How to access camera Yaw/Pitch/Roll angles for DJI Matrice 4E images?

[F1y2Surv3y]

Hi everyone,

I’m currently working on a project using a DJI Matrice 4E, and I urgently need access to the Yaw, Pitch, and Roll angles of the camera at the moment each image is captured.

From what I’ve found so far, it seems that these orientation angles should be available in the EXIF metadata of the images — but despite trying several different tools and libraries to read the EXIF data, I can’t find any fields that correspond to camera rotation (no yaw, pitch, roll, or anything similar).

Documentation on this topic seems to be very limited. So far, I’ve located what appear to be the RTK camera positions in the .MRK file, which seems to be index-linked to the images. However, it’s unclear to me whether these coordinates represent the drone’s position or the actual camera position (i.e., whether an offset needs to be applied). That part is secondary for now — my main issue is that without the camera orientation (yaw/pitch/roll), I can’t proceed with my workflow.

Has anyone successfully extracted the camera orientation angles for the Matrice 4E?
If so, could you please explain where exactly they can be found (EXIF tags, MRK file, or elsewhere) or how to compute/derive them from the available data?

Any pointers, documentation, or example scripts would be incredibly helpful.

Thanks a lot in advance!
Emilie

 

[jaja6009]

Download and install Pix4Dmapper.
You can use it for free in Discovery mode, but will not be able to do full processing.

After you import images into Pix4D, you get camera IMU data.


From here choose To File to export to an Excel sheet.

 

[F1y2Surv3y]

Thanks a lot for your help! That actually worked — I was able to extract the camera IMU data via Pix4Dmapper, just as you described. This definitely allows me to continue working for now.


However, for the purposes of my project, I’m trying to set up a workflow that doesn’t rely on additional software steps in between. Ideally, I’d like to access the camera position and orientation data directly from the Matrice 4E files (e.g., image EXIF, MRK, or any other telemetry logs).

So if anyone happens to know a way to retrieve those orientation angles straight from the drone’s data or via a scriptable method, I’d be very grateful to hear about it.

 

[jaja6009]

Thanks a lot for your help! That actually worked — I was able to extract the camera IMU data via Pix4Dmapper, just as you described. This definitely allows me to continue working for now.


However, for the purposes of my project, I’m trying to set up a workflow that doesn’t rely on additional software steps in between. Ideally, I’d like to access the camera position and orientation data directly from the Matrice 4E files (e.g., image EXIF, MRK, or any other telemetry logs).

So if anyone happens to know a way to retrieve those orientation angles straight from the drone’s data or via a scriptable method, I’d be very grateful to hear about it.

This link may help: How to Extract Image Metadata in Python - The Python Code

Also I would look and ask around Github. I am sure someone has done this before.

 

[seahawk]

In Irfan View they are in the XMP section of the IPTC info, not in EXIF info!

Exiftool reads them as well:
About : DJI Meta Data
Format : image/jpeg
Image Source : WideCamera
Gps Status : RTK
Altitude Type : RtkAlt
Absolute Altitude : +929.365
Relative Altitude : +69.269
Gimbal Roll Degree : +0.00
Gimbal Yaw Degree : +63.20
Gimbal Pitch Degree : -115.00
Flight Roll Degree : -6.50
Flight Yaw Degree : +19.20
Flight Pitch Degree : -20.20
Flight X Speed : 10.3
Flight Y Speed : 3.6
Flight Z Speed : -0.8
Cam Reverse : 0
Gimbal Reverse : 0
Sensor Temperature : 31.0
Product Name : DJI Matrice 4E

 

[F1y2Surv3y]

That’s great — I actually just discovered the same thing and was about to post an update here!

You can even see that XMP metadata block as readable text when opening the JPGs in a text editor like Notepad++. The data can also be accessed using Pillow in Python.

It seems there are actually two sets of orientation values — one for the drone itself and one for the gimbal rotation relative to the drone, which needs to be combined afterwards. That finally gives me the full orientation information I was looking for.

Interestingly, the XMP data also includes a laser range finder distance value for each image, even though (as far as I remember) the laser range display wasn’t enabled during my flight. That might turn out to be quite useful as well.

Thanks a lot for taking the time to look into this and share your knowledge —I really appreciate the help!