Linking geographic information to photos. Linking GPS coordinates to images using Mission Planner Stitching photos linked to GPS
22.02.2012 46498
Simple georeferencing of photos - GeoCam service
To be honest, I have long been interested in the possibility of automatically linking photos to the geographic location where the photo was taken. And this is necessary for several reasons. Firstly, I often need this myself - well, you know, you take a photo of a nice restaurant, a shop, just an interesting place, and then from the photo you strain yourself to remember where it all is. Of course, you can find a restaurant by name and city (if you manage to remember the city, which is not always possible after some restaurants), but in the case of shops and places without a name, it’s somehow quite difficult. Secondly, it would be very useful to put GPS coordinates on some photos for blog reporting. And then it begins: you publish a photo (and the same restaurants that I like to study in terms of spiritual growth during trips), and it begins - what address, what town, what country, what planet, what galaxy... Well, in -third, when you send relatives and friends the details of my stay somewhere in Spain so that they can come, it’s very convenient to throw in a bunch of photos with coordinates and viewing angle: this way they will perfectly imagine the surroundings, study the area well, and get the required address. How to solve all these problems? Modern digital photos are almost always supplied with various metadata according to the EXIF standard: this includes, for example, the name and model of the camera, date and time of shooting, shutter speed, aperture and other data, among which, by the way, there is also GPS data. That is, geographic coordinates can be recorded directly into the image. However, modern cameras are rarely equipped with a GPS module that allows them to record coordinates in the EXIF data of the photos they take. (For some models, you may be able to purchase separate GPS devices, which record coordinates and transmit them to the camera via wireless communication, but I haven’t held such devices in my hands yet, and some friends who have tested something similar say that all this is implemented rather crookedly.) With communicators, of course, it’s easier - they are almost all equipped with a GPS module, and some of them (although, oddly enough, not everyone) can do geotagging - that is, record GPS coordinates in photographic data. Well, in any case, cameras with GPS and communicators with GPS that record coordinates in EXIF do not determine or record the position cameras in space - so that from the photograph you can accurately determine from which point the picture was taken. I studied this issue, and it turned out that for devices on Android and iOS there is a service that quite effectively solves the problem of recording geographic data and the viewing angle of the lens in the images produced. This service is called GeoCam. It has free and paid version for Android (free download, paid download), as well as free and paid versions for iPhone (free download, paid download).
GeoCam Application Page
I downloaded the Android version and installed it (on a Samsung Galaxy Note). I went to test it. It all works as follows. You launch the application, the camera mode appears as follows. Full screen - image from the camera (it was not included in the screenshot) with the viewing angle of the lens. On the top left is a piece of an area map from Google Map. On the top information panel- latitude, longitude and accuracy of determination. On the lower information panel there are viewing angle parameters: azimuth, tilt, roll.
Shooting mode
Click on the “shutter” of the camera - the image is saved along with all the coordinates. If you click on the icon under the “shutter” icon, you will see the captured frame with all the data. Below is a photo, above is a piece of a map with a viewing angle. The map can be switched between satellite-pattern modes.
Photo and map in satellite mode
Photo and map in diagram mode
There you can enable the editing mode (also map and satellite), in which you can clarify the position and viewing angle, if necessary for some reason.
Editing in Diagram Mode
Editing in satellite mode
In all these modes, maps are scaled in the usual way for modern communicators - using icons or multi-touch. Next, it is important to understand the following thing. All information collected using GeoCam about geographic coordinates, azimuth, tilt and roll of the camera is recorded directly into EXIF images! GPS data is recorded in a standardized EXIF field, and these parameters can be retrieved from there by any program that understands EXIF, and additional fields that GeoCam enters into EXIF (many programs make their own extensions of standard EXIF - this is completely acceptable) can be read as special applications GeoCam, as well as any other programs whose creators can work with this data using the EXIF extension available for download, accepted in GeoCam. Thus, if the photograph taken - just as it is - is sent somewhere (to mail, to a device, to social network), then at a minimum you can find out the GPS coordinates of the photograph taken, and in addition, if you use special extensions, you can find out the azimuth and other information that can be entered there - the photographer’s notes, user comments, and so on .
File information with comments
You can send (transfer) a photo directly from your communicator. If you press the Android “menu” button, you will see the following options choice: send, create a report, delete. The following options are offered under the send item.
Shipping options
There are many options here, and they, of course, depend on installed applications: mail, wireless network, SMS, social media, online services, other applications, and so on. Only the image itself with the corresponding data embedded in EXIF will be transmitted. Report The second menu icon is report. Created as a report PDF document, which includes a photo, two scale options for the map diagram (you can also include a satellite) and all the information collected. The document can also be transferred or forwarded anywhere or opened directly on your device. It looks something like this (clickable).
Report based on one photo
Projects
Filters
Photos can be distributed among projects manually, specifying the project when shooting, and you can also attach a set of filters to the project (continent, country, city, street, etc.), and then the captured photos will automatically fall into the desired project. Projects, among other things , are interesting because you can take away there the desired group geophoto and display all shooting points on one map. First, the necessary photos of one project are selected.
Photo of one project and menu
Selection of photos of one project
After this, the “View” button is pressed, after which on the top image GeoCam displays on the map (diagram or satellite) all the shooting points of the selected photos, between which you can switch. The map can be scaled accordingly.
All shooting points on the diagram
All survey points on the satellite
My geophoto at Geo-Photo.net
GeoView
Photo with diagram for iOS
Photo with a companion for iOS
By the way, what’s strange is that the paid (Pro) version first worked for iOS with noticeable glitches. But then I deleted it and installed it again - it worked fine. Subtleties of working with the service Some users, learning how to use the service, ask a question from the series: “Well, how can this be, and if we don’t have the Internet there, abroad, then why not take a photo without it?” Do it, of course! The essence of the service is that your communicator, using GeoCam, during shooting, puts the required coordinates on the photo plus azimuth and other data (at your discretion). After this, the photo can be sent to friends, uploaded to your computer, published on any social networks or on a special service www.geo-photo.net! Since the shooting information is saved directly in the file itself, nothing else needs to be done and no Internet is required when shooting. The main thing here is to install the application on your Android phone or iPhone, after which the coordinates and shooting angle will be saved automatically, and where and in what you will then view the captured images is up to you. Also, your friends, relatives and acquaintances will be able to view the sent photos in any services that support receiving information from EXIF, and there are hundreds of such services. conclusions The service is very interesting and useful. I tested it for about a week and was very pleased. Both on the Android phone and on the iPhone, everything worked as it should, and I have already begun to compile a separate collection of geophotos, which later, separately from the main collection, can be used as geo-referenced images. However, there is something to criticize . Photos with wired GPS data- this is great, but many users of the same social networks (and simply my readers) have no idea how to get such information from the images I publish. And it’s not their fault: my task is to provide a convenient opportunity to receive such data. What is needed for this? That's all: so that with the help of GeoCam I can prepare a photo to send by mail or to social networks with geographic coordinates superimposed directly on the image - this is the simplest option. I talked with the developers, they said that this is all quite feasible and that next versions such an opportunity will definitely appear. Yes, the service practically does not solve the problem of overlaying geocoordinates on photographs taken not with a communicator, but with cameras. (You can, of course, for cameras that support Eye-Fi cards, use Wi-Fi transmission of frames to a communicator with GeoCam with subsequent georeferencing, but this is too hemorrhoids.) However, georeferencing, as a rule, is not required for artistic photographs taken a DSLR or other high-quality photographic equipment, but for purely reportage photography (from the series - here we live, here is a cool restaurant, here is a gorgeous view of the sea, here sits a blonde in a bikini with almost no bikini every day), for which modern communicators (smartphones) - just through the roof! So now, dear readers, when I publish a photo of something interesting on my blog, don’t be lazy to look at EXIF (I traditionally almost never erase this data) - most likely, the GPS coordinates you are interested in will be there, if the shot was taken on a communicator. And now you don’t have to ask me unnecessary questions about what kind of address this is, on what street, in what country, on what continent, what planet or galaxy. Provided, of course, that it was filmed in the same universe as you and I. Well, try it yourself!
This F.A.Q. The article is intended to tell the reader how to enable display of the photo location on Android or help configure the display of geotagging information on any photo taken from an Android smartphone/tablet.
Enabling this option will help you add the geographic coordinates of the location where you took the photo that you want to upload to Vkontakte, Facebook, Instagram or another social network...
This is exactly what a photo uploaded to the network looks like, “linked” with geotagging and “uploaded” to VK.
In order to enable display of the place where the shooting took place, we will take a few simple steps to set up the system.
At the very beginning, you need to go to the “Camera” application on your mobile device and make sure that the function of adding shooting coordinates to photos is enabled:
Attention! If you begin to upload the photographs taken after this to the Internet, the shooting coordinates will become publicly available.
We are done with the camera settings. You can check the display of geotagging on photos. You need to view information about the image in the “Shooting Location” section:
If the desired result is not achieved, then we do the following...
You need to check whether location access is activated on your Android mobile device. To do this, go to general “Settings”, then select yours. Then we look for the “Confidentiality” section and go there.
It is there that we will find the “Location Access” item; we need to activate it. By doing this, we will allow all applications to receive data about our location or current geographic coordinates.
We also need to select one of three location modes:
- High accuracy. In this case operating system will use all available data from the GPS module, mobile and WLAN networks to obtain the most accurate coordinates. In this case, the battery charge will be consumed relatively quickly.
- Save battery power. Here the smartphone or tablet will receive location information based on the WLAN and mobile network(if available).
- Based on device sensors. The latter option involves analyzing positioning data only from the GPS module.
The second method is probably the most optimal. Although, it may not work on tablets that are not designed to work on mobile networks.
In the "GPS" section - " GPS coordinates"You can track all the phone's locations for a selected period of time: a day, a week, a month or any other period, and also set the interval between the time the phone's GPS coordinates are recorded. All these coordinates are marked directly on the map and connected by lines for visual convenience when viewing reports .
The "List of GPS coordinates" section displays coordinates (latitude, longitude and time) for the entire time. On the right in each line there is a “Green button”, when clicked, it will open Google map Maps with phone location coordinates.
You can also export the list of GPS coordinates to a CSV, PDF or Excel file, save to your computer and print if necessary.
Great feature for parents! You can set a GPS zone beyond which the phone should not go or, conversely, which it should not enter. For example, you can set the GPS coordinates of the school where your child studies, set the geolocation type to “outside” and set the GPS location radius (for example, 5 kilometers). If a child’s phone is outside your set limit, for example, the child goes somewhere or goes to skip class, you will receive an email message notifying you about this!
Similarly, and the opposite effect, you can set a GPS zone (type of binding “inside”), when you visit it, you will receive an email notification.
This section displays proposed route movement of the phone according to the received coordinates, based on data from the car navigator from Google. You can select the date and time of interest, based on this, the recorded coordinates (if any) will be drawn on the map and Google will plot the most suitable route.
Phone location by operator towers
There are situations when the GPS is turned off on the phone or the subscriber is not in the GPS coverage area (rare, but it happens). In this case, information about the location of the phone via operator towers helps a little. cellular communication.
In the "GPS" - "Towers (BS)" section the following information is displayed:
IMSI is an international mobile network subscriber identifier. IMSI serves to uniquely identify a cellular subscriber throughout the world. By IMSI you can determine in which country and with which operator the subscriber is registered - there are several online services eg www.numberingplans.com;
Tower ID- each base station of a cellular operator has its own ID number;
Operator name and country code of the subscriber's phone.
If you click on the “Green button” for determining the location by tower on the map, you will most likely see the following message: GPS coordinates of the BS were not found.
In Russia, the CIS and many other countries of the world there is no common base base stations with GPS coordinates! So this feature mainly works if the phone was in the US or some European countries.
In the "GPS" section - " Wi-Fi points access" all are displayed wifi networks, which were used on the phone (connected status) or were detected within the coverage area of the connected wifi network.
If you click on the "Green button" for determining the location via wifi on the map, you will most likely see the following message: It is impossible to determine the GPS coordinates of the requested Wi-Fi access point.
Unified database of public wifi points and their GPS coverage so far only exists in the USA and a number of countries in central Europe. If the phone was located in these countries, you can try to determine the coordinates.
"And why is it needed at all?
When we received (whether from a scanner, from a camera, from the Internet) an image of a card - that’s all just a picture. To be used in navigation programs, the computer must know (or be able to calculate) the coordinates of each point on this map. To do this, he needs to know at least three parameters - the coordinates of the corners of the map, the projection and the coordinate system in which it is compiled this map. All these parameters must be specified.
Let's take three examples.
1. Topographical Soviet kilometer map (L-37-140). ()
This map retains the border design. those. we know:
Corner coordinates:
Coordinate system
Projection
2. There is a topographic map, but the fields are cut off. However, the kilometer net or rudiments (crosshairs) from it.
These are, for example, half-kilometer routes of the Krasnodar Territory. First of all, we check whether this is really a grid that coincides with the nomenclature one in a given square or whether it starts on each sheet of the map from the edge of the sheet. The “correct” grid in most cases has a deviation from the vertical.
Now it is important for us to determine the rectangular coordinates of the four grid intersections. To do this, we take any other map available to us for a given area with a grid, even a two-kilometer one. Let's tie her up. Go to ozi, menu - settings - tab "Maps" - coordinate system on the right - select from the drop-down list " custom" - click on the triangle on the right and enter the settings the same as indicated. Now, when you hover the mouse cursor over the crosshairs of the kilometer grid, we see the treasured numbers that need to be entered in the “custom” field when linking our map. Most likely, it will not be possible to move the cursor exactly to the crosshairs - no problem! We know that the rectangular coordinates of the crosshairs are multiples of 1000 - since the grid is kilometer, i.e. we can safely round.
We repeat at least at four intersections that are as far apart from each other as possible.
3. There is a map (including an old one) - there is no kilometer or degree grid, or it clearly does not coincide with the generally accepted one, or there are serious doubts about their reliability, or there is a grid, the parameters of the datum and projection are unknown. In general, ANY card, even from a pack of Belomor.
Open it in any convenient graphic editor.
We determine what area this map is for.
In OZ we open any (as detailed as possible) maps for the same area. We find identical objects - in order of decreasing accuracy: churches, elevation marks, railway bridges, road intersections (including streets), river confluences. We put “dots” on these objects in the ozi. It is necessary to find at least 4 and no more than 9 such objects.
Click the menu “file - load and calibrate map” - select our map.
We set the projection to latitude\longitude, coordinate system - WGS84.
Go to the “point 1” tab, mark the desired object on the map and click on the “PT” (or “WP”) button - select the corresponding point from the list and click “use wp”. Go to the next tab and repeat with the entire list.
Save the resulting map file.
That's it, the file is attached. The accuracy of this method greatly depends on the availability of detailed maps, selected objects, and the number of anchor points. In difficult cases, other software is used, without restrictions on the number of anchor points and with physical raster straightening, high-resolution satellite images. In this case, you can quite accurately link even a photograph of the globe or the view from an airplane window, not to mention any maps.
You can order
1. Record a video and upload it to Youtube. The video must be linear, without pauses, editing, and not change speed during playback. If the video is sped up, it should be sped up equally from start to finish.
2. Record a GPS track at the same time as the video. Use maximum accuracy in GPS track recording programs, ideally one point every second. It’s good if the GPS track does not have long pauses, this will speed up the loading process.
4. The interface for linking the track to the video will load. At the top of the interface a graph of speeds and altitudes is displayed, on the left is a map and a list of linked videos, on the right is the video that you are currently linking. Click the "Add more video" button.
6. After downloading the video, you need to select a specific location in the video and its corresponding location on the GPS track. Rewind the video to the desired moment or simply press pause during playback. After the moment has been captured in the video, click on Right place GPS track maps or graphics. To select a position more accurately, scale the graph and map.
For more accurate referencing, it is convenient to enable viewing of satellite images on the map and zoom in so that the referenced objects are clearly visible. It is most convenient to tie to such objects as bridges, rivers, intersections with other roads, sharp turns, etc.
Once the desired moment is selected, click Next.
To link a video to a GPS track, you need to mark two places on the video and GPS track. These two places should be as far apart as possible. Ideally, one place should be at the beginning of the video, and the second at the end.
7. Select the second location in the same way and click Next.
8. Change the scale of the map and graphics. Save the default scales by clicking the Add button. That's it, the video is attached.
9. Add more videos or go to viewing mode by pressing the button Go to view mode.
In viewing mode, the areas for which there is an attached video are highlighted in red on the graph. When you click on the desired place in the graph, the video will rewind to that moment. Similarly, when rewinding the video, the corresponding moment will be automatically highlighted on the chart and map.
In editing mode, you can click on the video title and manually edit the binding, scales and appearance cards.
