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Finding photos associated with a tracklog

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gYab61zH

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Aug 12, 2011
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Germany
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LR Classic 10.2
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  1. macOS 10.15 Catalina
Perhaps a silly question, but is it possible to filter all the photos associated with a particular tracklog in LR? If not, does anyone know of a plugin that can do that?. I do know about and use JF's proximity search, but that is not the same.

Elaboration: I record all my walks using a gps tracker so I later know exactly where I have made which photos. This works like a dream in LR, and I can also see which images are associated with a particular hike by calling up the tracklog of this hike and zooming in on it. LR will then show all images made in that area, and can even show all photos made on a track ("Select Photos on Tracklog") but this last option shows all photos ever made on a specific track. What I am interested in is to see the photographs I made during a specific walk at a specific time (i.e. associated with one tracklog only; I often do the same walk).
 
I'd never tried finding pictures for a particular track log after the fact but found the following worked:
  1. Select All Photographs
  2. Go to the Map module
  3. Load the track log of interest. Mine are all prefixed with the date e.g. "2020-07-01 Walkers Buldings.gpx"
  4. This brings up the photos that were tagged by this track log.
  5. You can select photo sets by clicking on their icon on the map
  6. There is an option of 'Select Photos on Tracklog' but seems to pull more than it should into the film strip. This seems to be what you were looking for in "filter all the photos associated with a particular tracklog in LR" so ...
    • I was able to select all the images by repeatedly clicking on each tag icon in the map while holding down the control key.
    • Once I had all the images selected, I created a new collection including the selected images.
Hope this helps
 
Thanks for taking the trouble, but I had already tried this. Where it goes wrong is in step 4. It does NOT bring up "the photos that were tagged by this track log." It brings up all the photos ever taken in this area (whether on the track log or not). Clicking the icon is also not very practical if you have icons with 279 photos associated with them (it is a hike I do very regularly, like several times a week ... for years).
 
It brings up all the photos ever taken in this area
Sorry, I missed that and unfortunately don't have multiple track logs on the same track.
What you are describing seems to indicate that the Map module is only looking at the GPS coordinates and not the embedded dates in GPX file.
I'm going to try this sometime since I currently do not have duplicate tracks recorded. I will, so I need to understand this.
I did discover that 'Select Photos on Tracklog' does select those photos in All Photographs. This means you could create a collection the use the Library Filter to find those of a specific date. You likely can't see them in Map would have them selected.
 
Hi Paul,

Yes I think that is exactly what the map module does. I tried something else: a double-act of "Select Photos on Tracklog" and then pick the right date... but that doesn't work because in the map module you cannot choose dates.
 
I thought of that too but that lets you select different tracks in the same log. I made the mistake once of stopping and restarting a GPX and it created 2 logs in the same file. I could select one or the other. Eventually edited the GPX to combine them.
 
made the mistake once of stopping and restarting a GPX and it created 2 logs in the same file. I could select one or the other.
You can tell the Map module to use all the tracks in a GPX file at once:
1615953770214.png
 
I tried something else: a double-act of "Select Photos on Tracklog" and then pick the right date... but that doesn't work because in the map module you cannot choose dates.
In the Library module, go to All Photographs and then use the Library Filter bar's Metadata browser with the Date column to select the dates you want. Then go to the Map module -- only the photos on that date will be displayed in the filmstrip. When you do Map > Tracklog > Select Photos On Tracklog, you'll only get the photos from that date.

Alternatively, use the Any Filter plugin's By Date command to quickly select the date or date range to filter (it's much easier to use than the fussy Date column). You can use the By Date command in any module, including the Map module.
 
I went out and create a second track log on a trail I'd already loaded and found some interesting things out.

The way I understand this now:
  • Map shows the current collection. You may have to zoom out to find pictures.
  • Loading a Tracklog simply zooms to a specific geographic area. It has nothing to do with what is displayed. That's why if your current selection does not involve the geography of the track log, you don't see any photos.
  • Now the interesting part. 'Select Photos on Tracklog' will find the photos, from 'All Photographs', corresponding to the GPS and date from the chosen track log to be selected. This is true even if they are not part of the current collection displayed. They are placed in the current 'selection'.
  • You can then use the selection as you would any other including creating a new Collection in Library to save them, export, print.
If you have more photos on the map, matching the geography, then then when you choose 'Select Photos on Tracklog' the map tags change color for those photos matching the track log GPS and date. The Yellow on the following are the pictures from Sept 20, 2020. The Orange ones from today, March 17, 2021 and/or other dates not matching the track log.

If you 'Select Photos on Tracklog', then now go to Library, create a new Collection and choose use current selection, you will get a collection of your pictures from that track log. That will allow you to "... see the photographs I made during a specific walk at a specific time".

Hope this helps. I'm keeping this handy for my own use.

1616016522021.png
 
"If you 'Select Photos on Tracklog', then now go to Library, create a new Collection and choose use current selection, you will get a collection of your pictures from that track log. That will allow you to "... see the photographs I made during a specific walk at a specific time".

Thanks Paul, that is very helpful. I was stumped what to do with the selection and saw no way to save it. You found a way!
 
f you have more photos on the map, matching the geography, then then when you choose 'Select Photos on Tracklog' the map tags change color for those photos matching the track log GPS and date.
Unfortunately, I observe what gYab61zH did in his original post: Select Photos On Tracklog selects all photos along the tracks in the track log, regardless of whether they fall within the time ranges of the tracks.

Here' an example of a tracklog with a single track dated July 23, 2017, with lots of photos taken on other dates along the track:

Screen Shot 2021-03-18 at 11.22.20 AM.jpg


Doing Select Photos On Tracklog selects 28 photos. I put those 28 into a collection, and only 15 of them were taken on 7/23/2017. The others were taken on later dates:

Screen Shot 2021-03-18 at 11.28.39 AM.png


I verified the time range of the .gpx tracklog in a text editor to see the first and last times:

<time>2017-07-23T15:25:04Z</time>
<time>2017-07-23T23:35:40Z</time>

So unfortunately, to get just those photos encompassed by a tracklog, it appears you must both do Select Photos On Tracklog and filter the photos by the date range of thelog.
 
Doing Select Photos On Tracklog selects 28 photos. I put those 28 into a collection, and only 15 of them were taken on 7/23/2017.
John, I'm not sure what's happening, and because it's you, I started to doubt myself.

I reproduced my findings to make sure of the steps. I've documented in the following PDF. I have 2 track logs from 2020 and 2021 for Coyote Trail. I was able to select the photos only from 2020 and put it into a collection. None of the photos from 2021 were in the selection.

You may have done this, but can you verify the dates of the images that were selected but should not have matched? While the GPS is obviously correct, I'm not sure which date is being used for the selection. In Work with the Map module it says it initially uses the Capture Date. A date issue usis the only thing I can think of. Here's metadata listings from one picture.

Location
1616098457160.png

EXIT/IPTC
1616098581277.png
 

Attachments

  • Find Photos on Single Map Track Log V1.pdf
    942.6 KB · Views: 191
Interesting. Perhaps what's going on in your example is that the photos from 2021 are not actually close enough to the 2020 track to be considered "on the track" by LR. You could test that by importing a copy of one of the 2021 photos and doing Metadata > Edit Capture Time to change its capture date to the same date as one of the 2020 photos. Does that copy get selected by Select Photos On Tracklog?
 
Along the same lines, I did the following experiment: I made a catalog "tracklog" with three photos. You can download the catalog from here:
tracklog.2021.03.22.zip

Inside the catalog is "tracklog.gpx", containing a single track that starts and ends on 7/23/2017.

The photos have dates 7/23/17, 8/1/17, and 3/22/21:

1616476816213.png


Select Photos On Tracklog selects all three photos, even though only one has a capture date of 7/23/17.
 
Thanks @johnrellis. I replicated your findings. When I load the photos, then 'Select Photos on Tracklog', it selected all 3 and held that when I made a collection.

I was confused on what could have been the difference. So I created a new catalog, loaded your photos, loaded the tracklog, selected the photos but when I tried to 'Auto-Tag 3 Selected Photos' it came back with 'No Photos Matching'. I saw these pictures were taken in the time zone of Bozman so I tried a -2 hour time offset from my place here in Toronto with the same result; no match.

When I looked at the Tracklog you provided, through GPX Visualizer (See attached) none of the times on 2017-07-23 seem to include time for DSC01106.ARW. So, while it showed all photos found based on the tracklog GPS readings, I questioned if there was an association lost between the tracklog used to assign GPS and the photos.

1616505497586.png


Also, what your test did not include was using multiple track logs for the same geography as gYab61zH and I were working with. Your test made me realize that I should be able to make a stand-alone test as well. So I created a new catalog but then ran into problems exporting the pictures.

I first selected the track log for Sept'20 (56 pictures) and exported these. They all show for Sept'20. When I double check, the count of 56 matches those of Sept 20,20 under 'All Photographs'.

1616506953834.png


I then cleared all selections, including what was showing on Map, then selected the photos for Mar'21. This time I selected 71 pictures which was not the correct number. I also found I had duplicates on the export. The resulting selection->collection showed a combination of dates but only 17 from Sept'20 instead of the original 56.

1616506926342.png


JohnRellis, what you have showed is a selection issue depending on the order of multiple track logs selected. What it appears is that the behavior seems to suggest 'overlapping' tracks. Those created with my iPhone app looked like a drunkards walk for the two.

There does not appear to be any no association of which track log assigned GPS values to photos. When the Map module selects photos, it must have some tolerance for the lat/long selected based on the tracklog GPS coordinates. In other words 'close'.

So @gYab61zH when @johnrellis suggested selecting photos off the tracklog but then using Library metadata to find those for a specific date, he was corrected. My test just happened to match with the tracklog photo count for Sept/20.

I learned something new.
 

Attachments

  • GPS Visualizer - 20210323053937-75204-data.txt
    102 KB · Views: 169
In a better world, the Select Photos On Tracklog would restrict the selected photos to those that not only are close to the track but also match the track's date time. But we'd see the next ice age before Adobe prioritized that improvement.
 
In a better world, the Select Photos On Tracklog would restrict the selected photos to those that not only are close to the track but also match the track's date time
or at least better documentation and explanations on the workings of Map.
 
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