Geotagging With Geosetter

[+MountainWoods]

This article is back no longer "under construction", but I cannot change the topic subtitle.

 

For those of us who like to document where we took a photo from (often that can also be the coordinates of waymark, but not always), but don't (yet) have a camera that automatically geotags the photo, here is how you can use your Garmin GPSr and the free Geosetter program. You can probably do this with other units, but I'll let someone who has one of them provide the particular information for that unit.

 

Why would you want to do this? If you have to ask, skip this topic. This is for folks who want geotagged photos. Pardon my John Deere color scheme on my PC.

 

The below may seem tedious. But after you do it once or twice, it is really quite easy. Almost everything is done with a few mouse button clicks, with little or no typing.

 

Whilst taking your photos, you can either turn on tracking and just snap your photos, or you can deliberately make a separate waypoint on your GPSr at about the same time as you take a photo or group of photos from one spot. For this tutorial, I chose the latter. But the directions are similar. If you use a track, you may not end up with a waypoint at the exact location where you took the photo, depending on your track settings, and how close the date/time in your camera matches what the GPSr is reporting from the satellites.

 

Before doing your photo shoot, check the time on your GPSr and synchronize your camera's time to as close as possible. I just made sure mine had the same minute.

 

1. Bring up BaseCamp, and connect your GPSr to your PC so that BaseCamp can see the waypoints (or the track) that you made on your photo shoot.

The names of the waypoints are not important. I just let my unit choose the name from an internal numbering sequence. We are only going to use the time information recorded with the waypoint.

 

2. Export the waypoints or track(s) to a file.

The location of the file is not important, as long as you remember where you put it. I just put it on the Desktop. My file ended up being named

Internal Storage.gpx

You may be able to skip steps 1 and 2, and just use the appropriate .gpx file from your unit, if you know which file to use. For example, if you cleared out all of your Waypoints and Tracks before going on the photo shoot, you can find, by the file's date and time, which file contains your data. It might be something like Waypoints.gpx, or it might have a date or number in the file name. Exporting, as above, allows you to verify what you are using.

 

3. You are now done with BaseCamp. In Windows Explorer, right click the folder where you uploaded your photos form your cameras memory (card), and click GeoSetter > Browse...

 

4. This is what a portion of the main GeoSetter Browse window looks like.

Press Ctrl-A or use the menu: Images -> Select All.

 

5. Select Synchronize with Data File (or press Ctrl-G) ...

... and click on its "..." button (see next image, below).

Edited August 25, 2014 by MountainWoods

[+MountainWoods]

The forums only allow so many photos in a single post; so continuing....

 

6. Choose the GPX file that you exported from BaseCamp.

 

7. Choose the rest of the options as best you can from this image, and what you want. (For example, if you used a track, and don't mind having the coordinate be interpolated based on the photo time versus track point times surrounding the photo time, you can choose the Interpolate setting.)

If your camera does record a timezone in the image data, you should leave the "Take Time Zone ..." (sic) checked. The meaning of the text on this check box is not clear. I was performing a lot more steps to get the synchronize to work, until I realized that I should uncheck this box for my camera.

 

8. After clicking OK, you should get the good news.

 

9. If you wish, you can click on Report... to see how the photos matched up with your waypoints or track points.

Notice that it tells you how many seconds there were different between each photo and the corresponding waypoint time.

 

After dismissing the report, click Yes in the dialog shown in Step 8.

Edited August 25, 2014 by MountainWoods

[+MountainWoods]

10. You don't need to save the track. It is just a .gpt file with each of the points listed.

 

11. Now we're back at the main Browse window of Geosetter. The red text shows the EXIF data that has not been saved back into the photo files. Notice that the Taken Date column values are not red -- because Geosetter was not asked to change them; so they'll remain whatever they were.

Press Ctrl-S or File -> Save to save the EXIF data back into the photo files.

 

12. Just for kicks, you can see where the photos are located on a map. I usually use View -> Map to turn off the Map while working. But I'll turn it on for a bit.

 

13. And here is the map.

Edited August 25, 2014 by MountainWoods

[+MountainWoods]

Windows Explorer allows you to choose the columns that are visible in the Detailed view, but, at least in XP, the coordinates of the image is not one of the columns you can see in Explorer. But you can use Geosetter to see the information in the future.

 

If you upload the photo to a site that does not strip the EXIF data from the photo file, you can use the EXIF Viewer browser extension to see the location of each image, and even bring up a map with the location. The Waymarking site (when it works) does not strip out EXIF data. Facebook does strip the EXIF data for privacy reasons.

 

Note: The Waymarking Forums do not pass the EXIF data through. If you have the EXIF Viewer browser extension, you will only get "EXIF data not found" if you hover over the photos below. However, if you go to Photobucket, and after multiple clicks (on the magnifying glasses) to get to View Original, the EXIF data shows up via the EXIF Viewer extension. You can then hover over the red GPS portion to see where the photo was taken. Or click on the red GPS (letters, not an icon) to bring up a separate tab with a map.

 

I can now see that this photo of our curious donkey and horses:

was taken from N36°35.649' W094°00.306'

 

And that this photo of rock cliffs:

was taken from N36°35.889' W094°00.633'

 

See more at my Photobucket pages.

Edited August 25, 2014 by MountainWoods

[+MountainWoods]

Sorry. I thought I could remove the UNDER CONSTRUCTION subtitle after I got this complete. But I cannot edit the topic title or subtitle. Construction is done. For now.

[+MountainWoods]

Apparently this topic locked. I can no longer edit any of the posts. I can edit my posts in other topics, but there is no Edit box/link for my previous posts in this topic. (I can only edit this reply.)

 

Anyway,

 

Please let me know about your interesting experiences using GeoSetter, or other such tools. Thanks!

Edited August 26, 2014 by MountainWoods