How to convert a CVImageBufferRef to UIImage

The way that you are passing on the baseAddress presumes that the image data is in the form

ACCC

( where C is some color component, R || G || B ).

If you've set up your AVCaptureSession to capture the video frames in native format, more than likely you're getting the video data back in planar YUV420 format. (see: link text ) In order to do what you're attempting to do here, probably the easiest thing to do would be specify that you want the video frames captured in kCVPixelFormatType_32RGBA . Apple recommends that you capture the video frames in kCVPixelFormatType_32BGRA if you capture it in non-planar format at all, the reasoning for which is not stated, but I can reasonably assume is due to performance considerations.

Caveat: I've not done this, and am assuming that accessing the CVPixelBufferRef contents like this is a reasonable way to build the image. I can't vouch for this actually working, but I /can/ tell you that the way you are doing things right now reliably will not work due to the pixel format that you are (probably) capturing the video frames as.

If you need to convert a CVImageBufferRef to UIImage, it seems to be much more difficult than it should be unfortunately.

Essentially you need to first convert it to CIImage, then CGImage, and then finally UIImage. I wish I could tell you why. :)

-(void) screenshotOfVideoStream:(CVImageBufferRef)imageBuffer
{
    CIImage *ciImage = [CIImage imageWithCVPixelBuffer:imageBuffer];
    CIContext *temporaryContext = [CIContext contextWithOptions:nil];
    CGImageRef videoImage = [temporaryContext
                                 createCGImage:ciImage
                                 fromRect:CGRectMake(0, 0,
                                 CVPixelBufferGetWidth(imageBuffer),
                                 CVPixelBufferGetHeight(imageBuffer))];

    UIImage *image = [[UIImage alloc] initWithCGImage:videoImage];
    [self doSomethingWithOurUIImage:image];
    CGImageRelease(videoImage);
}

This particular method worked for me when I was converting H.264 video using the VTDecompressionSession callback to get the CVImageBufferRef (but it should work for any CVImageBufferRef). I was using iOS 8.1, XCode 6.2.