Robthebrit
Explorer
On December 30th I took a day trip to Joshua Tree, the trip was mainly to test my new Canon 5D but also to give the mog a drive as its been sitting on the driveway for quite a while and I got to see some really beautiful scenery in the process.
I have been experimenting with Google Earth's self contained KMZ files, these are available on a few other websites and they are simply awesome for documenting trips. A single downloaded contains the track, user notes and geo-coded photo waypoints (if you have Exif info it can extract data fields from those). Another huge benefit is you can easily get driving directions to either end of the trail (or any other way points along the way) by clicking on the way point and selecting 'driving directions to here', no more bad directions to trails. Finally of course its all within Google Earth so you can zoom around the trail looking at the details.
Here are a couple I have made so far, I resized the photos to 800x600 to keep the size of the downloads to something reasonable (they are around 5.5mb each).
http://www.robanddenise.com/travels/jtnp/berdoocanyon.kmz
http://www.robanddenise.com/travels/jtnp/geologytourroad.kmz
When the files are first loaded the track is not shown, you have to go to the tool window at the side to enable it. Also in some locations there are multiple photos in the same place which seems to cause problems within the user interface. If you have problems go to the tool window and disable the photo waypoints that are in the way of others. I am still trying to come up with a better solution for this.
These files can also contain the actual GPS sample points from which Google Earth can compute the bearing, speed, time remaining. My files do not contain the sample points (the track is shows as a polyline) as the UI issues get worse.
There should be a section on the site where we can post these files so others who wish to drive the same trails can benefit from them. Let me know what you think and if there is enough interest I'll make a tutorial on how to put them together.
I will post the original full size pictures to my site so you guys who are interested in the camera can look at them (they are huge), I'll also post the track files etc.
Rob
I have been experimenting with Google Earth's self contained KMZ files, these are available on a few other websites and they are simply awesome for documenting trips. A single downloaded contains the track, user notes and geo-coded photo waypoints (if you have Exif info it can extract data fields from those). Another huge benefit is you can easily get driving directions to either end of the trail (or any other way points along the way) by clicking on the way point and selecting 'driving directions to here', no more bad directions to trails. Finally of course its all within Google Earth so you can zoom around the trail looking at the details.
Here are a couple I have made so far, I resized the photos to 800x600 to keep the size of the downloads to something reasonable (they are around 5.5mb each).
http://www.robanddenise.com/travels/jtnp/berdoocanyon.kmz
http://www.robanddenise.com/travels/jtnp/geologytourroad.kmz
When the files are first loaded the track is not shown, you have to go to the tool window at the side to enable it. Also in some locations there are multiple photos in the same place which seems to cause problems within the user interface. If you have problems go to the tool window and disable the photo waypoints that are in the way of others. I am still trying to come up with a better solution for this.
These files can also contain the actual GPS sample points from which Google Earth can compute the bearing, speed, time remaining. My files do not contain the sample points (the track is shows as a polyline) as the UI issues get worse.
There should be a section on the site where we can post these files so others who wish to drive the same trails can benefit from them. Let me know what you think and if there is enough interest I'll make a tutorial on how to put them together.
I will post the original full size pictures to my site so you guys who are interested in the camera can look at them (they are huge), I'll also post the track files etc.
Rob