Simulator Camera Support – RocketSim

A top requested feature has always been Simulator camera support. Constantly having to test the camera on an actual device can be a pain and it’s annoying to run into dead ends on the Simulator for apps that come with camera features.

We hear you and we’re excited to share the early beta of RocketSim Camera Simulation 📸

Check out these demo’s:

Glimpsify open-source project demo video

Vision object detection demo video

Continuity camera demo video

How do I enable this feature?

Camera simulation is currently opt-in since it’s in early beta.

Go to Settings → General

Enable the checkbox at the end:

Add ENABLE_CAMERA_SIMULATION environment variable to 1 in your scheme settings

Setup camera authorization via RocketSim’s Side Window

The side window in its state after camera permissions have been granted.

Integrate RocketSim Connect following the in-app instructions. For more info, see Introduction & Setup

Start running your app

Troubleshooting

Since this is an early beta, I’m pretty sure you’ll find edge cases that aren’t supported. I’d love to fix these! Could you please:

Add -com.swiftlee.rocketsim.debug 1 as a launch argument to your app

Relaunch your app and try to get Camera Simulation to work Note: functionality won’t change, but you’ll have more debug logs

Copy the logs from your console

Start a new email to me via Settings → About → Report a bug

Add the copied logs

Hit send!

(Optional) if you can share me an Xcode project with your camera code in it, I’ll be able to fix your specific case much quicker

That email will give me all I need to dive deeper into your specific issue

Known issues

The macOS camera resolution is used as the resolution of returned sample buffers. This means your captures won’t have the resolution of the original (Simulator) device camera.

Video’s do not contain any audio

AVCaptureMetadataOutput is not yet supported

Switching camera from front to back does nothing since there’s only one camera available