WPF does not include a native control for displaying live camera feeds, which can be challenging when you need to integrate webcam functionality into your desktop application. Whether you are working with a built-in laptop camera or an external USB webcam like a Logitech device, you need a reliable solution to capture and display video streams.

In this article, I will walk you through a simple WPF demo that uses DirectShowLib to display a live camera preview. This approach also allows you to extend the functionality for capturing photos or recording video streams.

The Challenge: No Native Camera Control in WPF

Unlike some frameworks, WPF does not provide a built-in control for a camera or video preview. To work around this limitation, we use WindowsFormsHost to embed a Win32 window handle, which DirectShowLib requires for rendering the video feed.

Solution Overview

This demo demonstrates how to:

• Access cameras connected to your PC (built-in webcams or USB cameras)

• Display a live camera preview using DirectShowLib

• Structure the code for maintainability and potential MVVM migration

Architecture and Design

To keep the codebase clean and maintainable, I have separated concerns:

• UI Layer (Code-Behind): Handles the WindowsFormsHost wiring, as the camera preview requires a window handle

• Service Layer: Contains the DirectShowLib camera graph logic, isolated from the UI

This separation ensures the core camera functionality is testable and can be refactored into a full MVVM pattern if needed in the future.

Key Implementation Details

The camera preview is hosted using WindowsFormsHost because DirectShowLib needs a window handle (HWND) to render the video stream. While this requires some UI logic in the code-behind, the camera graph setup and management remain decoupled in a dedicated service class.

This design makes it straightforward to extend the application with additional features such as:

• Capturing still images from the video stream

• Recording video to a file

• Switching between multiple connected cameras

Conclusion

This simple WPF demo shows how to overcome the lack of native camera support in WPF by leveraging DirectShowLib and WindowsFormsHost. The modular design keeps the code maintainable while providing a solid foundation for building more advanced camera functionality.

Feel free to explore the code and adapt it to your own projects. If you have questions or suggestions, I would love to hear them in the comments!

💻 GitHub repo: https://github.com/prasadbdissanayake/wpf-camera-csharp