switch back/front camera on fly

In onCreate() of my activity I add the following onClick listener to a button overlayed on my Preview SurfaceView (there are numerous example on the web for previewing):

ImageButton useOtherCamera = (ImageButton) findViewById(R.id.useOtherCamera);
//if phone has only one camera, hide "switch camera" button
if(Camera.getNumberOfCameras() == 1){
    useOtherCamera.setVisibility(View.INVISIBLE);
}
else {
    useOtherCamera.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
    @Override
    public void onClick(View v) {
    if (inPreview) {
        camera.stopPreview();
    }
    //NB: if you don't release the current camera before switching, you app will crash
    camera.release();

    //swap the id of the camera to be used
    if(currentCameraId == Camera.CameraInfo.CAMERA_FACING_BACK){
        currentCameraId = Camera.CameraInfo.CAMERA_FACING_FRONT;
    }
    else {
        currentCameraId = Camera.CameraInfo.CAMERA_FACING_BACK;
    }
    camera = Camera.open(currentCameraId);
    //Code snippet for this method from somewhere on android developers, i forget where
    setCameraDisplayOrientation(CameraActivity.this, currentCameraId, camera);
    try {
        //this step is critical or preview on new camera will no know where to render to
        camera.setPreviewDisplay(previewHolder);
    } catch (IOException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
    camera.startPreview();
}

On my test device the back camera has an ID of 0 and the front has an id of 1. I suggest using Camera.CameraInfo static variables for your camera id's rather than hard-coding values. I am sure that will only cause issues on other devices.


I restart Activity with cameraId = 2 and this is working.