topic Re: Using pictures taken with Field Maps in an oriented imagery layer in ArcGIS Field Maps Questions

Using pictures taken with Field Maps in an oriented imagery layer

Vincentde_Jonge — Thu, 03 Jul 2025 09:24:47 GMT

Hiya,

I've been trying to find a way to use pictures taken using Field Maps (or another ArcGIS App) in an oriented imagery layer, or at the very least the direction in which the picture was taken. Of course, we first tried using QuickCapture, but as we also need to fill in quite a few attributes, the lack of a form like in Field Maps/Survey123 proved too cumbersome.

As the info required comes from the exifdata, I next used QC, Field Maps and Survey 123 to take pictures. It turns out every app gives back different exifdata. I compared the exifdata using exiftool.

Field Maps doesn't give GPSImgDirection (or equivalent), so it seems it's impossible to get the picture direction from there. Survey123 does give the direction and an easy way to get it in the feature service, but doesn't seem to provide other parameters for the oriented imagery layer (roll, depth etc). QuickCapture does provide all those things, but doesn't have the functionality to provide nice forms.

Am I doing something wrong/missing something? Is there any other way to use the ArcGIS apps to take picture and have the img direction in there?

Re: Using pictures taken with Field Maps in an oriented imagery layer

DougBrowning — Thu, 03 Jul 2025 13:39:53 GMT

No QuickCapture is the only one setting the tags so far and its a bummer. I thought I posted an idea for it but cannot find it. I have talked directly to 123 team on this though. I think its weird to have all these apps to view them but no way to take them. They tend to assume its drone imagery a lot. Teams need to coordinate better.

Re: Using pictures taken with Field Maps in an oriented imagery layer

DavidSolari — Thu, 03 Jul 2025 15:57:56 GMT

I'm curious, do photos taken outside of Field Maps and then attached later have the same metadata issue? If not then using the device's built-in camera app (or something you grab from the app store if the stock app's lacking) would be a clunky workaround. Not that this is an excuse to not log as much metadata as possible in a GIS collection app, hope the team can patch this up for the next big release.

Re: Using pictures taken with Field Maps in an oriented imagery layer

Vincentde_Jonge — Mon, 07 Jul 2025 06:29:24 GMT

Well, I didn't want to explore this right away, as it'd be a lot harder to make sure it's the same on every device. I don't see a reason why this wouldn't work in theory. However, I might just suggest settling for imgdirection only for now, since that's the most important thing the stakeholders actually have a use for.

I'll post an update here if I do end up trying a third-party camera app and importing the pictures afterwards.

Re: Using pictures taken with Field Maps in an oriented imagery layer

MichaelBruening — Mon, 19 Jan 2026 12:45:43 GMT

There is a means to show the direction of "every" photo that was taken within Field Maps, but it requires the use of two tools and then a display symbology based on a data field.

FIRST and most important factor is to make sure that the camera app on the device is using a "Geo-Tagged" option for the photos taken by the device's app.

You would have to first use the "Export Attachment" tool to export all of your photos into a single folder, BUT you would have to insure that each photo has a "unique name". This would PREVENT a photo from being "overwritten" during the export. This tool allows for either a "prefix" or "suffix" to be added to the name of the attachment during export, so it should be possible. I typically use a Unique ID from the parent record as a prefix and then later use a field calculation to pull that unique ID if needed later down the road.

Next you would use the "GeoTagged Photo to Points" which will then allow you to create just a point layer that's associated database table contains the following "fields" within it -

Folder Path (network path to photo),

Name (think as it being a unique ID),

DateTime,

"DIRECTION" (double value between 0-359.99),

X-Coordinate, Y-Coordinate, and Z-value (X & Y usually in Lat/Long WGS84 and "meters" as Z-value).

You could also allow the Point layer to have the photos as attachments if needed, but if you are just wanting to show the photos direction, then I would just export this point layer without attachments into the same FGDB using the same name with a suffix of "PhtDrctn" or something and use it within your maps.

Then you would just symbolize the points to use the "DIRECTION" data field with the arrow of your choice.

You could try to develop this a little further to join the photo direction back to the original point, but if there are multiple photos attached to one point, then it would be hard to display which direction to use for the symbol.