successfully geocoded photos

I have to write this down immediately because the steps are rather more complex than I would like, and I'm likely to forget them again.

1. Download photos from camera
2. Download GPS tracks

2a. Connect GPS logger via USB
2b. Power ON Globalsat GPS logger

(I will have more to say about my new GPS logger in a future posting.)  UPDATE 2007-05-06: See my review of the Globalsat DG-100 GPS data logger for more info.  ENDUPDATE

In my case, use latest version of GS Data Logger Utility S-0PC-0L-07031401 (I downloaded it from the support site).

then

(download all the files TrackRecord->Load Track Points... )

Once you have them all

File->Select All Files
Map->View Point (wait for them all to be processed, it may take a while)
File->Export->GPX File...

3. Determine GMT and camera offsets

Note: RoboGEO measures GMT offsets in minutes GMT is AHEAD of your local time
(the opposite of the way timezones are usually measured)
and camera time error offset in seconds. 

I had of course forgotten to set my camera time, so it was in my local and was a minute slow

4. Set RoboGEO prefs accordingly

File->Preferences->Common Settings

CameraOffset -60 [save]
UtcTimeBias +240 [save] (camera was set to Eastern time zone, GMT-4, so GMT is four hours ahead)

This time setting is so confusing that I am just going to set my camera to accurate UTC in the future.
(I will have more to say about time in a later posting.)

If you're wondering if a minute matters (the camera time offset), the answer is very much yes.  A minute (even when walking) is a very visible difference in location accuracy (basically without this correction, my photos would all be placed several meters behind the actual location they were taken).

4. Load and process in RoboGEO

4a. Select directory with images (Step #1 "Select an entire folder")
4b. Since it's a GPX file, load as tracklog (Step #2 "From a tracklog file")

5. Verify positions in Google Earth from RoboGEO

Step #3 "Export to Google Earth"

Note: RoboGEO does not auto-rotate images (taken in portrait mode 90 degrees), which kinda sucks in terms of Google Earth display for those images.

6. Once positions are verified, write to EXIF from RoboGEO

Step #3 "Write the location data to the EXIF headers"

whew

Just for completeness, if you want to upload to Flickr and have the (now EXIF location stamped) photos automatically mapped, make sure you set

http://www.flickr.com/account/geo/exif

BEFORE you upload, and DO NOT resize using the uploader (it will lose the EXIF location data if you do).

For more info, see my permanent reference page on geocoding photos.

Comments

[wvs]

This is great. I just wish RoboGeo had a way of GeoTagging RAW files from DSLR cameras too. Thanks for this very useful post.