Is it possible to read EXIF data with R?

Question

I need to manipulate some image files based on their EXIF data. Can something like this be done in R? I have not seen any R functions which could read EXIF data directly.

I haven't tried, but it seems that since the question a way has appeared: https://www.r-bloggers.com/extracting-exif-data-from-photos-using-r/ — Pere, May 13 '19 at 13:00

Gavin Simpson · Accepted Answer · 2012-05-26T09:14:42.833

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The adimpro package may be useful. It maintains the EXIF data as a comment() on the imported image. (not used it myself though.)

edited May 26 '12 at 09:14

answered May 26 '12 at 06:13

Gavin Simpson

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score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 08 '15 at 19:24

I could not find an R package that did it natively either, so I implemented my own at https://github.com/cmartin/EXIFr

As of now, it only reads a subset of tags I was using for a project, but I could easily extend it to suit your needs.

For example, to read the aperture value :

read_exif_tags(image_path)[["ApertureValue"]]

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 25 '14 at 08:24

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It is probably faster and more versatile to use exiftool (http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/)

system("/usr/local/bin/exiftool pathimagename.img")

answered Nov 25 '14 at 08:24

jgc

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score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Jan 20 '18 at 06:35

I tried adimpro (too complicated for me- needs other packages etc) and EXIFr (got errors). exiftool worked, but I had to figure out a way to get the results of the system call into R. Heres how (you have to add , intern = TRUE):

1) install (http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/) for your OS
2) use this in R: varName <- system("/usr/local/bin/exiftool path/example.jpg", intern = TRUE)

Is it possible to read EXIF data with R?

4 Answers4