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Tagging Photos with GPS

Microsoft released an early version of its World-Wide Media eXchange (demo), a centralized index of digital photos, where photos are tagged by the geographic location where they were shot. All of the WWMX-related downloads require the Microsoft .NET Framework (version 1.1) to run properly.

As Smart Mobs reports, developers affiliated with the Locative Media Lab and the Place Lab initiative have been discussing and working on similar location-based photo collections and tools for years.

The WWMX Travelogue allows you to author a web page that consists of a map, photographs, text, and if you have them available, GPS tracks (in GPX format). You do not need to install the WWMX Client to take advantage of this application. If you like it, you can upload photos from your travels to the WWMX and add annotations that link to your Travelogue site.

The WWMX Client applications allows you to create Stories (effectively, photo slideshows with maps and pop-tags). These can be saved in the application as separate files that you can distribute to your friends. In order to view them independent of the WWMX Client, install the WWMX Story Viewer application.

The WWMX Client does not actually add location information to your photos; it only saves the location information in the WWMX database. To stamp photo files themselves with location information, download the WWMX Location Stamper. It will write location information into what is called the EXIF header of a JPEG file, so that the location information is stored with the file itself (rather than on a separate database).

If you own a Garmin GPS device, location stamping can be much easier than manually dragging-and-dropping onto a map. Install the WWMX TrackDownload application, which will load tracks from a handheld GPS device. The WWMX Location Stamper will then allow you to location-stamp photos by matching time stamps between your track log and the photo files.

Digital camera manufacturers may incorporate physical location in the EXIF tag. Perhaps Bluetooth will allow them to connect to GPS or additional data, as well as transfering photos to a computer.

WWMX-relevant sites, ranging from the cool to the bizarre include:

PagesJaune - every building fa ade in Paris online, indexed by address
NYT Article - about PagesJaune (see above)
GeoSnapper - similar to the WWMX
Fotolog.net - photo-centric blogging (place names, but no maps)
PixEarth - firm specializing in virtual tours on the web with georeferenced photos
Terraserver - satellite imagery on SQL Server
Earthviewer - Terraserver on steroids — would be a great inteface to the WWMX
Osaka Police - using cellphones with cameras/GPS to fight crime (Japanese site; sorry)
An Article in English - about the above Osaka Police photo project
Degree Confluence Project - cool project for people with camera, GPS, and a wacky obsession
Digital Earth - a government-sponsored effort to put all sorts of “cultural information” on a map
Alexandria Digital Library - similar to Digital Earth, but run by academia
EarthCam - webcam portal
Google Image Search - keyword image search for web; pretty good for concrete keywords
a Kodak travelogue project - nice travelogue, shows power of map+images
TravelPod - online travelogue site
MediaMapper - from RedHen Inc. - tools for mapping photos/video onto a map with GPS
Topofusion - GPS tracks on maps with photos, instant web pages; free download
Virtual Cities - a site indexing attempts to create a virtual city
VRSeattle - imagery from around Seattle
Human Clock - random photos of hand-drawn “clocks”
Applied Autonomy - maps of surveillance cams in NYC and route directions for avoiding them
Is This You? - trying to find owners of lost photos from London passport-photo kiosks
Forever Network - personal life stories online, forever

Online photo sites:

MSN Photos - MS Digital Imaging Group’s online site.
Webshots
photo.net
PhotoSIG.com

Anthony Townsend of the Taub Urban Research Center at New York University, is studying the effects of technology on cities and community development. “The whole idea behind the Internet and its appeal is that it lets you tap into ‘communities of interest’ that can’t necessarily reach critical mass wherever you’re located,” Townsend said.

The first “digital housing development” in the U.S. was in Renton, Washington, but others like Portland Online have “electronic neighborhood watch programs” which can alert neighbors of a break-in. Housing developers like PlayaVista add wireless (wi-fi) capability to their own parks and public spaces. Whether these developments will incorporate location information remains to be seen.

AT&T’s Find Friends, and Wi-Fi tracking programs like the Active Campus Project, provide similar “live” location information.

Other applications that download tracks and/or stamp photos with location information include:

RoboPhoto, GeoSpatial Experts (stamps photos with location, given GPS)

EasyGPS, MyGPS, GPSylon, GPS Utility (extracts data from your GPS and creates GPX files; most work with a variety of GPS device brands)

GPSBabel (converts other GPS formats to GPX)

Open Location Services (OpenLS) standardizes spatial standards for Location Services. Location Services depend on open, non-proprietary standards that work world-wide on many platforms.

An initiative of the Open GIS Consortium, OpenLS uses XML-based infrastructure for location-based services. The standard is intended to accelerate the development of location-based services. Areas of Interest within OpenGIS include OpenGIS Location Services (OpenLS) and OpenGIS SensorWeb for Sensor Web Enablement.

“As a member of the Open GIS consortium, Kivera has a Kivera Location Engine (demo) is used by AT&T Wireless, Sprint PCS, MetroOne and in-vehicle navigation systems.

Enabling Distributed GIS is made possible through Internet standards such as HTML and XML. OpenGIS makes it possible for browser-based (”thin”) and desktop-deployed (”full-functioned”) applications to draw on the resources of geoprocessing servers distributed across the Web.

Geocoding can put resources like Portland Maps and Multnomah County Maps on hand-helds. Interactive bike maps in tour guides are easy to create and distribute.

Some interesting map applications include:

Vindigo provides restaurant, museum and entertainment information for 27 major cities around the U.S. It can be downloaded on Verizon’s latest Z-800 line of cell phones , which adds a monthly fee of $3.75 to users’ bills.
Earthviewer Keyhole fuses high-resolution satellite and aerial imagery, elevation data, GPS coordinates, and overlay information about cities and businesses to deliver a streaming, 3D map of the entire globe. It’s a multi-million dollar remote sensing system to die for - on your desktop.
The Map Bureau uses Blogmapper to easily link blog entries to clickable locations on a map.
Geocoding Web Pages is easy. The GeoURL ICBM Address Server allows anyone to add standard Lat/Long information to a webpage (via META tags) on the header. Geocode has your latitude and longitude. Just type in your address.
Tracking devices are getting cheap. Webraska’s SmartZone enable’s Vindigo users to access driving directions on BREW-enabled phones. Webraska’s real-time, location-based services (LBS) and telematics were used in the recent BIKE TransAlp Challenge. Moving cursors tracked support vehicles.
Students at the UC San Diego use an 802.11b-based, Active Campus Project, similar to AT&T’s Find Friends, (except it’s free). Students using PDAs are tracking their friends’ locations with PDAs. It can track willing parties (Slashdot story).
GPS for Pocket PCs (chart). They cost $200 or so including the GPS receiver, software and accessories. Mobile Planet has dozens of GPS devices for Pocket PCs.
Real-time location maps of buses and trains are available from NextBus.
IBM’s WebSphere Everyplace Access, WebSphere Everyplace Connection Manager and open source-based development tools from the WebSphere Studio family can be used with the Sharp Enterprise Edition.
Portland Walking Tours, Portland Green Maps, Oregon Trip Check, metro guides and 360 degree tours might be created and packaged with advertising.
A Wireless Walking Tour could “push” audio/video files to your handheld as you walk through the Zoo, the historic district or ride in a Streetcar or your car and listen to Oregon Historical Markers. LocaleServer includes packaged applications for organizations to rapidly build location-based digital tours with hotspot management, user tracking and analysis.