Difference between revisions of "Geotagging"

Revision as of 20:27, 22 August 2010

Geotagging is the process of putting items on the map. I like geotagging and use it as one of the primary ways of categorizing my photos. Over half of my photos on Flickr are geotagged, with most new ones being geotagged.

Ways

There are 4 ways to geotag.

• Manual - Drag items on to the map on your computer. Jet Photo Studio and Flickr allow you to do this. I tend to drag a cluster of 5-6 photos on to their approximate locations. Sometimes if I am very lazy, I will just put all the photos from one building in one spot. For example, I might pictures taken in a museum in a single point, even though I could spread the points out to correspond where in the museum an item is.
• Using a logger - I use a dedicated geologger to geotag. The geologger is always recording my position. I then use GeoSetter to link the geologs and photos. Geologgers work with any camera, since the software merely compares the timestamps of the photo with the geolog. Note: make sure your camera's time is set exactly correct (I use [http;//time.gov time.gov] to set my camera to the second).
• On a smartphone - The iPhone and the Palm Pre automatically attach the phone's current position to photos you take with the camera. This is smart since many smartphones have at least 3 or 4 ways of determining your position, even if GPS signal is not available. Because the iPhone 3GS takes fairly good photos, this is becoming more and more of an option. This is how geotagging will be brought to the mass market.
• On a camera with a built-in GPS - More and more cameras are coming out with GPSes. A more expensive model of the Samsung HZ30W I bought had a GPS. But it is difficult to get a good position because it takes several minutes for any device to get a GPS lock. Manufactures must make tradeoffs to get the system to work

Results

• See my Flickr photos on the Flickr map
• I am developing Geoov which uses cluster based mapping to better provide an overview of my geotagged photos. [1]
• Still looking for a good way to display tracks online.

Best Practices

Here is some of the best software and hardware I have found for geologging/tracking. Please add to it.

Hardware

• AMOD 8050 GPS Logger - My first GPS logger I used from Dec 2008 to July 2010.
• I-Blue Tripmate 850 GPS Logger - In July 2010, I bought a more sensitive, communicative logger.

Web

• Flickr - The best photo sharing site. Supports Geotagging. $25/year for the pro account (I have it). I don't like the new maps however. They don't show everything on there.
  • Tip: Add /map to the end of a set URL to get a (new, ugly) map of that set
• Flickr Gmap Show GreaseMonkey Script. Works in Firefox 3 with Greasemonkey installation. Allows you to see nice Google Maps. But only you.
• Geoov My experiment with cluster based mapping to better provide an overview of my geotagged photos. I wanted to get all of my photos on the map. It provides a really nice drill down of where I've been.

• Loc.alize.us - Allows you to share Public maps of your public Flickr photos.
• GPSed.com - Allows you to upload tracks (need to convert in GPSBabbel or JetStudio) so you can see and share the track of where you went. Can link with Flickr or Picasa to attach photos to your tracks. They will do the linking and geotagging for you - no program needed. Can also track from a GPS enabled smart phone (?must pay for the app to do this) instead of uploading AMOD tracks.
• AdamFranco's Flickr Set to KML Quick utility to make a set into a KML (Google Earth) or Google Map.

PC

• Geosetter A new program that I found around April 2010. I don't know how I missed it before, it works awesome; it is really well done. It has very good support for setting timezones and offsets. It processes the logs much faster than JetPhoto. It shows a Google Maps view of the log directly in the app. You can eaisly edit your EXIF data here.
• JetPhoto Studio Free version and pay version $20 or $25 - Came with my GPS device. Photo manager software and also includes a log manager. Can import, geotag, write geotag to JPEG, and upload to Flickr. Can convert GPS tracks to KML and display tracks (with photos) in Google Earth. I bought the pro version - but I don't know if I had to. I used this until I discovered Geosetter. The only feature I have not yet discovered in GeoSetter is a Google Earth export (it does Google Maps instead inside the app); use GPSbabbel to make. I no longer use JetPhoto Studio, and I am kinda glad.
• Google Earth - Displays tracks and photos in a nice graphical interface to the globe. Accepts KML files. Good way to view things on the desktop.
• GPSbabbel - Free program to convert GPS tracks between formats. I only use it to make Google earth KML files from my track data (in NEMA format). If your device outputs a weird format, or an app requires a weird format, this program is your answer.
• Google Picasa I've been using Picasa since May 2010 and I am not quite sure I like it. I use it mostly to import my photos, but recently it has not been sorting the photos correct. I use Geosetter to apply the geologs. You can manually geotag and view geotags with this. The Faces feature I wanted to try; it is gimicky. The Flickr Uploader is super buggy anyway, so I just use the webpage Flash uploader. There is no reason to use Picasa, except for importing photos to a folder per date, but it can't even do that.

Tecker 911 Episode on Geotagging

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