Metadata

This page describes the formats and types of metadata that naturtag generates.

Metadata formats

Note

By default, naturtag writes to all of the formats described below. If needed, you can change this behavior in Settings.

Embedded formats

Naturtag supports the following metadata formats (embedded in the original image file):

• EXIF

• IPTC

• XMP

Each of these formats have different capabilities, and different tools that are compatible with them. Depending on which applications or websites you use for viewing/managing/hosting photos, you may want to enable some of these formats but not others.

Warning

After using naturtag, you can manually edit your image metadata using any other tool, but it’s not recommended to use multiple tools to edit metadata for the same file, if it contains multiple metadata formats.

For example, some tools may use EXIF only, while others may use a combination of EXIF and XMP.

Sidecar files

A sidecar file can be saved alongside a photo that contains all XMP metadata. This has the advantage of non-desctructive edits (not needing to modify the original image file), and also lets you associate the metadata with a RAW image file.

The sidecar will have the same filename as the image, but with a .xmp extension. For example:

2022_01_01_02_52_13_polistes_rubiginosus.jpg
2022_01_01_02_52_13_polistes_rubiginosus.raw
2022_01_01_02_52_13_polistes_rubiginosus.xmp

Note

Many (but not all) photo viewers and managers support sidecar files. If you want to use only sidecar files, first check whether your other tools support them.

Metadata types

Naturtag generates the following types of metadata:

Basic Keywords

These are basic keywords for both scientific and common names.

For example:

Animalia
Arthropoda
Arachnida
...
Animals
Arthropods
Spiders
...

Structured Keywords

These are keywords will in the format: taxonomy:{rank}={name}

For example:

taxonomy:kingdom=Animalia
taxonomy:phylum=Arthropoda
taxonomy:subphylum=Hexapoda
taxonomy:class=Insecta
taxonomy:subclass=Pterygota
taxonomy:order=Hymenoptera
taxonomy:suborder=Apocrita
taxonomy:infraorder=Aculeata
taxonomy:superfamily=Vespoidea
taxonomy:family=Vespidae
taxonomy:subfamily=Polistinae
taxonomy:tribe=Polistini
taxonomy:genus=Polistes
taxonomy:subgenus=Fuscopolistes
taxonomy:species=Polistes rubiginosus

Hierarchical Keywords

Hierarchical keywords are interpreted as a tree structure by tools that support them.

For example, the following keywords:

Animalia
Animalia|Arthropoda
Animalia|Arthropoda|Chelicerata
Animalia|Arthropoda|Hexapoda

Will translate into a tree structure that looks like:

Animalia
    ┗━Arthropoda
        ┣━Chelicerata
        ┗━Hexapoda

Darwin Core

Darwin Core (DwC) is an exchange format commonly used to transfer observation data between different biodiversity systems (like GBIF).

There is also an XMP namespace which enables this information to be stored in image metadata. Naturtag can use this to save all relevant information about an iNaturalist observation, in addition to taxonomy.

Note

See the .xmp files in the demo_images folder for some examples.