About myself
My name is Sascha Losko. I am a biologist working for a bioinformatics company in the Greater Munich Area, Germany. More…
Recent blog entries:
■ Nikon D4 announced!
■ Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines — New Gallery
■ Thinking differently — Steve Jobs, 1955-2011
■ St. Jacob ("Scots Monastery"), Regensburg
■ Steve Jobs resigns as CEO of Apple
More…
Oct 2010
How to access GPS 'heading' metadata with Aperture 3.1
In my previous post I mentioned that Apple’s new version Aperture 3.1 adds support for GPS heading (direction) metadata. With my Nikon D300 I am using the Solmeta Geotagger N2, which features an electronic compass (unlike Nikon’s original geotagger, the Nikon GP-1). I had briefly reviewed the Solmeta Geotagger N2 in this blog before, and I remain happy with its performance. However, Aperture did not fully support all provided GPS metadata until its current version 3.1. Though Aperture 3 introduced the “Places” feature, GPS ‘heading’ was neither used for map presentation, nor did the heading information show up in the metadata inspector.
The release notes of Aperture 3.1 announced support for GPS ‘heading’. However, upon first inspection this missing piece of information still does not show up in the metadata inspector. In fact, there are a few steps you have to take to get to that info, specifically for photos you had imported before Aperture 3.1 was released! This may be clear for many advanced users, but I have encountered some confusion about this in various discussions since the release of Aperture 3.1. For those running into problems, I would like to walk you through the necessary steps…
The metadata inspector (shown above) allows for selection of a predefined metadata view. You can change those views, or create new ones. A metadata view consists of a set of fields reporting specific information. By updating Aperture to version 3.1, the existing metadata views are not changed though — which is good, you may have spent quite some time to customize them according to your needs.
To add the ‘heading’ field to you views, click on the views selector and go to the end of the selection list that pops up. There is an “Edit…” entry, which opens the “Metadata Views” dialog. This dialog lists all currently defined views in the left panel, with your current view already pre-selected. The right panel lists all available metadata fields, with those fields making up your current view checked. To add the GPS ‘heading’ to your view, find the “Direction” field in the “EXIF” section and check the corresponding check box.
Closing this dialog, go to the metadata inspector and find the “Direction” field for the view you have just edited.
As you can see, the Direction field shows up. However, there is no content.
What happened?
The photo selected was imported before the update of Aperture to version 3.1. The working copy of that photo contains all metadata information that was supported before the update, and the heading information was not part of that set of metadata!
You could create a new working copy from the original, but there is a way to update all your current working copies. Its quite simple, and this can be done in one step specifically for those photos in your library containing GPS information.
First, select the “Photos” section in your project view. Within all photos in your library, we are going to search explicitly for those we want to update: Open the “Filter” HUD and add the rules shown below. All other rules that may be shown in the filter dialog from previous searches should be removed or disabled.
The last rule restricts my personal search to only those photos shot with my Nikon. Only for those I expect heading information to be available — I do have photos in my library taken with my iPhone 4, but even though it features an electronic compass, photos taken with the iPhone do only include GPS position, not heading information (as of iOS 4.1). I hope Apple adds this feature with the next release of iOS. If you can’t wait, there is one App that supposedly does embed heading metadata as well — that would be ProCamera (since version 2.95, though I have not tested this feature myself).
Using the filter settings above, all photos in need of a metadata update will show up. Depending on your throughput, many thousands of them… Updating one photos metadata does not take long — it adds up, though. That’s why we searched explicitly for those photos that actually do have GPS information embedded.
Now, select all photos that have been found. From the main “Metadata” menu, select “Update from Master” and wait…
You can open the Activity Viewer (using the key combination Cmd-Shift-0, a new shortcut introduced with Aperture 3.1 as well) and watch Aperture process your request.
If you get bored, check for an already processed image. Hopefully, you will see correct heading information in the metadata inspector.
What you are not going to see will be any kind of visual indication of heading in the map view directly. I am still waiting for that one, I hope Apple is going to add this feature with one of the next updates!
The release notes of Aperture 3.1 announced support for GPS ‘heading’. However, upon first inspection this missing piece of information still does not show up in the metadata inspector. In fact, there are a few steps you have to take to get to that info, specifically for photos you had imported before Aperture 3.1 was released! This may be clear for many advanced users, but I have encountered some confusion about this in various discussions since the release of Aperture 3.1. For those running into problems, I would like to walk you through the necessary steps…
The metadata inspector (shown above) allows for selection of a predefined metadata view. You can change those views, or create new ones. A metadata view consists of a set of fields reporting specific information. By updating Aperture to version 3.1, the existing metadata views are not changed though — which is good, you may have spent quite some time to customize them according to your needs.
To add the ‘heading’ field to you views, click on the views selector and go to the end of the selection list that pops up. There is an “Edit…” entry, which opens the “Metadata Views” dialog. This dialog lists all currently defined views in the left panel, with your current view already pre-selected. The right panel lists all available metadata fields, with those fields making up your current view checked. To add the GPS ‘heading’ to your view, find the “Direction” field in the “EXIF” section and check the corresponding check box.
Closing this dialog, go to the metadata inspector and find the “Direction” field for the view you have just edited.
As you can see, the Direction field shows up. However, there is no content.
What happened?
The photo selected was imported before the update of Aperture to version 3.1. The working copy of that photo contains all metadata information that was supported before the update, and the heading information was not part of that set of metadata!
You could create a new working copy from the original, but there is a way to update all your current working copies. Its quite simple, and this can be done in one step specifically for those photos in your library containing GPS information.
First, select the “Photos” section in your project view. Within all photos in your library, we are going to search explicitly for those we want to update: Open the “Filter” HUD and add the rules shown below. All other rules that may be shown in the filter dialog from previous searches should be removed or disabled.
The last rule restricts my personal search to only those photos shot with my Nikon. Only for those I expect heading information to be available — I do have photos in my library taken with my iPhone 4, but even though it features an electronic compass, photos taken with the iPhone do only include GPS position, not heading information (as of iOS 4.1). I hope Apple adds this feature with the next release of iOS. If you can’t wait, there is one App that supposedly does embed heading metadata as well — that would be ProCamera (since version 2.95, though I have not tested this feature myself).
Using the filter settings above, all photos in need of a metadata update will show up. Depending on your throughput, many thousands of them… Updating one photos metadata does not take long — it adds up, though. That’s why we searched explicitly for those photos that actually do have GPS information embedded.
Now, select all photos that have been found. From the main “Metadata” menu, select “Update from Master” and wait…
You can open the Activity Viewer (using the key combination Cmd-Shift-0, a new shortcut introduced with Aperture 3.1 as well) and watch Aperture process your request.
If you get bored, check for an already processed image. Hopefully, you will see correct heading information in the metadata inspector.
What you are not going to see will be any kind of visual indication of heading in the map view directly. I am still waiting for that one, I hope Apple is going to add this feature with one of the next updates!
Aperture 3.1 released
Apple has just released a new version of Aperture. Aperture 3.1 adds compatibility with iLife ’11 and addresses a long list of performance issues and bugs.
Many small changes should improve ones every-day-workflow, such as “Metadata Inspector can now display GPS Direction if this data is available in geotagged photos” (taken directly from my personal wish list, though Apple still does not indicate heading in the map view directly… ).
Go get it through the “Software Update” entry in the Apple menu. Software Update will install a new version of “ProKit” first (the GUI toolkit for Aperture and other Apple Pro software). Once ProKit is updated, Aperture 3.1 will show up. Upon first running Aperture 3.1, it will briefly update your media libraries.
Many small changes should improve ones every-day-workflow, such as “Metadata Inspector can now display GPS Direction if this data is available in geotagged photos” (taken directly from my personal wish list, though Apple still does not indicate heading in the map view directly… ).
Go get it through the “Software Update” entry in the Apple menu. Software Update will install a new version of “ProKit” first (the GUI toolkit for Aperture and other Apple Pro software). Once ProKit is updated, Aperture 3.1 will show up. Upon first running Aperture 3.1, it will briefly update your media libraries.
