera and microphone usage descriptions to your Info.plist:

<key>NSCameraUsageDescription</key>
<string>This app needs camera access.</string>
<key>NSMicrophoneUsageDescription</key>
<string>This app needs microphone access for video recording.</string>

For sandboxed apps, add to your entitlements:

<key>com.apple.security.device.camera</key>
<true/>
<key>com.apple.security.device.audio-input</key>
<true/>

Windows

No additional setup required.

Features

Feature	Linux	macOS	Windows
Camera enumeration	Yes	Yes	Yes
Live preview	Yes	Yes	Yes
Photo capture	Yes	Yes	Yes
Video recording	Yes	Yes	Yes
Image streaming	Yes	Yes	Yes
Audio recording	Yes	Yes	Yes
Resolution presets	Yes	Yes	Yes
Custom FPS	Yes	Yes	Yes
Video bitrate control	Yes	Yes	Yes
Audio bitrate control	Yes	Yes	Yes
Mirror control	Yes	Yes	No (handled in Flutter)

Mirror / Flip Behavior

On macOS and Linux, the preview frames are mirrored at the native capture level (like a webcam selfie view), so buildPreview() returns the texture as-is. The mirror state can be toggled at runtime via setMirror():

import 'package:camera_desktop/camera_desktop.dart';

// Toggle mirror at runtime (macOS & Linux only)
final plugin = CameraDesktopPlugin();
await plugin.setMirror(cameraId, false); // disable mirror
await plugin.setMirror(cameraId, true);  // re-enable mirror

On Windows, the native backend does not mirror, so buildPreview() wraps the preview in a horizontal Transform in Flutter:

if (Platform.isWindows) {
  return Transform(
    alignment: Alignment.center,
    transform: Matrix4.diagonal3Values(-1, 1, 1),
    child: Texture(textureId: textureId),
  );
}

The same applies to video playback. Recorded files from macOS/Linux are already mirrored, while Windows recordings need a Flutter-side flip if you want a mirror-style playback.

Image stream frames on macOS and Linux come from the same mirrored capture as the preview and follow setMirror(). On Windows the mirroring is applied only to the preview widget, so stream frames are not mirrored: flip any overlay you draw from stream coordinates on top of the Windows preview.

Image Stream Format

Frames from startImageStream use the same format on every desktop platform, matching camera on iOS and macOS:

• image.format.group is ImageFormatGroup.bgra8888 and image.format.raw is 'BGRA'.
• There is a single plane with 4 bytes per pixel in B, G, R, A order.
• Rows can be padded (macOS in particular), so always use planes[0].bytesPerRow as the row stride rather than width * 4.
• The requested imageFormatGroup on CameraController is ignored; desktop streams are always BGRA.

With package:image:

final plane = image.planes[0];
final decoded = img.Image.fromBytes(
  width: image.width,
  height: image.height,
  bytes: plane.bytes.buffer,
  bytesOffset: plane.bytes.offsetInBytes,
  rowStride: plane.bytesPerRow,
  numChannels: 4,
  order: img.ChannelOrder.bgra,
);

Platform Capabilities

Query what the current platform supports at runtime:

import 'package:camera_desktop/camera_desktop.dart';

final caps = await CameraDesktopPlugin().getPlatformCapabilities();
// caps['supportsMirrorControl'] == true  (macOS & Linux)
// caps['supportsVideoFpsControl'] == true
// caps['supportsVideoBitrateControl'] == true
// caps['supportsAudioBitrateControl'] == true

This is useful when building UIs that conditionally expose controls based on the running platform.

Limitations

Desktop cameras generally do not support mobile-oriented features:

• Flash/torch control
• Exposure/focus point selection
• Zoom (beyond 1.0x)
• Device orientation changes
• Pause/resume video recording

These methods either no-op or throw CameraException as appropriate.

fps, videoBitrate, and audioBitrate are applied at initialization and cannot be changed on a running controller. To update them, dispose() the controller and create a new one with the desired settings.