One of my pet projects over the summer was to scan and categorise my family album, which consists of about 4.5 thousand photos stretching back around 80 years. Having digitised them all I decided to use iPhoto to organise them: the face detection feature was very useful for this purpose. However, having put everything into iPhoto I became a little concerned about how I would get it back out again (in a useful matter) should I need to. After searching around the internet for a bit I couldn’t find any software that would do what I really wanted so I decided to make my own. Below is an excerpt from my app delegate (if you know cocoa it’ll make sense) in case anyone else wants to extract their iPhoto faces data and photos cleanly from their library.
My intention is to copy the folder structure created using this code to my website, convert the sqlite data to mysql, knock up some quick php, and thereby create an interface to my iPhoto library online. It’s unfortunate that Apple has removed the Gallery from iCloud, previously MobileMe, since this would have saved me a lot of hassle and is far more elegant.
Anyway, if it helps anyone here’s some quick code:-
// iPhotoToWebAppDelegate.m
// Created by William Ogilvie on 31/08/2011.
#import <sqlite3.h>
#import "iPhotoToWebAppDelegate.h"
@implementation iPhotoToWebAppDelegate
@synthesize progressIndicator;
@synthesize progressText;
@synthesize window;
- (void)applicationDidFinishLaunching:(NSNotification *)notification {
[progressIndicator startAnimation:self];
[NSThread detachNewThreadSelector:@selector(processLibrary) toTarget:self withObject:nil];
}
- (void)processLibrary {
// create an autorelease pool for this thread
NSAutoreleasePool *pool = [[NSAutoreleasePool alloc] init];
// get the paths we're going to use
NSString *dbPath = [NSHomeDirectory() stringByAppendingPathComponent:@"Desktop/iPhoto.db"];
NSString *iPData = [NSHomeDirectory() stringByAppendingPathComponent:@"Pictures/iPhoto Library/ALbumData.xml"];
// create the database and tables
sqlite3 *dbHandler;
sqlite3_open([dbPath UTF8String], &dbHandler);
sqlite3_exec(dbHandler, "CREATE TABLE events (eventId INTEGER, imageId INTEGER, name TEXT, PRIMARY KEY (eventId, imageId), FOREIGN KEY (imageId) REFERENCES images (imageId) ON DELETE CASCADE)", NULL, NULL, NULL);
sqlite3_exec(dbHandler, "CREATE TABLE faces (faceId INTEGER, name TEXT, PRIMARY KEY (faceId))", NULL, NULL, NULL);
sqlite3_exec(dbHandler, "CREATE TABLE facesInImages (imageId INTEGER, faceId INTEGER, x1 REAL, y1 REAL, x2 REAL, y2 REAL, PRIMARY KEY (imageId, faceId), FOREIGN KEY (imageId) REFERENCES images ON DELETE CASCADE, FOREIGN KEY (faceId) REFERENCES faces ON DELETE CASCADE)", NULL, NULL, NULL);
sqlite3_exec(dbHandler, "CREATE TABLE images (imageId INTEGER, imagePath TEXT, thumbPath TEXT, PRIMARY KEY (imageId))", NULL, NULL, NULL);
// get the plist from the iphoto library
NSDictionary *plistDictionary = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithContentsOfFile:iPData];
// get the list of faces and iterate
NSDictionary *facesDictionary = [plistDictionary objectForKey:@"List of Faces"];
for (NSNumber *key in [facesDictionary allKeys]) {
NSString *name = [[facesDictionary objectForKey:key] objectForKey:@"name"];
NSString *sqlString = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"INSERT INTO faces VALUES (%d, '%@')", [key intValue], name];
sqlite3_exec(dbHandler, [sqlString UTF8String], NULL, NULL, NULL);
}
// get the list of images and iterate
NSDictionary *imagesDictionary = [plistDictionary objectForKey:@"Master Image List"];
for (NSNumber *key in [imagesDictionary allKeys]) {
NSDictionary *image = [imagesDictionary objectForKey:key];
NSString *imagePath = [image objectForKey:@"ImagePath"];
NSString *thumbPath = [image objectForKey:@"ThumbPath"];
NSString *sqlString = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"INSERT INTO images VALUES (%d, '%@', '%@')", [key intValue], imagePath, thumbPath];
sqlite3_exec(dbHandler, [sqlString UTF8String], NULL, NULL, NULL);
// get the list of faces in this image and iterate
NSArray *facesArray = [image objectForKey:@"Faces"];
if (facesArray != nil) {
for (NSDictionary *face in facesArray) {
int faceId = [[face objectForKey:@"face key"] intValue];
NSMutableString *rectangle = [[face objectForKey:@"rectangle"] mutableCopy];
[rectangle replaceOccurrencesOfString:@"{" withString:@"" options:NSLiteralSearch range:NSMakeRange(0, [rectangle length])];
[rectangle replaceOccurrencesOfString:@"}" withString:@"" options:NSLiteralSearch range:NSMakeRange(0, [rectangle length])];
NSArray *tempArray = [rectangle componentsSeparatedByString:@", "];
[rectangle release];
float x1 = [[tempArray objectAtIndex:0] floatValue];
float y1 = [[tempArray objectAtIndex:1] floatValue];
float x2 = [[tempArray objectAtIndex:2] floatValue];
float y2 = [[tempArray objectAtIndex:3] floatValue];
NSString *sqlString = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"INSERT INTO facesInImages VALUES (%d, %d, %f, %f, %f, %f)", [key intValue], faceId, x1, y1, x2, y2];
sqlite3_exec(dbHandler, [sqlString UTF8String], NULL, NULL, NULL);
}
}
}
// get the list of events and iterate
NSArray *events = [plistDictionary objectForKey:@"List of Rolls"];
for (NSDictionary *event in events) {
int eventId = [[event objectForKey:@"RollID"] intValue];
NSString *name = [event objectForKey:@"RollName"];
// get the list of images in that event and iterate
NSArray *images = [event objectForKey:@"KeyList"];
for (NSNumber *imageId in images) {
NSString *sqlString = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"INSERT INTO events VALUES (%d, %d, '%@')", eventId, [imageId intValue], name];
sqlite3_exec(dbHandler, [sqlString UTF8String], NULL, NULL, NULL);
}
}
// get the number of files we're going to copy
int numberResults;
sqlite3_stmt *compiledStatement;
if (sqlite3_prepare_v2(dbHandler, "SELECT COUNT(*) FROM events AS e, images AS i WHERE e.imageId = i.imageId", -1, &compiledStatement, NULL) == SQLITE_OK) {
while (sqlite3_step(compiledStatement) == SQLITE_ROW) {
numberResults = sqlite3_column_int(compiledStatement, 0);
}
}
sqlite3_finalize(compiledStatement);
// update the GUI to inform the user we've moved onto the copying phase
[progressText setStringValue:@"Copying Events Folders to Desktop..."];
[progressIndicator setDoubleValue:0.0];
[progressIndicator setMaxValue:(double)numberResults];
[progressIndicator setIndeterminate:NO];
// iterate over the images again but this time with respect to the events
int fileNumber=0;
NSString *eventName = @"";
NSString *lastName = @"";
NSFileManager *fileManager = [NSFileManager defaultManager];
if(sqlite3_prepare_v2(dbHandler, "SELECT e.name, i.imagePath, i.imageId, i.thumbPath FROM events AS e, images AS i WHERE e.imageId = i.imageId ORDER BY e.name ASC", -1, &compiledStatement, NULL) == SQLITE_OK) {
while(sqlite3_step(compiledStatement) == SQLITE_ROW) {
lastName = eventName;
int imageId = sqlite3_column_int(compiledStatement, 2);
eventName = [NSString stringWithUTF8String:(char *)sqlite3_column_text(compiledStatement, 0)];
NSString *imagePath = [NSString stringWithUTF8String:(char *)sqlite3_column_text(compiledStatement, 1)];
NSString *thumbPath = [NSString stringWithUTF8String:(char *)sqlite3_column_text(compiledStatement, 3)];
if ([lastName isEqualToString:eventName]) {
fileNumber++;
} else {
fileNumber = 1;
}
NSString *directoryPath = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"/Users/William/Desktop/%@", eventName];
if (![fileManager fileExistsAtPath:directoryPath isDirectory:nil]) {
[fileManager createDirectoryAtPath:directoryPath withIntermediateDirectories:NO attributes:nil error:nil];
}
NSString *newImagePath = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@/%d.%@", directoryPath, fileNumber, [[imagePath pathExtension] lowercaseString]];
NSString *newThumbPath = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@/thumb%d.%@", directoryPath, fileNumber, [[thumbPath pathExtension] lowercaseString]];
NSError *error;
[fileManager copyItemAtPath:imagePath toPath:newImagePath error:&error];
if (error != nil) {
NSLog(@"%@", [error description]);
}
[fileManager copyItemAtPath:thumbPath toPath:newThumbPath error:&error];
if (error != nil) {
NSLog(@"%@", [error description]);
}
// update the database for the new paths
NSString *sqlStatement = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"UPDATE images SET imagePath = '%@/%d.%@', thumbPath = '%@/thumb%d.%@' WHERE imageId = %d", eventName, fileNumber, [[imagePath pathExtension] lowercaseString], eventName, fileNumber, [[imagePath pathExtension] lowercaseString], imageId];
sqlite3_exec(dbHandler, [sqlStatement UTF8String], NULL, NULL, NULL);
[progressIndicator incrementBy:1.0];
}
}
sqlite3_finalize(compiledStatement);
// clean up and exit
sqlite3_close(dbHandler);
[pool release];
[NSApp terminate:nil];
}
@end
