Any advise for exiftools in Windows 10?

[Bryn Evans]

Hello all!

I am very excited to try out camtrapR with some new Bushnell data I'll be collecting, but have not been able to even start due to

Error: object 'ExifTool' not found

I thought I had followed the instructions, I tried both the stand alone and installed Perl. Has anyone else had success with Windows 10? Or would be willing to copy/paste some example code lines, in case that is my error.

Thanks very much,

Bryn

[Hugo C. M. Costa]

Hi Bryn,

You should first download the exiftool http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/

Than keep it in the directory your images are “C: …\Documents\Data\All images”

Then, in your code specify the directory the exiftool is using the exiftoolPath

exiftool_dir<-"C: ...Documents\Data\All images\EXIFTool"

exiftoolPath(exiftoolDir = exiftool_dir)

Bests

[Juergen Niedballa]

Hi Bryn,
Normally, there should be no problems with Exiftool under Windows 10. Have you seen the section on Exiftool in the package vignette (see here)?. You should download and install the Stand-alone installer (instruction can be found here).

If your problem persists, please share the code you ran. Knowing which function caused the error will help find the problem quickly.

I'd like to add one thing to what Hugo said. It would be easier if you put exiftool.exe into a system directory (one of the directories contained in your PATH variable, e.g. C:/Windows). Windows (through R) will then be able to find Exiftool by default without the need to run these 2 lines in every R session.
And here's a second point: if you create an Exiftool directory in your image directory, don't put it into a directory next to your station directories (e.g. myStudy/renamed_images/Exiftool), but give it a directory of its own (e.g. .../myStudy/Exiftool). camtrapR would then assume that "Exiftool" is one of your stations.

Another potential problem is the Windows default of hiding known file extensions. In renaming Exiftool, one can inadvertedly rename exiftool.exe to exiftool.exe.exe (because the second .exe is hidden). It can be changed in the Windows folder options. See here for instructions.

Best,
Jürgen

[Bryn Evans]

Thank you both! I think the directory I had it in was causing problems, I prefer to have file extensions showing (helps differentiate excel/csv which can also cause problems loading things into R!)

I'm excited to explore the package more, appreciate the prompt assistance