GPX is a simple xml derivative, so is easy to read and create.īasic geotagging an entire directory of images with ExifTool is as simple as:Įxiftool -geotag your-GPX-file.gpx /your/directory/imagesĮxiftool -geotag your-GPX-file.gpx /dir/images/your-image.jpg In my case, I have a text file of GPS information from my drone, written at 5Hz, and I wrote a python script to convert it to GPX. You might get this from your GPS unit via interface software (like GPSBabel) or you might make it yourself using other format logs. The latter is most often in the form of a.

Of course, beyond the tool you will need an image or a set of images (in a directory) and a file containing your GPS data. In many cases I prefer to use the command-line utility and that is what will be used for geotagging. ExifTool is available for virtually any platform as both a Perl library and a standalone command-line utility. First, you will not find a tool that is more full-featured or better able to work with EXIF data. There are a lot of tools for dealing with image EXIF and GPS data, but ExifTool has two big things in its favor. This is where Phil Harvey’s excellent program ExifTool comes in. In my case one of the cameras I use is a GoPro Hero3, which does not provide position information natively. Many smartphones include the first two, but often altitude is ignored.

I need images that have an accurate time stamp and complete position information, including latitude, longitude, and altitude. That is great if you are uploading to Facebook or Pinterest, but may not be the best for mapping applications. Most iPhone and Android devices tag their images when they are collected. If you have a smartphone, then you are familiar with geotagging.

I do this using structure from motion algorithms and when working with a lot of images it is a great help if there is a good initial estimate of the image location. In a recent post, I discussed the new drone that I got for the holidays and a bit about how I was using it for developing map products. Geotagged Images with 3D Point Cloud Why Geotagging?

Exiftool commands latitude longitude