Easy integration - lat long points, photos & notes. Is it possible?

[Teamjeff]

I know anything is possible! But, does software exist that would help me accomplish this goal?

I need to be able to drive a route and have my navigator/assistant mark specific points, take a photo or photos of that point, & make notes about that point. Oh, and all this real time with the camera connected to the computer.

The closest thing I've found is aperture 3. As long as I'm using a gps camera the only things it lacks (I think) is the ability to make notes on the location at that particular time. Once I download the photos I can go in & make the notes needed, but that defeats the purpose making the notes while I'm at the location & details are fresh in my mind. The end result being a google map with all my photos & locations.

There are numerous ways I could do this.... down to a pad of paper and a simple gps receiver, but I really need something quick & easy - My guess is that I'll have somewhere between 500-800 entries each day spent collecting information! Tracking software on the computer that has point marking & note taking ability combined with syncing of files from a camera would be awesome! I would love to keep this all Apple based but I have parallels with windows 7 if needed. And I guess (gulp) I could use a pc for the entire process if I HAD to.


Thanks for any input guys!

 

[mmtoy]

I've thought about this a lot for my field work. I think what I'll end up doing is getting software for my phone (I have a Droid and will use something like PlaceMemo Pro; the iPhone has similar software) that tags notes with the coordinates. I will be tagging the photos with coordinates as well. Then, when I'm back at the office, I'll either find some software or write my own that links the photos and the notes based on their locations. I'll probably end up outputting KML files for use in Google Earth.

 

[mmtoy]

I haven't tried it yet, but GPSNavX claims to support custom waypoints (if you find a fishing hole you like, describe it and add it as a waypoint)... You may get a lot of boating cruft with it, though.

http://www.gpsnavx.com/index.php?page=Features

 

[Teamjeff]

GPSNavX has some interesting features that could be useful but no way to integrate photos that I can see. My guess is that I probably need a piece of software that does not exist yet!

My plan for the next trip (tomorrow) is to take photos with a Nikon D2 with a Red Hen gps & make notes on the particular photo or block of photos while in the field, then sort those notes at the end of the day in Aperture 3. Certainly not the best solution long term but it will work on this trip.

 

[DaveM]

There are a number of cheap (or even free) applications that will geo reference your images using any digital camera and any standard GPS handheld (I use HoudahGeo). The application simply compares the time stamp on the photo to the time on your GPS trak and sorts the pics accordingly.
To add notes you could simply make standard notes in the field (pen and paper or on the computer) and mark each with either the time of notation or mark a waypoint in the GPS foe each and label that waypoint on you each notes entry.

 

[Teamjeff]

I'm on the road now, using apeture 3, a nikon d3 with a red hen gps tethered to a mac book pro. It works flawlessly!!

 

[grntrdtaco]

try this. much easier (no need to be tethered.)

http://www.earlyinnovations.com/gpsphotolinker/

make sure the camera and the gps clocks are in sync. as long as you record your entire trip in the gps with a waypoint every few min. the app will do the rest for you.

Download GPSPhotoLinker 1.6.4 for Mac OS X 10.5 & 10.6.

GPSPhotoLinker adds GPS position and location data to your photos. The latitude and longitude recorded by your GPS unit are linked and saved to your photos. GPSPhotoLinker automatically enters the city, state and country into the metadata. Adding geographic information to an item is known as geotagging -- check out our example mapped web galleries.


there is also a pro version that has even more features.

edit
you could take a digital recorder with you and do voice notes (that would have the same timestamp) when you get home or when you download the voice note and images (put them in the same folder) and sort it by date. then all the voice notes would match up to the images. I use the voice recording in my camera (1d series) your D3 will do voice notes and name the files the same as the image. view an image on the camera, press and hold the microphone button, speak the note, let go of the microphone button. when you download the card it will have .wav files with the same name as the image.

 

[chet]

quiet a few digital cameras will allow you to make voice notes for each photo you take

 

[Pskhaat]

The cameras that have GPS integration will also often add the lon/lat into the JPEG meta-data for immediate mapping.

 

[off-roader]

The closest thing I've found is aperture 3. As long as I'm using a gps camera the only things it lacks (I think) is the ability to make notes on the location at that particular time. Once I download the photos I can go in & make the notes needed, but that defeats the purpose making the notes while I'm at the location & details are fresh in my mind. The end result being a google map with all my photos & locations.

A notebook and pen/pencil are your best friend for taking notes like this then transcribe them to your photo's metadata afterwards.

As for geotagging them there are 3 options...
1) Camera's w/ built in gps units (+$300)
2) GPS units you can connect to some cameras (Dslr's) and the camera will insert the gps data into the picture metadata. (~+$200)
3) A stand alone gps (I have a Garmin Etrex Legend) that you leave on (~$50) and software (freeware) you use later to correlate the time/date & then use the appropriate gps waypoint and add that gps data to a photo's metadata.

 

[craig]

ESRI ArcPad or an older product I helped develop Autodesk OnSite View both do all of this. There are other applications as well. Look at GIS field software targetted at utility workers, field biologists, etc. Gathering spatially referenced data is a common task, but the software isn't cheap. The devices usually run Windows CE and are specialized.

I believe Trimble makes an out of the box solution in a fully ruggedized unit. Expect to pay several thousand for the unit and software.

 

[off-roader]

ESRI ArcPad or an older product I helped develop Autodesk OnSite View both do all of this. There are other applications as well. Look at GIS field software targetted at utility workers, field biologists, etc. Gathering spatially referenced data is a common task, but the software isn't cheap. The devices usually run Windows CE and are specialized.

I believe Trimble makes an out of the box solution in a fully ruggedized unit. Expect to pay several thousand for the unit and software.

Craig IIRC there are inexpensive (freeware?) software solutions available to allow you to copy the relevant gps data from a gps track/logger to a photo's metadata assuming the camera and gps times are in sync. I don't recall which forum I read about that. Perhaps here on the ExPo or perhaps on one of the many photography site forums (dpreview, etc.).

One downside to the stand alone gps / gps logger is that it's now one more item to maintain (power, turn on/off, etc.) on a trip.

 

[Pskhaat]

Backing up, the join of the distinct image timestamps against a timeseries of GPS points is somewhat trivial. Are you trying to incorporate these data elsewhere? A program can join the data but produce what exactly?

 

[craig]

Yes, there are several. I use Downloader Pro to geotag photos. My workflow is:

- Record track on my tablet PC running Overland Navigator. Overland Navigator automatically saves the track as a GPX file to a directory on the computer.
- Snap photos as I travel
- At the end of the day or trip I remove the SD card from my camera and insert it into the SD slot on the tablet PC running Overland Navigator.
- Fire up Downloader Pro which downloads the photos from the SD card to the tablet and geotags them automatically. Downloader Pro only has to be told once which directory Overland Navigator has stored the GPX tracks, so once it is setup the entire process of downloading and tagging photos is a one step process.

There are other solutions too, but this is the one I use.