# Continuous Full Screen Capture

**URL:** <https://discourse.libcinder.org/t/continuous-full-screen-capture/671>\
**Category:** Using Cinder\
**Created:** [April 28, 2017, 6:46pm UTC](https://discourse.libcinder.org/t/continuous-full-screen-capture/671 "2017-04-28T18:46:32Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![amputek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3be4f8/32.png) [@amputek](https://discourse.libcinder.org/u/amputek)\
**Post date:** [April 28, 2017, 6:46pm UTC](https://discourse.libcinder.org/t/continuous-full-screen-capture/671/1 "2017-04-28T18:46:32Z")

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Hi folks,

I’m looking for a way of capturing an entire screen’s output (ie the whole ‘desktop’) as a Surface or Texture2d.  
I’ve looked at the “saveImage” sample project, and it does something similar to what I’m after… but does anyone know of a way of doing the same thing (copying the window to a surface), but for the entire screen?

Cheers

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**Author:** ![xumo](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/discourse.libcinder.org/xumo/32/75_2.png) [@xumo](https://discourse.libcinder.org/u/xumo)\
**Post date:** [April 29, 2017, 10:07am UTC](https://discourse.libcinder.org/t/continuous-full-screen-capture/671/2 "2017-04-29T10:07:08Z")

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Yo can get a Surface from the window with:  
`ci::app::copyWindowSurface();`  
The QuickTimeAvfWriter sample shows how to record the screen to a video.

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**Author:** ![balachandran\_c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f17d59/32.png) [@balachandran\_c](https://discourse.libcinder.org/u/balachandran_c)\
**Post date:** [June 19, 2017, 4:37pm UTC](https://discourse.libcinder.org/t/continuous-full-screen-capture/671/4 "2017-06-19T16:37:20Z")

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Depending on your usecase, GStreamer should work.

Bala.

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**Author:** ![gabor\_papp](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/discourse.libcinder.org/gabor_papp/32/769_2.png) [@gabor\_papp](https://discourse.libcinder.org/u/gabor_papp)\
**Post date:** [June 25, 2017, 3:13pm UTC](https://discourse.libcinder.org/t/continuous-full-screen-capture/671/5 "2017-06-25T15:13:40Z")

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There are some openframeworks addons that can do this. You won’t be able to use them in Cinder, but you can check out how they work and port them.

> **[genekogan/ofxScreenGrab](https://github.com/genekogan/ofxScreenGrab)**
>
> Screen capturing utility for OpenFrameworks, for recording your desktop to an ofTexture - genekogan/ofxScreenGrab

  

> **[tanakatsu/ofxWindowCapture](https://github.com/tanakatsu/ofxWindowCapture)**
>
> openFrameworks addon to capture the screen shot of an arbitary window - tanakatsu/ofxWindowCapture

  

> **[schwittlick/ofxScreenCapture](https://github.com/schwittlick/ofxScreenCapture)**
>
> capture your entire desktop in realtime. Contribute to schwittlick/ofxScreenCapture development by creating an account on GitHub.