GPS location

Advanced Renamer forum
#1 : 28/04-23 10:43
Chris
Chris
Posts: 2
Just started using AR.

Main thing I am after is adding the location of the photo in the file name. Using the location tag gives me the city but not the point of interest or a more specific location.

A forum search showed that this addition was requested before so I am wondering whether is possible or will not be available.

Many Thanks





28/04-23 10:43
#2 : 28/04-23 16:54
David Lee
David Lee
Posts: 1125
First of all check which Location tags are available in your files. You can do this by selecting an image file in the list and clicking the ExifTool button below.

Available tags will vary depending on the make and model of camera - eg for images from my Panasonic Lumix compact camera: the "Location" tag exists but never seems to be populated. Available location tags, in decreasing order of precision, are:
landmark
city2
city
state
country

Not all levels of tag are available, depending upon location. However my Lumix also writes the finest level of location that is available to another tag: GPSAreaInformation.

Otherwise; <GPS City>, <GPS State> and <GPS Country> tags are available in Advanced Renamer produced using an Internet resource to provide missing location information from the GPS coordinate EXIF tags.

For finer detail you can extract the GPS coordinates from the images and use an on-line Reverse-Geocoder to extract detailed location information. What this will return will depend upon the database used by the website and may or may not give you what you need.
Once you have the location data in a csv file you can import it into Advanced Renamer and apply it to your filenames.

This process would not be feasible to add to Advanced Renamer due the the complexity of so many variables. However you can easily try it yourself with a bit of manipulation.

1) Extract EXIF information into a CSV file.
2) Reverse-geocode Lat/Lon coordinates from CSV file using on-line tool.
3) "Import files from CSV..." into Advanced Renamer.
4) "Import data from CSV..." from the same CSV file.
5) Use <CSV:x> tags to extract the desired address field from the CSV file into the new filename.

Step 1...
Search online for a suitable EXIF tool.
There are many options but you can try "BR's EXIFextracter" from http://www.br-software.com/extracter.html
Once installed select your folder of images to scan and select GPS latitude and GPS longitude
Select "Add column headings" and comma as separator.
When you run the program it will output a CSV file with three columns: Filename, GPS latitude and GPS longitude

Step 2...
Search for a suitable Reverse-Geocoder online.
One possibility is https://www.geoapify.com/tools/reverse-geocoding -online
which extracts address data using Open Street Map
Whilst it works, in my experience results are generally inferior to the "GPSAreaInformation" tag written by my Lumix camera, so you probably want to find a better app - but give the Geoapify app a try to get started.
Geoapify will return a CSV file with the locations of nearest named features in various columns of a CSV file.

Step 3...
Check that output CSV file contains the information you require. If there are any blanks in the column you wish to use (eg "Name") you can use Excel (or similar) to remove the corresponding rows. Import the image filenames into Advanced Renamer using "Import->Files from CSV...". Select Column 1 for "orginal filename" and clear the "new filename" box (or set it to zero).
A blank "List" method will be created - you don't need this so it can be deleted.

Step 4...
MAKE SURE THAT YOU DO NOT REARRANGE THE ORDER OF FILES IN THE LIST.
Now import the metadata from the CSV file using "Import->Data from CSV...".
Each column of the CSV file is written into a series of tags that can be applied to your filenames as though they had been directly derived from the file,

Step 5...
Use <Csv:x> tags in Renaming methods.
In my example column 8 contains "name" and this is accessed as <Csv:8>
Alternatively, column 5 (<Csv:5>) contains a formatted full address, which may be more useful.

See the UserGuide for more information.

It looks complicated but it takes longer to explain that actually to do it!









28/04-23 16:54
#3 : 29/04-23 11:18
Chris
Chris
Posts: 2
Reply to #2:

Many thanks for the detailed workaround. Yes, is not difficult but are additional steps that should not be necessary. I understand that there are many variations of gps location tags available from different cameras but they must have the basic coordinates data.

On mine the only tags available are latitude, longitude and altitude. For example one my files has the following data (from files properties).

Lat N = 53: 1: 24.5830000000132713
Lon W = 3: 12: 16.4920000000001821
Alt = 462.483

Output from:-

1 - Advanced Renamer
<GPS City> Llangollen
<GPS State> Wales
<GPS Lat> 53.0233
<GPS Lng> -3.2040

2 - www.gps-coordinates.net = Ponderosa Cafe, Horseshoe Pass, Llangollen, LL20 8DR, United Kingdom

3 - https://www.geoapify.com/tools/reverse-geocoding -online
Llangollen Ponderosa Cafe Horseshoe Pass Wales 53.0233 -3.2040

I could be wrong but it seems that Advanced Renamer is using a very basic database/map or whatever and there should be no reason not to use something with more details. Just the nearest city is not very good.

Possibly I am oversimplifying the solution but I cannot see why is not possible.

Again thank you for the workaround but I wish I dont have to go through that and something is done about.









29/04-23 11:18