How to convert a kCVPixelFormatType_420YpCbCr8BiPl

I tried to answer this in the original thread however SO would not let me. Hopefully someone with more authority can merge this into the original question.

OK here is a more complete answer. First, setup the capture:

// Create capture session
self.captureSession = [[AVCaptureSession alloc] init];

[self.captureSession setSessionPreset:AVCaptureSessionPresetPhoto];

// Setup capture input
self.inputDevice = [AVCaptureDevice defaultDeviceWithMediaType:AVMediaTypeVideo];
AVCaptureDeviceInput *captureInput = [AVCaptureDeviceInput deviceInputWithDevice:self.inputDevice
                                                                           error:nil];
[self.captureSession addInput:captureInput];

// Setup video processing (capture output)
AVCaptureVideoDataOutput *captureOutput = [[AVCaptureVideoDataOutput alloc] init];
// Don't add frames to the queue if frames are already processing
captureOutput.alwaysDiscardsLateVideoFrames = YES;

// Create a serial queue to handle processing of frames
_videoQueue = dispatch_queue_create("cameraQueue", NULL);
[captureOutput setSampleBufferDelegate:self queue:_videoQueue];

// Set the video output to store frame in YUV
NSString* key = (NSString*)kCVPixelBufferPixelFormatTypeKey;

NSNumber* value = [NSNumber numberWithUnsignedInt:kCVPixelFormatType_420YpCbCr8BiPlanarFullRange];
NSDictionary* videoSettings = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithObject:value forKey:key];
[captureOutput setVideoSettings:videoSettings];
[self.captureSession addOutput:captureOutput];

OK now the implementation for the delegate/callback:

- (void)captureOutput:(AVCaptureOutput *)captureOutput
didOutputSampleBuffer:(CMSampleBufferRef)sampleBuffer
   fromConnection:(AVCaptureConnection *)connection
{

// Create autorelease pool because we are not in the main_queue
@autoreleasepool {

    CVImageBufferRef imageBuffer = CMSampleBufferGetImageBuffer(sampleBuffer);

    //Lock the imagebuffer
    CVPixelBufferLockBaseAddress(imageBuffer,0);

    // Get information about the image
    uint8_t *baseAddress = (uint8_t *)CVPixelBufferGetBaseAddress(imageBuffer);

    //    size_t bytesPerRow = CVPixelBufferGetBytesPerRow(imageBuffer);
    size_t width = CVPixelBufferGetWidth(imageBuffer);
    size_t height = CVPixelBufferGetHeight(imageBuffer);
    size_t bytesPerRow = CVPixelBufferGetBytesPerRow(imageBuffer);

    CVPlanarPixelBufferInfo_YCbCrBiPlanar *bufferInfo = (CVPlanarPixelBufferInfo_YCbCrBiPlanar *)baseAddress;

    // This just moved the pointer past the offset
    baseAddress = (uint8_t *)CVPixelBufferGetBaseAddressOfPlane(imageBuffer, 0);


    // convert the image
    _prefImageView.image = [self makeUIImage:baseAddress bufferInfo:bufferInfo width:width height:height bytesPerRow:bytesPerRow];

    // Update the display with the captured image for DEBUG purposes
    dispatch_async(dispatch_get_main_queue(), ^{
        [_myMainView.yUVImage setImage:_prefImageView.image];
    });        
}

and finally here is the method to convert from YUV to a UIImage

- (UIImage *)makeUIImage:(uint8_t *)inBaseAddress bufferInfo:(CVPlanarPixelBufferInfo_YCbCrBiPlanar *)inBufferInfo width:(size_t)inWidth height:(size_t)inHeight bytesPerRow:(size_t)inBytesPerRow {

NSUInteger yPitch = EndianU32_BtoN(inBufferInfo->componentInfoY.rowBytes);

uint8_t *rgbBuffer = (uint8_t *)malloc(inWidth * inHeight * 4);
uint8_t *yBuffer = (uint8_t *)inBaseAddress;
uint8_t val;
int bytesPerPixel = 4;

// for each byte in the input buffer, fill in the output buffer with four bytes
// the first byte is the Alpha channel, then the next three contain the same
// value of the input buffer
for(int y = 0; y < inHeight*inWidth; y++)
{
    val = yBuffer[y];
    // Alpha channel
    rgbBuffer[(y*bytesPerPixel)] = 0xff;

    // next three bytes same as input
    rgbBuffer[(y*bytesPerPixel)+1] = rgbBuffer[(y*bytesPerPixel)+2] =  rgbBuffer[y*bytesPerPixel+3] = val;
}

// Create a device-dependent RGB color space
CGColorSpaceRef colorSpace = CGColorSpaceCreateDeviceRGB();

CGContextRef context = CGBitmapContextCreate(rgbBuffer, yPitch, inHeight, 8,
                                             yPitch*bytesPerPixel, colorSpace, kCGBitmapByteOrder32Little | kCGImageAlphaPremultipliedLast);

CGImageRef quartzImage = CGBitmapContextCreateImage(context);

CGContextRelease(context);
CGColorSpaceRelease(colorSpace);

UIImage *image = [UIImage imageWithCGImage:quartzImage];

CGImageRelease(quartzImage);
free(rgbBuffer);
return  image;
}

You will also need to #import "Endian.h"

Note that the call to CGBitmapContextCreate is much more tricky that I expected. I'm not very savvy on video processing at all however this call stumped me for a while. Then when it finally worked it was like magic.

Background info: @Michaelg's version only accesses the y buffer so you only get luminance and not color. It also has a buffer overrun bug if the pitch in the buffers and the number of pixels don't match (padding bytes at the end of a line for whatever reason). The background on what is occurring here is that this is a planar image format which allocates one byte per pixel for luminance and 2 bytes per 4 pixels for color information. Rather than being stored continuously in memory these are stored as "planes" where the Y or luminance plane has its own block of memory and the CbCr or color plane also has its own block of memory. The CbCr plane consists of 1/4 the number of samples (half height and width) of the Y plane and each pixel in the CbCr plane corresponds to a 2x2 block in the Y plane. Hopefully this background helps.

edit: Both his version and my old version had the potential to overrun buffers and would not work if the rows in the image buffer have padding bytes at the end of each row. Furthermore my cbcr plane buffer was not created with the correct offset. To do this correctly you should always use the core video functions such as CVPixelBufferGetWidthOfPlane and CVPixelBufferGetBaseAddressOfPlane. This will ensure that you are correctly interpreting the buffer and it will work regardless of whether the buffer has a header and whether you screw up the pointer math. You should use the row sizes from Apple's functions and the buffer base address from their functions also. These are documented at: https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/ios/documentation/QuartzCore/Reference/CVPixelBufferRef/index.html Note that while this version here makes some use of Apple's functions and some use of the header it is best to only use Apple's functions. I may update this in the future to not use the header at all.

This will convert a kcvpixelformattype_420ypcbcr8biplanarfullrange buffer buffer into a UIImage which you can then use.

First, setup the capture:

// Create capture session
self.captureSession = [[AVCaptureSession alloc] init];

[self.captureSession setSessionPreset:AVCaptureSessionPresetPhoto];

// Setup capture input
self.inputDevice = [AVCaptureDevice defaultDeviceWithMediaType:AVMediaTypeVideo];
AVCaptureDeviceInput *captureInput = [AVCaptureDeviceInput deviceInputWithDevice:self.inputDevice
                                                                           error:nil];
[self.captureSession addInput:captureInput];

// Setup video processing (capture output)
AVCaptureVideoDataOutput *captureOutput = [[AVCaptureVideoDataOutput alloc] init];
// Don't add frames to the queue if frames are already processing
captureOutput.alwaysDiscardsLateVideoFrames = YES;

// Create a serial queue to handle processing of frames
_videoQueue = dispatch_queue_create("cameraQueue", NULL);
[captureOutput setSampleBufferDelegate:self queue:_videoQueue];

// Set the video output to store frame in YUV
NSString* key = (NSString*)kCVPixelBufferPixelFormatTypeKey;

NSNumber* value = [NSNumber numberWithUnsignedInt:kCVPixelFormatType_420YpCbCr8BiPlanarFullRange];
NSDictionary* videoSettings = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithObject:value forKey:key];
[captureOutput setVideoSettings:videoSettings];
[self.captureSession addOutput:captureOutput];

OK now the implementation for the delegate/callback:

- (void)captureOutput:(AVCaptureOutput *)captureOutput
didOutputSampleBuffer:(CMSampleBufferRef)sampleBuffer
   fromConnection:(AVCaptureConnection *)connection
{

// Create autorelease pool because we are not in the main_queue
@autoreleasepool {

    CVImageBufferRef imageBuffer = CMSampleBufferGetImageBuffer(sampleBuffer);

    //Lock the imagebuffer
    CVPixelBufferLockBaseAddress(imageBuffer,0);

    // Get information about the image
    uint8_t *baseAddress = (uint8_t *)CVPixelBufferGetBaseAddress(imageBuffer);

    //    size_t bytesPerRow = CVPixelBufferGetBytesPerRow(imageBuffer);
    size_t width = CVPixelBufferGetWidth(imageBuffer);
    size_t height = CVPixelBufferGetHeight(imageBuffer);
    size_t bytesPerRow = CVPixelBufferGetBytesPerRow(imageBuffer);

    CVPlanarPixelBufferInfo_YCbCrBiPlanar *bufferInfo = (CVPlanarPixelBufferInfo_YCbCrBiPlanar *)baseAddress;
    //get the cbrbuffer base address
    uint8_t* cbrBuff = (uint8_t *)CVPixelBufferGetBaseAddressOfPlane(imageBuffer, 1);
    // This just moved the pointer past the offset
    baseAddress = (uint8_t *)CVPixelBufferGetBaseAddressOfPlane(imageBuffer, 0);


    // convert the image
    _prefImageView.image = [self makeUIImage:baseAddress cBCrBuffer:cbrBuff bufferInfo:bufferInfo width:width height:height bytesPerRow:bytesPerRow];

    // Update the display with the captured image for DEBUG purposes
    dispatch_async(dispatch_get_main_queue(), ^{
        [_myMainView.yUVImage setImage:_prefImageView.image];
    });        
}

and finally here is the method to convert from YUV to a UIImage

- (UIImage *)makeUIImage:(uint8_t *)inBaseAddress cBCrBuffer:(uint8_t*)cbCrBuffer bufferInfo:(CVPlanarPixelBufferInfo_YCbCrBiPlanar *)inBufferInfo width:(size_t)inWidth height:(size_t)inHeight bytesPerRow:(size_t)inBytesPerRow {

     NSUInteger yPitch = EndianU32_BtoN(inBufferInfo->componentInfoY.rowBytes);
 NSUInteger cbCrOffset = EndianU32_BtoN(inBufferInfo->componentInfoCbCr.offset);
 uint8_t *rgbBuffer = (uint8_t *)malloc(inWidth * inHeight * 4);
 NSUInteger cbCrPitch = EndianU32_BtoN(inBufferInfo->componentInfoCbCr.rowBytes);
 uint8_t *yBuffer = (uint8_t *)inBaseAddress;
 //uint8_t *cbCrBuffer = inBaseAddress + cbCrOffset;
 uint8_t val;
 int bytesPerPixel = 4;

 for(int y = 0; y < inHeight; y++)
 {
 uint8_t *rgbBufferLine = &rgbBuffer[y * inWidth * bytesPerPixel];
 uint8_t *yBufferLine = &yBuffer[y * yPitch];
 uint8_t *cbCrBufferLine = &cbCrBuffer[(y >> 1) * cbCrPitch];

 for(int x = 0; x < inWidth; x++)
 {
 int16_t y = yBufferLine[x];
 int16_t cb = cbCrBufferLine[x & ~1] - 128; 
 int16_t cr = cbCrBufferLine[x | 1] - 128;

 uint8_t *rgbOutput = &rgbBufferLine[x*bytesPerPixel];

     int16_t r = (int16_t)roundf( y + cr *  1.4 );
     int16_t g = (int16_t)roundf( y + cb * -0.343 + cr * -0.711 );
     int16_t b = (int16_t)roundf( y + cb *  1.765);

 //ABGR
 rgbOutput[0] = 0xff;
     rgbOutput[1] = clamp(b);
     rgbOutput[2] = clamp(g);
     rgbOutput[3] = clamp(r);
 }
 }

 // Create a device-dependent RGB color space
 CGColorSpaceRef colorSpace = CGColorSpaceCreateDeviceRGB();
 NSLog(@"ypitch:%lu inHeight:%zu bytesPerPixel:%d",(unsigned long)yPitch,inHeight,bytesPerPixel);
 NSLog(@"cbcrPitch:%lu",cbCrPitch);
 CGContextRef context = CGBitmapContextCreate(rgbBuffer, inWidth, inHeight, 8,
 inWidth*bytesPerPixel, colorSpace, kCGBitmapByteOrder32Little | kCGImageAlphaPremultipliedLast);

 CGImageRef quartzImage = CGBitmapContextCreateImage(context);

 CGContextRelease(context);
 CGColorSpaceRelease(colorSpace);

 UIImage *image = [UIImage imageWithCGImage:quartzImage];

 CGImageRelease(quartzImage);
 free(rgbBuffer);
 return  image;
 }

You will also need to #import "Endian.h" and the define #define clamp(a) (a>255?255:(a<0?0:a));