Geotagging Imagery and Video


IsWHERE is a log of my thoughts, reflections, and news/blog links on the emergence of image and video geospatial tagging. On May5th this year, I opened a second blog to deal with more detailed aspects of tools for FalconView and TalonView can be found at RouteScout. Trends I want to try and follow are the various disruptions resulting from spatial smart-phones, how many GPS devices are out there, smart-cameras, and other related news. And yes, I have a business interest in all of this. My company Red Hen has been pioneering this sort of geomedia for more than a decade.

So beyond a personal blog, I also provide a link to IsWHERE a shareware tool created by Red Hen Systems to readily place geoJPEG or geotagged imagery and soon GEM full motion media kept on your own computer(s) into Google Earth/Map from your File Manager media selection. Works great for geotagged images from Nikon, Ricoh, Sony, iPHONE, Android and all geo-smartphones that can create geotagged images. IsWhere - read about it

IsWhere Free Download (XP and VISTA)

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IsWhere Visitors

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

More on Blue2CAN - Camera Area Network for Nikon

More on BLue2CAN - Camera Area Network for Nikon

The Blue2CAN connects automatically (and silently) to ANY Bluetooth GPS in range (within 10 m of it's location) The idea is that in the rare event there is more than one Bluetooth GPS in range that any one will do as it's "close enough". However these receivers only connect to one device at a time, so the GPS device must be on, in range, and NOT connected to something else, it's most likely yours. If the GPS is separated from the camera Blue2CAN loses the connection and starts searching again. If the same one, or a different one comes it range it uses it. The advantage is that it is AUTOMATIC, and therefore easy to use.
Connection speed is not really a problem because the Blue2CAN stays connected to the GPS as long as the GPS receiver is on, even when the camera is turned off (yes, Blue2CAN gets power from the camera even when the camera is off). In this way the GPS data is available immediately when the camera is switched on. Note that it is best to turn the camera off when you’re not shooting because the GPS does hold the meter on (Nikon's design) and the meter takes quite a lot of power. Fortunately Bluetooth takes very little power so it does not put much of a drain on the camera battery in any case. The drain is so small that the D200 camera battery can keep the Bluetooth radio working for more than 25 days (and nights). GPS takes a LOT more power, so the batteries in the Bluetooth GPS device will probably not last more than about 14 hours.
If the Blue2CAN is not connected to a GPS when the camera is turned off it will search for 10 minutes longer, if no GPS if found it will turn itself off. It will start searching again when the camera is turned on, and takes about 5 seconds to connect in this case. It usually takes GPS receivers at least this long to get a fix from power up, so when the GPS data is available the Bluetooth is already connected. I'm sorry if this description was too complicated, but the complexity was necessary in the implementation to both manage power and make sure no GPS data was missed when a picture is taken...
The two real advantages of using a Bluetooth GPS instead of a camera powered GPS are that 1) the power systems are separate. And 2) the GPS antenna can be placed in a good position regardless of where the camera is.
Power: The GPS must be on all the time to “keep a lock” otherwise you have to wait for the fix before you take a picture (not a good use model). The GPS takes a lot of power, so it can put quite a drain on the camera battery, if the GPS battery goes dead you can still take a picture, it just won’t be geo-located.
Antenna: To maintain a fix the GPS antenna must have a clear view of the sky, if your shooting from inside a car or other vehicle it’s better to have the GPS on the dash than on the camera. Also if the camera is “stored” between shooting where it will not “see” the sky, a camera mounted GPS will loose lock and may take to long to re-acquire when you get the thing out to take a shot.
Red Hen does offer a camera mounted GPS unit for the D200, D2X as well, it's called the "DX-GPS" we’ve had it available for some time, these are the things we’ve learned from use and customer feedback.

Why aGPS is not really a great idea genreally....

"Sprint decided to attempt to obfuscate the free GPS services that Java provides. Sprint has threatened the creator of Mobile GMaps with legal action... unless Mobile GMaps makes it difficult to provide Sprint users with GPS services."

Sprint Threatens Mobile GMaps over GPS

Saturday, May 26, 2007

Facebook Statistics May 2007

FaceBook User Satistics

Facebook says its current photo sharing service is one of the most active in the world, with:


  • 1.7 billion user photos
  • 2.2 billion friends tagged in user photos
  • 160 terabytes of photo storage used with an extra 60 terabytes available
  • 60+ million photos added each week
  • 3+ billion photo images served to users every day
  • 100,000+ images served per second during its peak traffic windows.

Facebook now ranks as the sixth-most trafficked site in the United States.


When the Palo Alto, CA-based company launched in 2004, it allowed only college students to join. Eight months ago it opened to anyone, and membership has since doubled to 24 million, according to the research firm ComScore. The site gets more than 40 billion page views per month.


Overall, the site says it is growing 3 percent per week --100,000 new users per day.


The fastest growing demographic is those 25 and older.


Primary rival MySpace remains almost three times larger with 67 million active members.

Future Image Inc. (www.FutureImage.com)

Friday, May 25, 2007

Geotagging and Related Statistics - Flickr

Geotagging Statistics - Flickr hits 500 million today, Photobucket two billion over, and Kodak's EasyShare +One billion

In my ongoing effort to consolidate whatever statistics on photo blogging and related geotagging, I ran accross this:

http://www.zmarties.com/picasa/blog/2007/05/500-millionth-photo-uploaded-to-flickr.html

And the winner is: Flickr hits 500 million images

Other rumors - Kodak Easyshare is a billion plus and Photobucket is better than twice that again... and that is only a small fraction of what likely is floating around out there...

Sunday, May 20, 2007

Flickr Shared Images and Popular Camera Statistics May 21, 2007

Most Popular Point/Shoot and Camera Phones

Flickr sharred geotagged images today counted 16,980,000

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

BLUE2CAN - Nikon SLR Geotagging has never been so easy




BLUE2CAN(tm) is the next-generation integrated geotagging solution from Red Hen Systems for Nikon's D200 and D2X SLR cameras.

Integrating off-the-shelf Bluetooth GPS units and the industry leading Nikon D2X and D200 cameras, the BLUE2CAN allows users to automatically capture geospatially referenced images in the easiest, most reliable collection method today.


Red Hen’s BLUE2CAN establishes for the first time a "camera area network" Bluetooth solution that automatically links common Bluetooth GPS devices directly to the appropriate Nikon camera. Through Red Hen Systems' patent pending Camera Area Network, the Nikon D2X and D200 (and soon other digital cameras and handicams) GPS positional data is streamed into the camera and merged into the EXIF meta-data of the JPEG image file.
BLUE2CAN's spatial EXIF metadata information can be used to map these geotagged images by:

· Google Earth/Maps
· Yahoo’s Flickr
· Virtual Earth and other 3D Worlds
· Red Hen Systems MediaMapper, PixPoint and GeoVideo products

BLUE2CAN Features:

· The Bluetooth GPS unit may be mounted on top of the camera, carried in a pocket, put on the dash of your car, or placed in the scene
· Bluetooth wireless integration eliminates all cables
· Instantly inspect and view data on the camera LCD
· Very simple to use, just plug it in and go.
· Industry standard GPS geo-tagging offers compatibility with most GIS and mapping systems
· Includes IsWhere picture mapping software that operates in conjunction with Google Earth
· Release date 5/25/2007
· Price: $279.95 without Bluetooth GPS

Red Hen Systems, Inc.
2850 McClelland Drive Suite 3900
Fort Collins, Colorado 80525
(970) 493-3952
http://www.redhensystems.com/
hoot@redhensystems.com

Thursday, May 10, 2007

FREE USGS TOPO sheets........ via geoPDF!

Looking for USGS TOPO sheets? Well they are essentially free if your are interested. Take a link over to this GISUser's blog posting: How to get FREE USGS TOPO Sheets.

Saturday, May 05, 2007

Top- Growth Sites for Google and Yahoo - Statistics

Comparing HOT sites for Google and Yahoo...

Microsoft and Yahoo might make finally good use of Virtual Earth ... if they can get together and their bloggers decide they will not (or can not) mash to Google Earth/Maps? It interesting that Flickr didn't make it ot Yahoos top sites...

Friday, May 04, 2007

Dividing the Web Images Pie - Who has the largest slice?

Photo Web Sites Market Share

Apparently things are not really going well over at Flickr.

If Photobucket is around 2.5 billion images currently then the best guess of on-line imagery would suggest more than six billion images on-line - up from essentially zero eight years ago? Photobucket looks to be the dominate service by a factor of severn or eith over the next best Yahoo Photos. No wonder Microsoft is sniffing around buying Yahoo?

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Ricoh Geo-Imaging and FREE Google Earth Viewing

Calling all Ricoh Geo-imaging Pointographers
FREE Google Earth Geotagged Image Viewers - SAVE $200!

Got Ricoh geotagging? If you do, your geo-image map making just became FREE. No more need for a $200 ouit-of-date software...! If you are an owner of one of Ricoh's Geo-Imaging products like the Capio RR1, the Capliio RR30, the RDC i700 or their newest model the Ricoh Caplio 500SE you do not really need a geotagger software. What you do need is either Google's Picasa Photo Catalog or Red Hen's IsWhere utility. Both solutions are free and allow the user to display and review his geotagged images on Google Earth.

Picasa is a great tool that resides on your PC, handles the cataloging of your images, has great tools and features including the ability to post and share some of your local photos with friends via Picasa.NET. Most importantly for you "pointographers" is that each goetagged image is identified by a geotagged symbol and when needed can be displayed via its position on Google Earth. Picasa 2 Free Download and Net Storage

Alternatively if you have already settled on a image cataloger like ACDC, Microsoft Image, or one of the many others, you can download IsWhere and there-after have immediate access to geotagged images via Google Earth. Drag and drop a image or a selection of images or just browse and highlight the directories you would like to display on Google Earth , hit the &lt;CR> and Google Earth is loaded, and any geotagged image in your selection is placed. Simple and to the point....

IsWhere - Take the Picture - Get the Point