How to extract GPS location from HEIC files?

Question

I use the following code to extract GPS location both from JPG and HEIC files:

#coding=utf-8
from PIL import Image
from urllib.request import urlopen
from PIL.ExifTags import TAGS
from PIL.ExifTags import GPSTAGS

from pillow_heif import register_heif_opener

def get_exif(filename):
    image = Image.open(filename)
    image.verify()
    return image._getexif()

def get_geotagging(exif):
    if not exif:
        raise ValueError("No EXIF metadata found")

    geotagging = {}
    for (idx, tag) in TAGS.items():
        if tag == 'GPSInfo':
            if idx not in exif:
                raise ValueError("No EXIF geotagging found")

            for (key, val) in GPSTAGS.items():
                if key in exif[idx]:
                    geotagging[val] = exif[idx][key]

    return geotagging

register_heif_opener()

my_image='IMG_9610.HEIC'
#my_image='IMG_20210116_215317.jpg'

exif = get_exif(my_image)
labeled = get_geotagging(exif)
print(labeled)

This code works well with JPEG files, but returns the following error with HEIC:

AttributeError: _getexif

If I add the following function

def get_labeled_exif(exif):
    labeled = {}
    for (key, val) in exif.items():
        labeled[TAGS.get(key)] = val

    return labeled

and replace '_getexif()' with 'getexif()' then it works for both files, but the data is encrypted there - 'GPSInfo': 1234 and get_geotagging() doesn't work for such exif.

How could I fix it?

Answer 1

UPDATED POST 06-12-2022

The code below is able to extract the GEO tagging information from a HEIC image file on my system.

from PIL import Image
from pillow_heif import register_heif_opener


def get_exif(filename):
    image = Image.open(filename)
    image.verify()
    return image.getexif().get_ifd(0x8825)


def get_geotagging(exif):
    geo_tagging_info = {}
    if not exif:
        raise ValueError("No EXIF metadata found")
    else:
        gps_keys = ['GPSVersionID', 'GPSLatitudeRef', 'GPSLatitude', 'GPSLongitudeRef', 'GPSLongitude',
                    'GPSAltitudeRef', 'GPSAltitude', 'GPSTimeStamp', 'GPSSatellites', 'GPSStatus', 'GPSMeasureMode',
                    'GPSDOP', 'GPSSpeedRef', 'GPSSpeed', 'GPSTrackRef', 'GPSTrack', 'GPSImgDirectionRef',
                    'GPSImgDirection', 'GPSMapDatum', 'GPSDestLatitudeRef', 'GPSDestLatitude', 'GPSDestLongitudeRef',
                    'GPSDestLongitude', 'GPSDestBearingRef', 'GPSDestBearing', 'GPSDestDistanceRef', 'GPSDestDistance',
                    'GPSProcessingMethod', 'GPSAreaInformation', 'GPSDateStamp', 'GPSDifferential']

        for k, v in exif.items():
            try:
                geo_tagging_info[gps_keys[k]] = str(v)
            except IndexError:
                pass
        return geo_tagging_info


register_heif_opener()

my_image = 'IMG_8362.heic'
image_info = get_exif(my_image)
results = get_geotagging(image_info)
print(results)
# x used to mask data
{'GPSLatitudeRef': 'N', 
'GPSLatitude': '(3x.0, 5x.0, 1x.0x)', 
'GPSLongitudeRef': 'W', 
'GPSLongitude': '(8x.0, 2x.0, 5x.2x)', 
'GPSAltitudeRef': "b'\\x00'", 
'GPSAltitude': '279.63243243243244', 
'GPSSpeedRef': 'K', 
'GPSSpeed': '0.04649941997239198', 
'GPSImgDirectionRef': 'T', 
'GPSImgDirection': '274.37165833514456', 
'GPSDestBearingRef': 'T', 
'GPSDestBearing': '27x.37165833514456', 
'GPSDateStamp': '2022:06:12'}

----------------------------------------
My system information
----------------------------------------
Platform:     Apple
OS Version:   macOS Catalina 10.15.7
Python: 3.9
Pillow: 9.1.1
pillow_heif: 0.3.0
----------------------------------------

ORIGINAL POST 06-11-2022

The short answer is that Pillow does not currently support the High Efficiency Image Format (HEIF) file format.

Reference:

• 2017: Feature Request: Support HEIC
• 2017: Support for HEIF
• 2020: HEIF plugin

One of the workarounds for this issue is pyheif. This Python package has the functionality to covert a HEIC image to a JPEG one. After this transformation Pillow will be able to read the data from the image.

Another workaround for this format reading problem is piexif. Here is an answer that I posted on converting a TIFF file to a JPEG one for reading with Pillow.

You could also use ExifTool, which reads HEIC files out of the box. Using it is slightly more complicated, because it requires using subprocess.