Weather Tag

Introduction

This is a simple Windows console (Command Line) application for adding weather values to a set of jpg image file EXIF 2.31 Metadata. Using the date and time a photo was taken, the app matches the closest weather reading from a file containing periodic weather readings - weatherhistory.csv.

The idea behind this utility is if you can obtain historical weather information for a location near where the photos were taken this information (Ambient Temperature, Humidity and Pressure) could be saved within the image file metadata.

Read the blog post: Capturing the moment and the ambient weather information in photos

Dependency with ExifTool

WeatherTag requires that ExifTool.exe be copied into the same folder with WeatherTag.exe on your PC. ExifTool is a utility written by Phil Harvey which can read, write and edit file metadata. The latest version of exiftool can be obtained at https://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/

Installation

1. On your PC create a folder called "WeatherTag"
2. Copy the WeatherTag.exe file to the folder WeatherTag
3. Copy Exiftool.exe to the Weather Tag folder.
4. Add the Weather Tag folder to the Windows path variable. If you are not familiar on how to add a folder to the Windows path variable. Search the web for "Add folder to Environment path" for detailed descriptions as it may vary between Windows versions.

Usage

There are two pieces of information required for Weather Tag to perform its function:

1. Any number of photos taken with correct Date and Time stamp.
2. A comma separated value file (.csv) in UTF-8 named weatherhistory.csv containing periodic weather measurements. The first column values are required to contain a date in MM/DD/YYYY format (Example: 10/5/2018). The second column values are required to contain time values in 12-Hour format (Example: 3:00 PM). The third column should contain ambient temperature values in Celsius. The fourth column values should contain atmospheric humidity in percentage. The fifth column values should contain atmospheric pressure in hectopascals (hPa). The Ambient Temperature, Humidity and Pressure values need not have the measurement units added (°C, %, hPa).

When WeatherTag.exe is executed within a folder containing image files and the weatherhistory.csv file it will attempt to match the closest weather reading (within an hour) for the date and time a photo was taken. If the -write flag is use it will then write the Ambient Temperature, Humidity and Pressure values to the image files' corresponding EXIF metadata fields.

From the Windows Command line, navigate to a folder containing the images you wish to tag as well as the weathehistory.csv file. Enter the following command:

weathertag -write

Example Files

Within the example folder there are 5 sample images along with a historical weather log from a weather station near the location where the photos were taken. Open a Command Prompt within the example folder. Running WeatherTag.exe within the folder will match the closest weather measurement contained. Running WeatherTag.exe -write will match the weather measurements as well as write the information back to the photo image files. A copy of the original image file will be made with the *.jpg_original extension. If you wish to delete the original image files and keep the modified files you can delete them by using the *del .jpg_original command.

Download WeatherTag.exe

You can download WeatherTag.exe from the project's GitHub Release page - https://github.com/josemoliver/WeatherTag/releases

Build WeatherTag.exe

1. Open the WeatherTag.sln file in Visual Studio 2017.
2. WeatherTag uses Newtonsoft.JSON Nuget Package which should be downloaded using the Nuget Package Manager.
3. Build Solution
4. The WeatherTag.exe file should be deposited in the bin folder.

Reading Ambient Temperature, Humidity and Pressure EXIF values

Once the Ambient Temperature, Humidity and Pressure values are written to the jpg image files these can be read with any application or utility which supports reading these tags. Given that the EXIF 2.31 is relatively new, these are few.

Here are two options:

Exiftool

Exiftool can read these values using the appropiate command line tags. For example, this command will list these values for all jpgs files contained in the current directory:

exiftool *.jpg -AmbientTemperature -Humidity -Pressure

(Reference: Exiftool EXIF tags - https://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/TagNames/EXIF.html)

Geosetter

Geosetter (https://www.geosetter.de/en/main-en/) is a Windows freeware application which can read the EXIF 2.31 file metadata.