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[OM] Geocoding images [was A Few From Acadia National Park]

Subject: [OM] Geocoding images [was A Few From Acadia National Park]
From: Moose <olymoose@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:57:43 -0700
Ken Norton wrote:

>> Am I the ONLY person who uses his GPS for tagging locations?  Nearly all of 
>> my "where in the world did I take THAT picture" pictures I've marked on the 
>> GPS.
>>     

The short answer is that I am keeping track of the location of my 
images, and have them for my last trip.

I'm doing it the other way, tagging images with their GPS location, 
rather than storing them in a GPS. I bought an I-gotU geotagger and took 
it along on my last big trip.

Considering the handicaps I put it under, I think it worked very well. I 
didn't realize until about halfway through that it has a place on the 
back of the rubber cover to attach it to a camera strap. By then, I was 
used to just carrying it in my shirt pocket.

Looking back at the tracking it did, especially when I forgot to turn it 
off, I'm impressed. For example, it nicely tracked us as we took a cab 
through Manhatten to the Met Museum and as we later walked from there to 
the subway station.

It was about a block off on the cab ride, I suppose because it could 
"see" too few satellites, but it's performance inside cars and houses 
was impressive. Tracking on the street in Manhatten among tall buildings 
was very good.The only failure was when the camera bag strap across my 
chest seems to have turned it off.  No big deal, as it's clear where we 
were on that walk. I started carrying it in a jacket pocket when wearing 
the bag.

In the country, it generally works well. Position accuracy suffers under 
heavy tree cover, but is still fine for "where was I when I took that?"

The software that comes with it works well, downloading and parsing the 
data points to eliminate duplicates. It then connects any photos you 
select, geocodes them, pulls down Google maps data and displays the 
images as thumbnails down the side next to a satellite map with track 
and image locations on it.

It only works for JPEGs, but will output standard location point files 
and other, free apps will do the same things with RAW files, geocoding 
and mapping. I've downloaded three, only tried one so far. It works well 
technically, although the user interface is a little opaque. I suppose 
I'll get around to seeing if the others have better interfaces, but 
really, geocoding the RAW files is my goal and it does that fine.

Once geocoded, images can be displayed located on maps by lots of apps 
and web sites, if desired. And of course, I can tell where in the world 
I was when I took them. I did finally figure out where in Maine I took 
some images that have been mysteries since the last trip.

The software apps also allow moving image points that are off, which 
then corrects the image EXIF, and simply adding points and EXIF data for 
other images based on pointing at the map/photo. I'd like to do that to 
old images, but it's a daunting task for more than the few best or most 
memorable. I"m thinking in many cases I could just code one central 
point for all images in the same general location.

I think I prefer having the location in EXIF to having it in a GPS 
separate from the image files. I suppose once one has the data file, it 
could be uploaded to a GPS for return trips. Probably there's an app to 
read a group of EXIFs and load them into a GPS.

Moose

>> (Where in the World is )AG Schnozz(diego?)
>>     

-- 
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