Create CVPixelBuffer from YUV with IOSurface backed

I figured it out and it was fairly trivial. Here is the full code below. Only issue is that I get a BSXPCMessage received error for message: Connection interrupted and it takes a while for the video to show.

NSDictionary *pixelAttributes = @{(id)kCVPixelBufferIOSurfacePropertiesKey : @{}};
CVPixelBufferRef pixelBuffer = NULL;
CVReturn result = CVPixelBufferCreate(kCFAllocatorDefault,
                                      width,
                                      height,
                                      kCVPixelFormatType_420YpCbCr8BiPlanarVideoRange,
                                      (__bridge CFDictionaryRef)(pixelAttributes),
                                      &pixelBuffer);

CVPixelBufferLockBaseAddress(pixelBuffer, 0);
uint8_t *yDestPlane = CVPixelBufferGetBaseAddressOfPlane(pixelBuffer, 0);
memcpy(yDestPlane, yPlane, width * height);
uint8_t *uvDestPlane = CVPixelBufferGetBaseAddressOfPlane(pixelBuffer, 1);
memcpy(uvDestPlane, uvPlane, numberOfElementsForChroma);
CVPixelBufferUnlockBaseAddress(pixelBuffer, 0);

if (result != kCVReturnSuccess) {
    DDLogWarn(@"Unable to create cvpixelbuffer %d", result);
}

CIImage *coreImage = [CIImage imageWithCVPixelBuffer:pixelBuffer]; //success!
CVPixelBufferRelease(pixelBuffer);

I forgot to add the code to interleave the two U and V planes, but that shouldn't be too bad.

I had a similar question and here is what I have in SWIFT 2.0 with informations that I got from answers to others questions or links.

func generatePixelBufferFromYUV2(inout yuvFrame: YUVFrame) -> CVPixelBufferRef?
{
    var uIndex: Int
    var vIndex: Int
    var uvDataIndex: Int
    var pixelBuffer: CVPixelBufferRef? = nil
    var err: CVReturn;

    if (m_pixelBuffer == nil)
    {
        err = CVPixelBufferCreate(kCFAllocatorDefault, yuvFrame.width, yuvFrame.height, kCVPixelFormatType_420YpCbCr8BiPlanarVideoRange, nil, &pixelBuffer)
        if (err != 0) {
            NSLog("Error at CVPixelBufferCreate %d", err)
            return nil
        }
    }

    if (pixelBuffer != nil)
    {
        CVPixelBufferLockBaseAddress(pixelBuffer!, 0)
        let yBaseAddress = CVPixelBufferGetBaseAddressOfPlane(pixelBuffer!, 0)
        if (yBaseAddress != nil)
        {
            let yData = UnsafeMutablePointer<UInt8>(yBaseAddress)
            let yDataPtr = UnsafePointer<UInt8>(yuvFrame.luma.bytes)

            // Y-plane data
            memcpy(yData, yDataPtr, yuvFrame.luma.length)
        }

        let uvBaseAddress = CVPixelBufferGetBaseAddressOfPlane(m_pixelBuffer!, 1)
        if (uvBaseAddress != nil)
        {
            let uvData = UnsafeMutablePointer<UInt8>(uvBaseAddress)
            let pUPointer = UnsafePointer<UInt8>(yuvFrame.chromaB.bytes)
            let pVPointer = UnsafePointer<UInt8>(yuvFrame.chromaR.bytes)

            // For the uv data, we need to interleave them as uvuvuvuv....
            let iuvRow = (yuvFrame.chromaB.length*2/yuvFrame.width)
            let iHalfWidth = yuvFrame.width/2

            for i in 0..<iuvRow
            {
                for j in 0..<(iHalfWidth)
                {
                    // UV data for original frame.  Just interleave them.
                    uvDataIndex = i*iHalfWidth+j
                    uIndex = (i*yuvFrame.width) + (j*2)
                    vIndex = uIndex + 1
                    uvData[uIndex] = pUPointer[uvDataIndex]
                    uvData[vIndex] = pVPointer[uvDataIndex]
                }
            }
        }
        CVPixelBufferUnlockBaseAddress(pixelBuffer!, 0)
    }

    return pixelBuffer
}

Note: yuvFrame is a structure with y, u, and v plan buffers and width and height. Also, I have the CFDictionary? parameter in the CVPixelBufferCreate(...) set to nil. If I give it IOSurface attribute, it will fail and complain that it's not IOSurface-backed or error -6683.

Visit these links for more information: This link is about UV interleave: How to convert from YUV to CIImage for iOS

and related question: CVOpenGLESTextureCacheCreateTextureFromImage returns error 6683

Here is the full conversion in obj-c. Also for all those geniuses who say : "it's trivial" don't patronize anyone! if you are here to help, help, if you are here to show how "smart" you are, go do it somewhere else. Here is the link to detailed explanation on YUV processing : www.glebsoft.com

    /// method to convert YUV buffers to pixelBuffer in otder to feed it to face unity methods
-(CVPixelBufferRef*)pixelBufferFromYUV:(uint8_t *)yBuffer vBuffer:(uint8_t *)uBuffer uBuffer:(uint8_t *)vBuffer width:(int)width height:(int)height  {
    NSDictionary *pixelAttributes = @{(id)kCVPixelBufferIOSurfacePropertiesKey : @{}};
    CVPixelBufferRef pixelBuffer;
    /// NumberOfElementsForChroma is width*height/4 because both U plane and V plane are quarter size of Y plane
    CGFloat uPlaneSize =  width * height / 4;
    CGFloat vPlaneSize = width * height / 4;
    CGFloat numberOfElementsForChroma = uPlaneSize + vPlaneSize;

    CVReturn result = CVPixelBufferCreate(kCFAllocatorDefault,
                                          width,
                                          height,
                                          kCVPixelFormatType_420YpCbCr8BiPlanarVideoRange,
                                          (__bridge CFDictionaryRef)(pixelAttributes),
                                          &pixelBuffer);

    ///for simplicity and speed create a combined UV panel to hold the pixels
    uint8_t *uvPlane = calloc(numberOfElementsForChroma, sizeof(uint8_t));
    memcpy(uvPlane, uBuffer, uPlaneSize);
    memcpy(uvPlane += (uint8_t)(uPlaneSize), vBuffer, vPlaneSize);
    
    
    CVPixelBufferLockBaseAddress(pixelBuffer, 0);
    uint8_t *yDestPlane = CVPixelBufferGetBaseAddressOfPlane(pixelBuffer, 0);
    memcpy(yDestPlane, yBuffer, width * height);
    
    uint8_t *uvDestPlane = CVPixelBufferGetBaseAddressOfPlane(pixelBuffer, 1);
    memcpy(uvDestPlane, uvPlane, numberOfElementsForChroma);
    CVPixelBufferUnlockBaseAddress(pixelBuffer, 0);
    CVPixelBufferRelease(pixelBuffer);
    free(uvPlane);
    return pixelBuffer;
}