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GeoTagger Adds Positioning Info to Snapshots
Richard Jelbert writes "Check out this hardware device to geo-tag your photos to help share / manage your photos using Google maps. The Jelbert GeoTagger device records the latitude and longitude and compass direction of every photo you take. It connects to the camera flash shoe and stores the geo metadata on an SD memory card.
Geotagging is becomeing more and more popular with sites like Flickr supporting geotagging via Google Earth interface. Hardware geotagers save you the effort of geo-tagging the images manually after taking the shot. The Sony geotagger is a great step forward but the Jelbert GeoTagger also records direction data."
Christ, could the summary sound any more like a PR press release?
Argh.
is the angle with the horizontal. With all this information it should be relatively easy to build a 2D/3D map from the pictures you collect.
This sig was generated by a barrel of trained kittens for SeXy_Red (550409).
There are *many* alternatives. Read those stories:
Flickr Adds Geotagging
Geotagged Photo Browsing Tools for Google Earth
Picasa Photos in Google Earth
and the most important one:
Info on Geocoding Photos which links (in 'related links') to numerous other sources of info.
Today, you can tag photos using Picasa and Google Earth, Yahoo! and Flickr, or other alternatives such as GPS hardware to geotag your photos directly.
Animoog.org
It's a SONY.
I just heard the other day about some kind of 'mark' that digital cameras put on all images, that notate what type camera you have...and some of the programs put registration information on the images (name, etc).
I'm not sure I want all that meta data on pictures I take...just a simple picture thank you.
(I forgot the name of that tag..starts with an "E" I think.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I wrote a command line application for windows that reads track information off of Garmin and Megellan GPSs (or it can read .gpx files) and then uses that information to update the exif information in the image files based on timestamp information. I'm using it with flickr and it works great. You do need to allow flickr to use exif data here: www.flickr.com/account/geo/exif. Since it updates exif information in jpg files it should work with any photo sharing tools.
This was meant to be a free simple application that you can just run on all your photos and I think it is just that. No bells, no whistles. It just gets exif data added to all the photos you just took in a quick easy manor.
You can download GeoPhoto Batcher with source code from: http://moesphoto.glacialwanderer.com/
Hobby Robotics
If you already own a GPS, there are several software-only solutions to perform the same function. Just sync your camera's clock to the GPS clock, and turn on the GPS tracking function. The software will link up locations by matching the photo's time-stamp with the tracklog time-stamp.
You mean "EXIF"? And yes, EXIF really is pretty damn useful for anyone who wants to actually know what type of comera setup was used, exposure info, focal length, whether a flash fired, etc...
"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule." --H.L. Mencken
EXIF
Most of the information is both innocuous and helpful (at least to other photographers). You can disable things like camera serial number and all that. But keep in mind that it is possible to prove that two pictures came from the same camera by analyzing the sensor noise, so if even one picture ever taken with your camera is positively correlated with your real identity, any entity sufficiently motivated could tie any other picture to that camera, assuming it hasn’t been altered too badly by resampling, multiple (overly aggressive) JPEG compressions, and other transformations significant enough to destroy those noise patterns.
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
Pratical Uses? I can think of quite a few. When I go on vacation, I find the meta data from digital very useful. Most cameras will put EXIF data in the image recording such things as the specific camera you shoot with, your exposure time, aperature, what mode you shot with... You can use it to adjust how you take your shots if you shot with different settings.
As far as geotagging, it gives you the flexibility to organize your photos by location, and add in that info to your photo. I went on a month long trip and can't remember where every shot I took was. This would have been an excellent way of keeping track without requiring me to take additional notes to correlate back to my photos.
Grazer is now free The tool synchronizes GPS location information in GPX format and matches the timestamp of the location information with the timestamp on the EXIF header of your photos.
http://www.i4u.com/article6502.html
Sony has released a GPS Geotagger gadget: Using time and location recordings from Sony's GPS-CS1 GPS device and the time stamp from a Sony digital still camera or camcorder, you can plot your digital images to a map and pinpoint exactly where you've been.
http://www.i4u.com/article6207.html
Of course GPS does not work inside buildings. The website says other hardware used 'bad' ways to retrieve inside-building location information, but they give no clue on how they do it themselves! How can I judge if their system is better?!
Additionnaly, most of the work is done by RoboGeo, which must be purchased seperately.
Animoog.org
I just heard the other day about some kind of 'mark' that digital cameras put on all images, that notate what type camera you have...and some of the programs put registration information on the images (name, etc).
You're thinking of Exif data. It contains information regarding a specific image: the camera model, the date and time of the photo and all sorts of potentially useful photographic details -- the ISO, aperture used, shutter speed, focal length, etc.
This can be extremely useful stuff if you're a semi-serious photographer. Whenever I run across a photo that I like, that produces a neat visual effect or was taken under circumstances I generally have problems with, I can look at the EXIF data and see how it was done. This also works in reverse -- when I fuck up and take a slew of bad photos, I can look at the EXIF data and work out what I did wrong so I (hopefully) don't make the same mistake again.
I'm not sure why you wouldn't want this sort of metadata saved in your pictures; even if it's not useful to you, it may be useful to other people who look at your pictures. It's not as if it's reporting your full legal name and social security number or anything.
That aside, I can think of a few applications where having GPS data automagically stored could be useful:
Reshoots -- I have a few "landscape"-style photos that would be great images if I could only go back and fix something about how I shot them, but I don't know specifically where I was when I took them.
Copycatting -- Same as above, but with someone else's shots. Retaking photos from other people that you enjoy is an excellent way to learn about how to look at a situation and frame a shot. For example, people have spent a lot of time and effort to figure out where and when Ansel Adams took some of his more famous pics.
Memory Aid -- A dozen years from now when you look at your photos, are you going to remember specifically where you were during that Scotland vacation? Extra info -- location data included -- can help you out there.
Official uses -- Obviously helpful to efforts like forensic investigations, large-scale insurance adjusting (especially after something like Katrina) and etc.
Obviously, none of this is "mission critical" stuff, but like EXIF data it's nice to have and is another tool you can use to make yourself a better photographer.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Um, most handheld digital cameras dont have a flash shoe, so this is sort of irrelevant.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Well said.
The other major purpose of this is for historical benefit. Imagine, for example, that we had Geotagging+Timestamping on all the photos taken in the last 30 years, and they were shared on something like Flickr. You could focus on a particular place and build a timeline of photos to see how it changes over the years. Given the ubiquity of camera phones, digital cameras, etc, we could have a complete photo-historical record of, well, almost everything.
Personally, I've gone through all my "good" photos recently (over 500 of em) and geotagged them by hand with Picasa and Google Earth (and now I'm in the middle of the laborious task of replacing them all on Flickr) for no other reason than I think it's neat - I like being able to display them out on a map to show people. I think it's a much more interesting way of visualizing them than the standard coffee table photo album.
That and I can't tell you how many times I've gone through my Grandparent's photo albums and the conversation went something like this:
"Wow, when was this taken?"
"Don't remember exactly. Sometime in the 60's."
"Where was this?"
"Arizona, I think. Or maybe it was when we went to California."
"Who is this?"
"Don't remember. Frank? Is that Frank? I think it's Frank."
So yeah, I think metadata is a good thing.