Questions regarding Image Nodes, EXIF Data, and automatically creating nodes from Image uploads

jabroni - March 16, 2009 - 03:15

Hello everyone. I've been searching all through the Drupal docs, modules, and Google and can't seem to find out what to do:

I'm looking to use CCK, Imagecache, Imagefield, and Views for my site's Images/Galleries, including user-submitted pictures AND blog/page posting pictures.

First, I want to be able to upload the images into a Gallery, but I'm curious as to whether I can do the following, and what modules could be used for it:

1.) The EXIF data for the File Name be translated into the Image Node Title AND Alt-tag and the Caption be translated into the Image node's Body/Description automatically, so I don't have to retype my Titles, Alt-tags and Description (I use Picasa to give my images great descriptions and I use friendly descriptive file names as well).
Flickr does this as a perfect example of what I'm looking to do.

2.) The EXIF data for tags be translated into Taxonomy terms for a "Tag" vocabulary.

Secondly, I want to be able to upload images to the server easily for use with my blog/page posts. I currently use IMCE, however when I upload pictures that way, Image Nodes are NOT created, the file is just uploaded to the server and referenced. I want the SEO benefits of Image Nodes using the relevant Title and Descriptions (my two questions above). So that brings me to my third question:

3.) Is there a module that will automatically generate Image Nodes for files you upload using IMCE or an equilvalent. That way, I can easily add my images while creating a post, and behind the scenes, Drupal creates an Image Node for me.

One example site I'm looking to mimic and build on is here: http://vuphotographie.com/
He currently uses an EXIF module ("EXIF") for his purposes, but I'm not sure if he is doing the same thing I want to do.

Thank you for all your help.

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I've done this for #1 If the

dman - March 16, 2009 - 04:00

I've done this for #1
If the EXIF data is of a very semantic form, it CAN work for #2 also, but needs test on actual images that have actual metadata.
#3 is a fantastic idea, but there is no infrastructure to support it yet. All simple file uploads are simple. I think images are important data. Most WYSIWYG tools to not.

Here's the thread.
http://drupal.org/node/256195
And I dropped the code into a sandbox for inspection if you want it.
http://drupal.org/node/256195#comment-1360430

You JUST need the pjmt.module part - and the rest of the PHP JPEG Metadata Toolkit package that actually parses EXIF for us.

.dan.

Thanks

jabroni - March 16, 2009 - 04:37

Hey dman, thanks for the reply. I did find that thread. That stuff is way out of my league though. I do appreciate the effort though.
The EXIF module seems to be what I'm looking for, but I had some errors when I tried the dev version of the module. I'll most likely just keep trying out different modules, hopefully there's something that isn't too far from CCK/Imagecache.

I don't want to spend too much time re-inventing the wheel either. Hopefully there's something available to get me started.

Some info

David Lesieur - March 16, 2009 - 14:53

Btw, although I have created both the Exif module and the site you are mentioning, the site does not actually use Exif data because I have not found the time yet to advance the Exif module enough to achieve tasks such as #1 and #2.

rapsli has rewrote the module for Drupal 6 to achieve something close to that, but at this point that still needs work.

Ah, ok, that clears it up

jabroni - March 16, 2009 - 22:00

Ah, ok, that clears it up perfectly, Thanks David.

So then in regards to your site. It looks like you used CCK/Imagefield and Views. When you upload photos, you are just inputting your own title/body. The main page is just a view that of the imagecache images, and when you click on the image it takes you the node?

If that's the way you did it, I may try and give that a go.

The EXIF data would be great to avoid A TON of the time, however if that's not possible I'll just go ahead and work with what's available.

Thanks for your help!

CCK+Imagefield+Views

David Lesieur - March 16, 2009 - 23:25

Yes, all the data is entered directly in Drupal. Initially most photos were scans and did not have metadata, so that did not matter much, but nowadays I also wish that the Exif support was more advanced.

The site is built with CCK, Imagecache, Views, and a few other modules, listed here.