Android View with 'hole' in it

I've created a custom camera view for Android. I have overlayed the camera preview with a semi transparent LinearLayout with a TextView and Button. Now I need to punch a 'hole' in the middle of the view so you can see the underlying camera preview cle开发者_如何学编程arly . The hole then acts as a frame guideline allowing the user to 'frame' the photo.

I succeeded with the iOS version by creating a view and cutting out a rectangle from the view as demonstrated here. How would I go about doing the same thing for Android?

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Use SurfaceView.

"the SurfaceView punches a hole in its window to allow its surface to be displayed"

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You're going to need to start with the hole and build around it. Layers in Android are additive, there is no way to punch a hole.

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This is the code I'm using:

setContentView(mCameraPreview);
addContentView(mOtherView, new LayoutParams
        (LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT, LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT));

Areas that are transparent in mOtherView will allow the camera preview to show through.