I saw that the August 2016 release of Survey123 treated the stripping out of EXIF data as a bug which was resolved in this release with additional functionality on how to stamp the location into the photo:
In previous versions of Survey123, a limitation caused EXIF metadata to be stripped from photos submitted. We’ve done more than fix this bug, as the photo capture page now has enhanced location features. In the upper-right corner of the photo page you can now see a location icon, the same as would be familiar from geopoint questions. If this icon is visible at all, it means that your device has a location sensor, and so where you take the photo will be captured within the image. Pressing the icon will refresh the location; this is a good choice for when you want a specific location, but have moved while taking the photo.
Seems appropriate for Collector for follow suit?
Yep, excellent idea. I'd like to see this available... or even the ability within Collector to specify which camera app is used?
For our organization, we take a photo at every site. At the end of the field season, we then upload the photos to a provincial database. We have found a few issues with the way Collector manages photos on iOS.
1. Currently, the photos are stored in the geodatabase. It's a bit of a process to get the photos from the geodatabase so that we can save them in a folder on our computers, so that the photos can easily be uploaded to the provincial database.
2. Once the photos have been extracted from the geodatabase they then have really complicated identifiers that we need to deal with in order to figure out what photo belongs to what site. This is such a pain that we have opted to not collect photos using Collector.
A few things that would be very helpful for us include:
1. Collector saving the photos to the iOS Photo Gallery. This is how photos are saved in Android but not in iOS.
2. Having the photo names associated with date/time or even better, allowing the user to set how the name is stored using a combination of the fields. For example, the site ID and the date/time.
3. Geotagged information (GPS location, image direction)
I agree that this part of Collector can sure be improved. Retrieval of the photos from the SDE server usually requires higher level GIS support. Collector should provide the option to store the photo to the internal device camera roll, even if it’s not the default setting.
We have worked around this by adopting a methodology where we always take the photo on the iOS device using the standard Camera App on the device, which sends the image to the Camera Roll. When attaching the photo in Collector, we choose the option “Choose From Library”.
This still gets stored in the SDE server with the rest of the new point information, but also allows the ability to download the photos from the camera roll in the traditional way. The SDE stored image remains linked to the online map and the images downloaded from the iOS camera roll are stored unlinked on your network using the standard iOS naming. It is still quite a chore when you have many photos to rename.
In either case, the GPS values and image direction are stored in the header image file, assuming that the iOS or Android settings are correct to enable this. I have had survey party chiefs come back with the whole days photos having no GPS values because they didn't check the setting.
To handle the issue of having to rename the photos to be able to know where they are located, we use the ESRI ArcPhoto Extension to insert all the photos in a folder onto an ArcMap session, then turn on an aerial underneath that.
Hope that helps.
We also ran into this problem when taking thousands of photos of storm drain structures and pipes.
We sometimes needed to know the direction the picture was taken and the date and time on the photo name.
We used a DROPBOX APP on the IOS iPAD which was set to sync the pictures to dropbox whenever we had WIFI. The pictures were taken at the site (with Location info on) and the dropbox would load pictures to a shared folder back in the office (we could see pictures come in-in realtime from the field when WIFI was available (read McDonalds lunch).
We would then copy into a network folder (The dropbox app renames the picture from standard IOS picture IMAGE# name to standardized date & time name (i.e. - 2017-01-12 09.51.18.jpg). This latter name allows dropbox to keep track of what pictures have already been synced, even from multiple iPADS accessing the same dropbox (very rarely are two pictures taken at the SAME second). We then use the Photos 2 Points tool in the ESRI ArcMAP toolbox to dreate a photo layer or multiple photo layers that contain ALL the EXIF info including the direction which can be map to a field in a Chevron Symbol to point the direction the photo was taken. the photo then come in close to the collected point but showing how in relation to the point /Structure they were taken
Photos to Points is another tool that will read all the EXIF info, create a point and rotate a symbol based on the bearing, and capture all of the other related data like date/time, etc.
A side note on the rotations, they are pretty valuable. But they do need to be verified by the picture taker after you get them on a map. We have seen many occasions where the rotation shown is bogus. Sometimes, I am sure, the picture taker is too quick to snap the photo before the direction settles out. Also we know that different cameras have a different basis of rotation. Some are 0° being due North and some being 0° being due East. So mixed photos on a project require adjusting the rotation values to all be on the same basis.
Thanks for sharing, Steve.
Have you guys looked into the Survey123 application and the use of Photo EXIF data capabilities?
https://community.esri.com/groups/survey123/blog/2017/12/12/working-with-exif-image-metadata-in-survey123-for-arcgis
BOOOOOMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!! Yeah my mind went nuts when this blog was released. No it is not Collector, but it does get you what you want in most cases...
Currently Collector does not offer this function. I have used the Theodolite app and another one called Solocator.
I lean more towards using Solocator I like how GPS data is displayed and can include project information on the photo.
I then use these photos taken with other Geotaging/ GeoStamping app and add them into Collector through attachments. This process gets the photos and GPS information I want but its not an efficient process. Collecting hundreds of points and multiple photos for each one is very time consuming when you have to swap back and forth between apps. It has also been my experience with a cell phone of tablet, when your using Collector it runs down the battery the more apps you have running.
Sometimes you are taking photos only. Then are a variety of ways that have been mentioned where you end up with a geo-smart point shapefile, with hyperlinks to open the actual photo using the Identify tool. Even publish to an ArcGIS Online map for web consumption.
But if you are also using Collector to set field points and attaching other attributes from the field before submitting, then it is a pretty big deal to add the photo from the mobile device and have that already permanently attached to the correct point, when, like you say, you are doing hundreds of points. No adding attachments later. I do not take the photo directly from Collector because 1) power consumption you mention and 2) it will NOT be stored in your iOS device camera roll. So you can't do a direct photo download from the camera, if you wanted to. Photos have to be retrieved from the SDE server probably.
We could use some of the better photo functionality in some of these other apps, maybe ESRI jump it up. WE are definitely "app swamped" for sure..
Indeed, it would be good to add EXIF to Collector.
In addition to header info, the ability to name files based on fields and to watermark fields on images (like GeoJot) would also improve workflows significantly.
The watermark function in GeoJot is awesome. We have a lot of users that prefer to use GeoJot over Collector just for that reason. They also like having the photo direction shapefile created and the PDF report. The issue is that GeoJot requires post-processing on our end to make all that happen and then it is also time-consuming to load the shapefile into feature classes with related photo attachments. As a result users have to wait to see their collected data on web maps or dashboards.
This is from 2014. FIVE (5) years ago. Has this been done on Collector? Does this feature exist on any other ESRI mobile apps?
Hi michael.barber@rrc.texas.gov ,
It can be done with Survey123. See: https://community.esri.com/groups/survey123/blog/2017/12/12/working-with-exif-image-metadata-in-survey123-for-arcgis
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