Have a reference to an image only having its NSURL. How to get a GPS metadata from it? Of course, I can load a UIImage from NSURL, but then what?
Majority of answers I've found here is regarding UIImagePicker, and using ALAssets then, but I have no such option.
Answering my own question. The memory-effective and fast way to get a GPS metadata is
let options = [kCGImageSourceShouldCache as String: kCFBooleanFalse] if let data = NSData(contentsOfURL: url), imgSrc = CGImageSourceCreateWithData(data, options) { let metadata = CGImageSourceCopyPropertiesAtIndex(imgSrc, 0, options) as Dictionary let gpsData = metadata[kCGImagePropertyGPSDictionary] as? [String : AnyObject] }
The second option is
if let img = CIImage(contentsOfURL: url), metadata = img.properties(), gpsData = metadata[kCGImagePropertyGPSDictionary] as? [String : AnyObject] { … }
it looks nicer in Swift but uses more memory (tested via Profiler).
Updated version for Swift 3:
let options = [kCGImageSourceShouldCache as String: kCFBooleanFalse] if let data = NSData(contentsOfURL: url), let imgSrc = CGImageSourceCreateWithData(data, options as CFDictionary) { let metadata = CGImageSourceCopyPropertiesAtIndex(imgSrc, 0, options as CFDictionary) as? [String : AnyObject] if let gpsData = metadata?[kCGImagePropertyGPSDictionary as String] { //do interesting stuff here } }