Photos taken within Collector App and associated EXIF data

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08-04-2015 02:23 PM
PatrickRiparetti
New Contributor

Photos taken in the app seem to be stripped of EXIF data. Is there a way to retain GPS, Bearing, Altitude, etc. of these photos? Or, if not, is there an easier way to have these values autofill when capturing photos in the field on an iPad? Any help is much appreciated. Thanks!

7 Replies
simoxu
by MVP Regular Contributor
MVP Regular Contributor

It seems there's no way to avoid this.

I had a discussion with a peer user, this is the reason for him to stick to ArcGIS mobile on Trimble.

Hope an ESRI employee can clarify this for us.

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MiaogengZhang
Esri Regular Contributor

In iOS device, if you add photo from Gallery instead of camera directly, you should be able to keep EXIF info. 

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GordonSumerling
Esri Contributor

Hello Patrick,

this his is a question we see quite a lot at Esri Australia. At this stage capturinc the EXIF data is not supported by Collector for ArGIS. There is an ideas request for this that I recommend you add your voice to.

ArcGIS Idea - Collector - Geotag attached photos

However at Esri UC, the collector team did mention that this is an improvement they are considering but not until sometime mid 2016 at earliest. The Sneak Peak section of the Collector for ArcGIS  page give you the best idea of the short term developments coming.Collector for ArcGIS | ArcGIS

Cheers

Gordon

PascualBenito
New Contributor III

So the experience reported here would suggest that Collector will strip out the EXIF headers even if you chose to load the image from the Libaray instead of directly from the camera:  attachments and camera metadata

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AhjungKim4
Occasional Contributor II

This used to work with Collector 10.2, but it looks like this workaround no longer works with Collector 10.3. What has changed?

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StephanieLeusink
New Contributor III

We just discovered that this workaround doesn't always work anymore as well.  With Collector 10.3, support was added for changing the photo size. I just tested it, and if the attachment size is set to Actual, then attaching a photo from the iOS camera roll will keep the EXIF data, but any photos taken directly with Collector will not (as usual).  However, if the attachment size is set to anything other than Actual (i.e. Small, Medium, etc), no EXIF data is retained.  I'm guessing this is because the app is resizing the photo and in the process it strips out any of the EXIF data.

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BartKropf1
New Contributor

This issue should be solved in Collector 10.4

http://doc.arcgis.com/en/collector/#sneakPeek