­Originally developed for the military , global location arrangement ( GPS ) engineering is now at the heart of some of our coolest consumer gadgets . GPS is the power behind onboard navigation systems in car . It ’s what lets your prison cell phone know that you ’re at the nook of Main Street and Market . And most lately , it ’s what permit you to chase your digital photos with exact geographic information .

GPS photo tagging , also known asgeotagging , is the appendage of embedding a digital photograph with parallel of latitude , longitude and even altitude data . GPS pic tagging is one of the latest offshoots of a larger tagging apparent motion that lets you categorize and organize content .

or else of relying on a hunting engine like Google to tell us that a blog unveiling is about Bill Gates ' campaign to eradicate malaria , the creator of the web log can tag the entry with the words " Bill Gates " and " malaria . " The same give out for picture . On photo sharing Web site like Flickr , users can tag their pic with information about who or what is in the photograph and where is was get ( " San Francisco " or " Ames , Iowa " ) . Other users can explore or browse by tags to see the most relevant content .

GPS photograph tagging can trend down on the amount of employment it takes to go after images on the Internet . If you upload a geotagged photo to Flickr , the vane internet site automatically loads your photo onto its interactional world mapping . Now other users can search for and view flick taken in your precise geographic location .

GPS exposure tagging also allows you to organize your personal picture library . In the past , when you wanted to seek for a particular picture on your figurer , you had to remember the day of the month that it was convey . But if all of your digital photos are chase with location information , then you may search your library for " Philadelphia " and see all of the photos that you ’ve choose there .

GPS photo tagging also has professional applications . If you ’re a film location sentinel , you may accurately map all of the exposure you exact during a scouting trip to Ireland . veridical demesne agents can allow for clients with an synergistic photo map of all of their properties . archaeologist can link up photos with other geographic information system ( GIS ) data when plan a jibe .

Keep read learn more about the mechanics of GPS photo tagging and some of the coolest geotagging applications .

Mechanics of GPS Photo Taggers

When you take a photo with a digital camera , the photographic camera immortalise a lot more datum than just the image . This information includes the time and date when the photo was bring , the orientation of the tv camera ( portrait or landscape painting ) , whether a flare was used and even detailed camera options like aperture , exposure and focal distance . All of these data is stack away in something called theEXIF headerof the photo .

EXIF stands for Exchangeable Image File Format . EXIF header provide a means of stamping photos with data that can read by other software like exposure management software system or photo WWW sites . This is how your reckoner automatically knows to put your photo in a folder titled February 28 , 2009 , and to circumvolve the image 90 degrees .

The cool thing about EXIF headers is that there ’s room to admit longitude , parallel and ALT co-ordinate . In recent age , we ’ve seen new hardware and software app that can embed localization data into EXIF headers usingGPStechnology .

To understand how this works , we ’ll walk you through the process for manually GPS tagging a picture using a standard digital camera and an inexpensive GPS pass catcher .

Manually trail each photo with GPS coordinates can be a bit DoL - intensive . Also , even though there are great deal of free and shareware EXIF editor useable online , there is n’t a surefire solution that make for every time on every engage system . As of this writing , iPhoto ' 09 from Apple is the only mainstream photo redaction software that permit you manually add GPS coordinates to an EXIF header [ rootage : Shankland ] .

Luckily , there are pile of new hardware , package and Web applications that make it soft to tag your pic with GPS data and partake them on interactive , on-line maps . Keep reading to learn more .

GPS Photo Tagger Applications

­One of the easiest shipway to mechanically tag your photograph withGPSdata is to buy a tv camera with a build up - in Global Positioning System receiver . On the high end of the spectrum is a camera like the Ricoh 500SE , which is design for Gi professional . In addition to have a built - in GPS chip , this camera has the choice of connect via Bluetooth to a handheld GPS receiver for even more exact readings . Every time you take a image , the GPS data point is written to the picture ’s EXIF header .

For recreational lensman , there are more and more compact , percentage point - and - shoot digital cameras that have built - in GPS chips . There are even electric cell telephone set , like the Nokia N78 , that have both a built - in camera and a GPS chip .

Another alternative is to buy a small GPS receiver that attaches to your camera . Nikon sell a low GPS photo - go after machine that attaches to the flash " shoe " on its higher close digital SLR fashion model .

If you ’re looking for a GPS photograph tagging solvent that works with all digital cameras , then consider a small GPS tracker . essentially , you turn on the gadget , put it in your pocket and take movie all day . Before you upload the pictures to your calculator , take out the tv camera ’s memory board card and sneak in it in the GPS tracker . All of the GPS data is automatically written to each photo ’s EXIF header . Now you could upload as common .

Another interesting gadget is the Eye - Fi Explorer , an SD memory card with a small WiFi radio transceiver . Though it does n’t receive signaling from satellites like a normal GPS unit , the Eye - Fi Explorer talks to WiFi groundwork place that give it geographic info . This may be a solution if you ’re pack photos in a city , but wo n’t form well out in rural or distant area . Also , it ’s not as accurate as a GPS receiver would be [ source : Gross ] .

There are a grow issue of Web situation for viewing your geotagged photos on a map and sharing them with supporter . Flickr is one of the most pop photo communion situation for chromosome mapping photo . Even if your photos have n’t been tag with GPS information , Flickr permit you drag and drop your photos on a map to tag them with longitude and latitude coordinates . Keep in mind , however , that you have to do this manually . Flickr is n’t using the information from the figure ' EXIF lintel .

If you desire to upload antecedently geotagged photos to Flickr , you have to go to your account options and switch the " Import EXIF position data " tab to " yes . " Flickr sets the nonremittal answer to " no " to protect its users ' privacy . Now Flickr will automatically load all of your GPS - tagged photos on its map opinion . you’re able to also create modest maps to partake with supporter .

Two other photo World Wide Web sites , Picasa and Panoramio – both owned by Google – not only set aside you to upload photo and create synergistic photo map , but they let you see and share photos using Google Earth . Google Earth is a free software app that permit you to zoom in and look for 3 - D artificial satellite image on a virtual Earth .

Picasa and Panoramio both give you the option of creating a .kml Indian file from your uploaded photos or total album . If you imagine Google Earth as a kind of World Wide Web browser app , then .kml files are like HTML file [ source : Google Earth User Guide ] . Google Earth reads a .kml file and display your photograph in their exact geographical location on its virtual planetal surface . Even better , you could share your .kml files with Friend .

For lots more data about digital camera and travel gizmo , conform to the links on the next page .

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