FlexibleAVCapture: An Swift/iOS library for taking videos with any rectangular frame.

I created a library FlexibleAVCapture to take any rectangular shaped videos.

FlexibleAVCapture provides a kind of AV capture view controller with flexible camera frame. It includes default capture settings, preview layer, buttons, tap-gesture focusing, pinch-gesture zooming, and so on.

Screen Capture

screencapture

Example

You can try 2 examples. One is included in the pods and the another is on App Store.
These 2 are almost same, but the one on App Store is more practical and better reference.

Pods Example

To run the example project, clone the repo, and run pod install from the Example directory first.

Flex Camera on App Store

You can download "Flex Camera" app from App Store.
~~https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/flex-camera/id1455345286~~

NOTE: Currently, it is not available on App Store in 2025, but you can still see its source code on GitHub.

See the fllowing post for its summary.
[iOS App] Flex Camera - Take videos with unique shape!

And here is the source code of Flex Camera.
https://github.com/hahnah/FlexCamera

Installation of FlexibleAVCapture

FlexibleAVCapture is available through CocoaPods. To install it, simply add the following line to your Podfile:

pod 'FlexibleAVCapture'

Usage

Your view controller should satisfy the following conditions:

Adopt FlexibleAVCaptureDelegate protocol and implement didCapture(withFileURL fileURL: URL) function.
Create an FlexibleAVCaptureViewController object and set its delegate.

import UIKit
import FlexibleAVCapture

class ViewController: UIViewController, FlexibleAVCaptureDelegate {

    let flexibleAVCaptureVC: FlexibleAVCaptureViewController = FlexibleAVCaptureViewController()

    override func viewDidAppear(_ animated: Bool) {
        super.viewDidAppear(animated)

        self.flexibleAVCaptureVC.delegate = self
        self.present(flexibleAVCaptureVC, animated: true, completion: nil)
    }

    func didCapture(withFileURL fileURL: URL) {
        print(fileURL)
    }

}

API

API Informations in this section are for version 2.1.0.
Visit https://cocoapods.org/pods/FlexibleAVCapture for the latest version.

FlexibleAVCaptureViewController

An object that manages capture settings and a session. It also displays a preview layer and handles user interactions.

Topics	API
Initializing	`init() -> FlexibleAVCaptureViewController`: Initializes a FlexibleAVCaptureViewController object with back camera.
	`init(cameraPosition: AVCaptureDevice.Position) -> FlexibleAVCaptureViewController`: Initializes a FlexibleAVCaptureViewController object to use back camera or front camera.
Managing Interactions	`var delegate: FlexibleAVCaptureDelegate?`: The object that acts as the delegate of the flexible AV capture view.
Managing Capture Settings	`var allowsResizing: Bool`: A Boolean value that indicates whether users can resize camera frame. Allowing this feature hides a resizing slider and resizing buttons. The default value of this property is true.
	`var allowsReversingCamera: Bool`: A Boolean value that indicates whether users can make the camera position reversed. Allowing this feature hides a camera-reversing button. The default value of this property is true.
	`var allowsSoundEffect: Bool`: A Boolean value that indicates whether sound effect rings at the beginning and the ending of video recording. The default value of this property is true.
	`var cameraPosition: AVCaptureDevice.Position`: The camera position being used to capture video. Back camera will be used by default. (This is a get-only property.)
	`var maximumRecordDuration: CMTime`: The longest duration allowed for the recording. The default value of this property is invalid, which indicates no limit.
	`var minimumFrameRatio: CGFloat`: The ratio of the vertical(or horizontal) edge length in the full frame when the wideset(or tallest) frame is applied. The default value of this property is 0.34.
	`var videoQuality: AVCaptureSession.Preset`: A constant value indicating the quality level or bit rate of the output. The default value of this property is medium. (This is a get-only property.)
	`func canSetVideoQuality(_ videoQuality: AVCaptureSession.Preset) -> Bool`: Returns a Boolean value that indicates whether the receiver can use the given preset.
	`func forceResize(withResizingParameter resizingParameter: Float) -> Void`: Recieve a Float value between 0.0 and 1.0 and resize the camera frame using the value.
	`func reverseCameraPosition() -> Void`: Change the camera position to the oppsite of the current position.
	`func setVideoQuality(_ videoQuality: AVCaptureSession.Preset) -> Void`: Change the video capturing quality.
Replasing Default UI	`func replaceFullFramingButton(with button: UIButton) -> Void`: Replace the existing full-framing button.
	`func replaceResizingSlider(with slider: UISlider) -> Void`: Replace the existing resizing slider. The slider's range will be forced to be 0.0 to 1.0.
	`func replaceRecordButton(with button: UIButton) -> Void`: Replace the existing record button.
	`func replaceReverseButton(with button: UIButton) -> Void`: Replace the existing camera-position-reversing button.
	`func replaceSquareFramingButton(with button: UIButton) -> Void`: Replace the existing square-framing button.
	`func replaceTallFramingButton(with button: UIButton) -> Void`: Replace the existing tall-framing button.
	`func replaceWideFramingButton(with button: UIButton) -> Void`: Replace the existing wide-framing button.

FlexibleAVCaptureDelegate

Defines an interface for delegates of FlexibleAVCaptureViewController to respond to events that occur in the process of recording a single file.
The delegate of an FlexibleAVCaptureViewController object must adopt the FlexibleAVCaptureDelegate protocol.

Topics	API
Delegate Methods	`didCapture(withFileURL fileURL: URL) -> Void`: Informs the delegate when all pending data has been written to an output file. Required.

Source Code on GitHub

You can see the whole source code of FlexibleAVCapture on GitHub.
https://github.com/hahnah/FlexibleAVCapture