Hi to everyone! I'm writing because i wonder if it's possible to enable the Gimbal data on the picture's EXIF. I'm an engineer specialized in photogrammetry (specially with pix4d). I have a PH4PRO i use for surveying, now i bought the Mini2 due to strict regulations in cities for surveying single buildings.

With the PH4PRO i have all the exif data i need for photogrammetry, so photo position and orientation (all 3 axis). With this mini2 the positioning are quite precise, but i have no data about the gimbal orientation, data i suppose the aircraft has due to compass and pitch angle of the gimbal.

Is it possible to enable it? I need it for the first photogrammetry analysis without using GCP, for a clear first calibration of the images.

Here's the first part of a picture exif, where you can see the data about the gimbal where is shown 0,0,0. It gives me the aircraft orientation but not the gimbal.

XMP

Date Created	2020:12:01 08:09:12 2 hours, 58 minutes, 48 seconds in the future
XMP Toolkit	Adobe XMP Core 5.6-c140 79.160451, 2017/05/06-01:08:21
About	DJI Meta Data
Modify Date	2020:12:01 08:20:45+01:00 5 hours, 49 minutes, 39 seconds ago
Creator Tool	Adobe Photoshop Camera Raw 11.4.1 (Windows)
Metadata Date	2020:12:01 08:20:45+01:00 5 hours, 49 minutes, 39 seconds ago
Format	image/jpeg
Absolute Altitude	+195.09
Relative Altitude	+25.70
Gimbal Roll Degree	+0.00
Gimbal Yaw Degree	+0.00
Gimbal Pitch Degree	+0.00
Flight Roll Degree	+2.90
Flight Yaw Degree	+100.80
Flight Pitch Degree	+2.10
Cam Reverse	0
Gimbal Reverse	0
Lens	20.7 mm
Approximate Focus Distance	0
Distortion Correction Already Applied	True
Lateral Chromatic Aberration Correction Already Applied	True
Vignette Correction Already Applied	True
Document ID	xmp.did:7d88a275-5f2e-2840-a4d0-f41a55565f66
Original Document ID	E10AC4019186EFAB6291EF4CECE53906
Instance ID	xmp.iid:7d88a275-5f2e-2840-a4d0-f41a55565f66
Raw File Name	DJI_0024.DNG
Version	11.4.1
Process Version	11.0

I've noticed this as well. It is interesting that Mini 1 has these value in a Exif metadata. Lets hope this bug will be fixed by firmware update... eventually

ok, the thing that mini1 has these infos let me hope they'll fix as you said in a future update... please do it! you'll make my workflow a lot easier.

Any word from DJI about this issue?  I assume nothing has been done in the two months since this issue was first posted.

cad614 Posted at 2-8 18:43
Any word from DJI about this issue?  I assume nothing has been done in the two months since this issue was first posted.

Still nothing... my workflow is a little harder in calibrating the images while processing survey with pix4d...

Panph Posted at 2-8 22:52
Still nothing...  my workflow is a little harder in calibrating the images while processing survey with pix4d...

Have you contacted DJI directly?
Posting it here, it goes nowhere.

This was the reply I was sent.  It sounds like this is intentional by DJI.  

I may be returning this drone and looking into options from someone besides DJI.




Dear Customer,

Thank you for contacting DJI Technical Support.
Our engineer team have checked your issue ,the result of the issue is  that  is normally ,it is from our design .
It is normalyl that the gimbal angle is 0 in EXIF attribute of single photo taken by DJI Mini 2. The gimbal angle parameters of single shot are all 0, and the panoramic photos include the gimbal angle, which is used for synthesis.
Please take it easy ,Have a great fly experience !

Best Regards,

Fraser,

DJI Technical Support Website: http://www.dji.com/support

Youtube: http://s.dji.com/DJI-Tutorials

cad614 Posted at 2-12 12:20
This was the reply I was sent.  It sounds like this is intentional by DJI.  

I may be returning this drone and looking into options from someone besides DJI.

I may be returning this drone and looking into options from someone besides DJI.
Most DJI drones do exactly what you want.
Just because the smallest, most basic DJI drone doesn't have a feature you want isn't necessarily cause to look at other brands.

The mini has these values in metadata ....Perhaps in the future a firmware update could give the mini 2 these

Labroides Posted at 2-12 15:01
Just because the smallest, most basic DJI drone doesn't have a feature you want isn't necessarily cause to look at other brands.

OP said "now i bought the Mini2 due to strict regulations in cities for surveying single buildings." so I assume that being below the weight limits is important too an OP wants a tiny drone that saves this data.

I've been looking for this too...  My Air 2 didn't have it either but I've found it under "MakerNotes".  If you are still trying to find this and you want me to confirm, send me an image from your Mini 2 and I'll see if it's there.   Basically, this is what I've found in there:  [GimbalDegree(Y,P,R):1152,-900,0][FlightDegree(Y,P,R):1571,13,-18] (and more)

djiuser_k4e5h3FBParw Posted at 2022-11-2 08:45
I've been looking for this too...  My Air 2 didn't have it either but I've found it under "MakerNotes".  If you are still trying to find this and you want me to confirm, send me an image from your Mini 2 and I'll see if it's there.   Basically, this is what I've found in there:  [GimbalDegree(Y,P,R):1152,-900,0][FlightDegree(Y,P,R):1571,13,-18] (and more)

Can you share how you retrieved the data from MakerNotes please? Did you use Pillow or OpenCV or something to get it. Thanks

djiuser_OR8EW5uz3gSA Posted at 5-3 14:50
Can you share how you retrieved the data from MakerNotes please? Did you use Pillow or OpenCV or something to get it. Thanks

You should be able to see the gimbal data in any good image metadata viewer.

Labroides Posted at 5-3 15:02
You should be able to see the gimbal data in any good image metadata viewer.

I can see the gimbal data but it's all zeros as the Mini 2 does not have the correct values in GimbalPitchDegree, GimbalRollDegree, or GimbalYawDegree.

I'm trying to get the data from the maker notes instead as indicated by a previous post. I was able to view the maker notes using the excellent exiftool command line tool, however it is in binary so without decoding it I do not know what is in there.

"drone-dji:GimbalPitchDegree": "+0.00",
"drone-dji:GimbalRollDegree": "+0.00",
"drone-dji:GimbalYawDegree": "+0.00",

djiuser_OR8EW5uz3gSA Posted at 5-3 18:36
I can see the gimbal data but it's all zeros as the Mini 2 does not have the correct values in GimbalPitchDegree, GimbalRollDegree, or GimbalYawDegree.

I'm trying to get the data from the maker notes instead as indicated by a previous post. I was able to view the maker notes using the excellent exiftool command line tool, however it is in binary so without decoding it I do not know what is in there.

Upload an original jpg from the drone to Google Drive or similar and post a link here.
I'll see if the metadata viewer I use shows anything different.

Labroides Posted at 5-3 19:38
Upload an original jpg from the drone to Google Drive or similar and post a link here.
I'll see if the metadata viewer I use shows anything different.

Thank you for the reply! Sorry only just saw your reply as I am revisiting trying to solve this issue. I was able to get some more of the metadata in MakerNotes using the following exiftool command:

exiftool -MakerNotes:All Image.jpg

Make                            : DJI
Speed X                        : +0.00
Speed Y                        : +0.00
Speed Z                        : +0.00
Pitch                             : -0.30
Yaw                              : -90.00
Roll                               : -0.50

However the CameraPitch, CameraYaw and CameraRoll values appear to be missing. Are there any other parts of the metadata where this data could be hidden?

https://exiftool.org/TagNames/DJI.html

I'm going off of this Tag spec that is for the Phantom drones on exiftool. I'm going to try running more commands and see if I can get more metadata

djiuser_OR8EW5uz3gSA Posted at 5-29 14:19
https://exiftool.org/TagNames/DJI.html

I'm going off of this Tag spec that is for the Phantom drones on exiftool. I'm going to try running more commands and see if I can get more metadata

I found a command to extract absolutely all metadata from a file

exiftool -ee3 -U -G3:1 -api requestall=3 -api largefilesupport FILE

However still no useful gimbal / camera attitude data that I can see. Just a bunch of unknown maker note tags

[DJI]           Make                            : DJI
[DJI]           DJI 0x0002                      : 1 8 0 0
[DJI]           Speed X                         : +0.00
[DJI]           Speed Y                         : +0.00
[DJI]           Speed Z                         : +0.00
[DJI]           Pitch                           : -1.60
[DJI]           Yaw                             : +179.90
[DJI]           Roll                            : +0.60
[DJI]           DJI 0x000c                      : 9.18397000533842e-41 0
[DJI]           DJI 0x000d                      : 2751987712 65539 0 2752053248
[DJI]           DJI 0x000e                      : 0
[DJI]           DJI 0x000f                      : 0
[DJI]           DJI 0x0010                      : 1000
[DJI]           DJI 0x0011                      : 0
[DJI]           DJI 0x0012                      : 0
[DJI]           DJI 0x0013                      : 65539 0 -1542848512 65539 0
[DJI]           DJI 0x0014                      : 2752249856 65539 0
[DJI]           DJI 0x0017                      : 1
[DJI]           DJI 0x0019                      : 0
[DJI]           DJI 0x001a                      : 0
[DJI]           DJI 0x001b                      : 0
[DJI]           DJI 0x001c                      : 142
[DJI]           DJI 0x001d                      : 139
[DJI]           DJI 0x001e                      : 13.2348175048828
[DJI]           DJI 0x001f                      : 0
[DJI]           DJI 0x0020                      : 0
[DJI]           DJI 0x0021                      : 0
[DJI]           DJI 0x0022                      : 0
[DJI]           DJI 0x0023                      : 0
[DJI]           DJI 0x0028                      : 142 142
[DJI]           DJI 0x0029                      : 2754674688 3145730 1191641088 0 131072 131073 4 3684690[...]
[DJI]           DJI 0x0024                      : 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0[...]
[DJI]           DJI 0x002a                      : 7044
[DJI]           DJI 0x002b                      : 142
[DJI]           DJI 0x002c                      : 139
[DJI]           DJI 0x002d                      : 3121016580 3557302021 3741869064 2013789704 2819113224 [...]
[DJI]           DJI 0x002e                      : 0
[DJI]           DJI 0x002f                      : 4211514119 1997158664 2332431622 1409707270 1745234438 [...]
[DJI]           DJI 0x0030                      : 1.03302502632141
[DJI]           DJI 0x0031                      : 4096
[DJI]           DJI 0x0032                      : 0.0007999999797903
[DJI]           DJI 0x0033                      : 1
[DJI]           DJI 0x0034                      : 4575
[DJI]           DJI 0x0035                      : 0.000717210001312196
[DJI]           DJI 0x0036                      : 0 0 0 -1.70141183460469e+38
[DJI]           DJI 0x0037                      : NaN 0 0 0
[DJI]           DJI 0x0038                      : 128

I don't know if you are aware but gimbal data is available in the flight log, columns BD to BG, column titles GIMBAL.pitch        GIMBAL.roll        GIMBAL.yaw        GIMBAL.yaw [360].
But it would be a rather tedious process to gather it for each and every photo. Firstly you would have to process each log with Phantomehelp's logviewer or Flightreader, I don't know if any other log decoder provides similar data, then 'scan' the output csv and identify where in the log's csv each photo was being taken. I believe entries in column BL,  CAMERA.isPhoto, switch from FALSE to TRUE but it would be a bit of work to automate it and that's not tied to a specific photo name.

djiuser_OR8EW5uz3gSA Posted at 5-29 15:12
I found a command to extract absolutely all metadata from a file

exiftool -ee3 -U -G3:1 -api requestall=3 -api largefilesupport FILE

Isn't the 179.90 a bearing? If so compare a few readings to the flight log and determine whether or not the yaw, roll and pich data relate to the gimbal or the drone.

djiuser_OR8EW5uz3gSA Posted at 5-29 14:16
Thank you for the reply! Sorry only just saw your reply as I am revisiting trying to solve this issue. I was able to get some more of the metadata in MakerNotes using the following exiftool command:

exiftool -MakerNotes:All Image.jpg

Upload an original jpg from the drone to Google Drive or similar and post a link here.
I'll see if the metadata viewer I use shows anything different.

Sean-bumble-bee Posted at 5-29 15:32
Isn't the 179.90 a bearing? If so compare a few readings to the flight log and determine whether or not the yaw, roll and pich data relate to the gimbal or the drone.

Yes that is the aircraft's yaw rotation. It was pointing south during that photo so 179.90 makes sense. The camera was pointing straight down. I set the pitch angle to -90 during this photo so I expected to see something around -90 in the metadata but I couldn't find anything

Sean-bumble-bee Posted at 5-29 15:23
I don't know if you are aware but gimbal data is available in the flight log, columns BD to BG, column titles GIMBAL.pitch        GIMBAL.roll        GIMBAL.yaw        GIMBAL.yaw [360].
But it would be a rather tedious process to gather it for each and every photo. Firstly you would have to process each log with Phantomehelp's logviewer or Flightreader, I don't know if any other log decoder provides similar data, then 'scan' the output csv and identify where in the log's csv each photo was being taken. I believe entries in column BL,  CAMERA.isPhoto, switch from FALSE to TRUE but it would be a bit of work to automate it and that's not tied to a specific photo name.

That is very interesting I was not aware! Thank you for the info. Sounds tedious but I am starting to run out of options haha

Labroides Posted at 5-29 15:46
Upload an original jpg from the drone to Google Drive or similar and post a link here.
I'll see if the metadata viewer I use shows anything different.

Thank you! I just uploaded an image to paste board. The camera is pointing straight down in this image. I re-downloaded the image to verify that the metadata was still intact

https://pasteboard.co/s4QhBZg2BLch.jpg

djiuser_OR8EW5uz3gSA Posted at 5-29 15:57
Yes that is the aircraft's yaw rotation. It was pointing south during that photo so 179.90 makes sense. The camera was pointing straight down. I set the pitch angle to -90 during this photo so I expected to see something around -90 in the metadata but I couldn't find anything

Generally, with the Mini 2, the drone's heading and camera's heading should be much the same, the gimbal isn't really designed to allow much yaw realtive to the drone and it's not intended to be user yawable ( compare with the likes of the m2p ).
For yaw, what would you consider to be an unacceptable misaligment?

The above said, there have been a couple of threads over on Mavic Pilots where there has been heading misalignment between the drone and gimbal. The pilots flew their drone forwards based on what they saw on their  phone etc but as the forward flight progressed the ground appeared to be sideslipping.
Also there may well be some misalignment when you are actually yawing the drone, I think the gimbal 'leads' the drone but its rather difficult to spot when looking at the drone.

Sean-bumble-bee Posted at 5-29 16:15
Generally, with the Mini 2, the drone's heading and camera's heading should be much the same, the gimbal isn't really designed to allow much yaw realtive to the drone and it's not intended to be user yawable ( compare with the likes of the m2p ).
For yaw, what would you consider to be an unacceptable misaligment?

Thanks, although I should clarify I'm not interested in the gimbal's yaw value, just the pitch. I have a virtual stick flight that runs a custom panorama so its just the camera's pitch that I need to get from the metadata for processing

djiuser_OR8EW5uz3gSA Posted at 5-3 18:36
I can see the gimbal data but it's all zeros as the Mini 2 does not have the correct values in GimbalPitchDegree, GimbalRollDegree, or GimbalYawDegree.

I'm trying to get the data from the maker notes instead as indicated by a previous post. I was able to view the maker notes using the excellent exiftool command line tool, however it is in binary so without decoding it I do not know what is in there.

Here's what a good image metadata viewer shows for that image.
The gimbal data is in the XMP section that simple metadata viewers don't show.
If you can post an image that's not loooking straight down it would be interesting to compare.

Labroides Posted at 5-29 22:58
Here's what a good image metadata viewer shows for that image.
The gimbal data is in the XMP section that simple metadata viewers don't show.
If you can post an image that's not loooking straight down it would be interesting to compare.

Thanks! Thats much better than the metadata viewers I've come across. Here are two more images

This one should be around -60
https://pasteboard.co/obZ7RCRoQ94T.jpg

and this one around -30
https://pasteboard.co/9qFcdDSj4TAh.jpg

djiuser_OR8EW5uz3gSA Posted at 6-1 06:48
Thanks! Thats much better than the metadata viewers I've come across. Here are two more images

This one should be around -60

Both of those show zeros in those fields like this.

Yes, same here. The only place it will show  (M2 and M3 that I know of)  the dngs taken in panoramas (as in post#8). I can't think of a reason why these exif/xmp fields are not filled in except that DJI didn't think anybody would need them? but I can find a few uses for them...and it's anyways odd, considering the drone yaw is there.

I noticed this problem, and i discovered that the Video files actually have all the required metadata, just not the pictures. That's weird! Definitely a software oversight.

I have the same frustration. I have a Mini 2, a Mini 3, and a Mini 3 Pro. Only Mini 3 Pro writes the gimbal attitudes into the photo metadata and the flight record. Having these angles is very important for the things (geo-mapping) that I work on. Has anyone tested it with Mini 4 Pro? I am considering getting one, but also worry that it has the same issue.