msfs-screenshot-gps-data

This tool looks for new screenshots while Microsoft Flight Simulator is running, retrieves GPS data including location and altitude and adds this information to the screenshot.

Important notes

• The aircraft is used as the source of the GPS data. The location of the in-game camera may not match that of the aircraft. When using the drone- or developer camera you may end up with a location that does not match what's in the screenshot. This could be fixed if dedicated in-game camera variables are added by the developers of the simulator in the future.
• This tool saves GPS data when the simulator is running in an active state. No distinction is made between the simulator and other applications. This means screenshots taken of other applications while the simulator is running may also be included. In the future more checks could be performed to make sure the simulator is the active window.
• The addition of exif information in PNG images is relatively new. Image editors and other geotagging-related features and applications may not support this. Possible solutions are converting screenshots to JPEG images (where exif data is more supported) or configuring the screenshot software to create JPEG images in the first place. Note that these solutions may degrade the image quality depending on the set compression level.

Installation

1. Read the notes above.
2. Download the latest .exe from the releases page.
3. On the first launch an .ini file will be created containing preferences. You may want to change the folder which will be watched for changes. By default the built-in Windows screenshot (press WIN+PRINT SCREEN to capture a screenshot) directory used is %USERPROFILE%\Pictures\Screenshots.

Build from source

1. Install dependencies: pip3 install -r requirements.txt.
2. Build the .exe: pyinstaller --add-data="SimConnect/SimConnect.dll;SimConnect/" --clean --exclude-module=.git --name="msfs-screenshot-gps-data" --onefile app.py. Note: currently the script expects SimConnect.dllc for unknown reasons, this is solved by changing SimConnect\SimConnect.dll to SimConnect\SimConnect.dllc with a hex editor in the output .exe.

Attributions

• This project includes unmodified source code (the directory SimConnect/) of the project 'Python-SimConnect' by odwdinc licensed under the 'GNU Affero General Public License v3.0' (located at SimConnect/LICENSE) to interface with the simulator.