bioneural.net » geocaching

Know your waypoints from your track points

Bruce — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 20:23:05 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net doi:tSglPpAB7a8nfM :

Geotagging photos can be done manually or automatically. When using a GPS data logger in automatic mode your position at each point in time (intervals vary) is recorded as a track point. The collection of track points recorded during a logging session is called a track log. Some devices (e.g. GlobalSat DG-100, Holux M-241) feature a button for manual entry of a specific GPS location as a waypoint, which you can match to the corresponding photo(s) by hand. That all sounds pretty straight forward doesn't it? Well it's not, because some GPS devices can't tell their waypoints from their track points. Thankfully the aptly-named GPSBabel can translate us a way out of this misunderstanding for the DG-100, and an update to BT747 means you can now download waypoints from the M-241 to your Mac. It's not merely a question of semantics Contiguous track points illustrate a very clear path on a map: you can see exactly where you went and, at a pinch, use a pre-recorded track to follow in someone else's footsteps. What you can't do is readily identify particular locations, because when plotted on a map track points are indistinguishable from one another. Specific locations (waypoints) have a variety of uses, including manual geotagging of photos, mapping points-of-interest, indicating landmarks for direction-finding, or marking cache locations in geocaching. If you're looking to providing instructions you want others to be able to follow, an ordered set of waypoints (describing a route) is what you need. Lets look at some simple examples with ...

Get your GPS fix with RouteBuddy 2.2

Bruce — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 12:11:27 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net doi:tSglPpAB7a8nfM :

RouteBuddy is an application for Mac marketed as "iTunes for your GPS" in reflection of some interface similarities. It works with most GPS receivers to plot your live position on high-quality street maps, but can also import and export saved data to/ from some devices, applications, and online services. With full-featured and highly portable personal navigation devices increasingly affordable (e.g. TomTom, Garmin) and free tools available for direction-finding and location-sharing (e.g. Google Maps, Google Earth), you may be forgiven for wondering what gap in the market RouteBuddy aims to fill. This question set the brief for my review as I determined to assess its strengths and weakness against the tools you may use already. Disclosure: A single user license for RouteBuddy 2.1.1–2.2 with UK & Ireland maps was provided by RouteBuddy Ltd. for the purposes of this review. Tested using a 1.83GHz Intel Core Duo MacBook with 2GB RAM. Skip to: Prelude The RouteBuddy interface in brief RouteBuddy and GPS device compatibility Have software, need map Tracking Planning Navigating Importing Exporting Sharing Analyzing Plotting Managing Finding Summary and conclusion Prelude I gave up on Route 66 (now defunct route-planning software) with the arrival of Google Maps, but still largely relied on a spiral-bound paper road atlas—until I hired a car with "sat nav". After a false start with Navman, I migrated to the more Mac-friendly TomTom platform, which led me to discover the sport of geocaching. Then it was back to Navman, and then TomTom again, by which time I had caught up with photo geotagging—and that has become something of a preoccupation. Why am I boring you with ...

First geocaching tool for iPhone released

Bruce — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 08:29:41 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net doi:tSglPpAB7a8nfM :

Geopher Lite, available from the iTunes App Store for £2.39, will help you find nearby geocaches from Geocaching.com using a directional arrow and location awareness on your iPhone. It doesn't support Bluetooth GPS receivers/ data loggers and is extremely basic compared to GeoNiche for Palm, but is a welcome development nevertheless. A more complete app is promised in due course.

In-car GPS + Palm = DIY photo tracker

Bruce — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 16:00:50 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net doi:tSglPpAB7a8nfM :

If I told you I was using a GPS photo tracking system for geotagging photos from my Nikon D70 that stored track logs and waypoints to 1GB of memory, exported in GPX format, and connected to my Mac via USB or Bluetooth—you'd be right to wonder if I was making it up. It's not fiction, and nor is it new tech either. It's a "make do" solution I put together from gear I'd already been using for several years and with £0 new investment. Given poor Mac support in the data logger market, such a system is surely a good way to experiment on the cheap before shelling out on yet more battery-operated gadgetry. A DIY photo tracking kit A Nikon D70 I shoot in raw, meaning my D70 saves images in Nikon's NEF format. Although finding Mac OS X software that can write geo-location data to EXIF in raw is not difficult, getting that data in the first place is somewhat more involved. The D70 is neutered when it comes to support for on-camera fully automated geotagging (I'm still not entirely clear whether this is a physical hot shoe issue, or a firmware deficiency—anyone?) The upshot is that my only choice, other than the tiresome manual method, is automatic geotagging using a standalone data logger (aka photo tracker). A Navman 4470 "But why do you need another GPS?", my wife justly asked. Indeed I do have a GPS device equipped with Bluetooth, the Navman 4470, which I use for in-car navigation. Navman make great ...

GPS data logger for iPhone looks doubtful

Bruce — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 00:08:36 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net doi:tSglPpAB7a8nfM :

The iPhone SDK is out in beta, and a GPS module for iPhone and iTouch from gomite is "pending". However, as Wired observe the ban on background processes for third-party apps "eliminates the possibility of a geo-data updater running in the background, reporting your location back to a web service". This might also make it impossible to use the iPhone's camera app in conjunction with data logging software for geotagging if they can't run simultaneously. What happens if you need to take a call—would the logger have to quit?

An ABC of geotagging photos on the Mac

Bruce — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 19:30:54 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net doi:tSglPpAB7a8nfM :

This article considers geotagging photos from a Mac perspective, looking at automatic and manual methods, and explaining terms such as data loggers, track points, waypoints, and routes. It lists OS X software options for connecting to data loggers, converting track log formats, geo-locating photos, and writing that data to EXIF for both raw and JPEG images. It also covers the importance of time synchronization, what you can do with geotagged photos, workflow, choosing a data logger and controlling it from your Mac. Introduction With my blog articles geotagged and mapped, and the launch of geotagicons.com behind me, the next challenge was to consider geotagging my photos in future. Some time ago I blogged about doing this in iPhoto, and although workable for a small selection of images this manual/ best guess option doesn't scale well to 2-3 week vacations when you return with several hundred images and a poor recollection of what was taken exactly where. Before getting started on something (i.e. spending money!) I like to try and gain a reasonable overview of what I'm about to get into. What follows is a summary of my research into the terminology, technology, hardware and software that a budding Mac photo geotagger will want to get to grips with. If you also like to look before you leap then this article may be of service to you. Although written with fellow Mac users in mind, if you're afflicted with Windows much of the article is still relevant. What is geotagging? In a photographic context, geotagging ...

Geocaching with TomTom: a Mac/ Palm solution

Bruce — Fri, 13 Jan 2006 10:05:47 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net doi:tSglPpAB7a8nfM :

Jeff Fort read my post concerning the installation of TomTom POI from a Mac. Jeff is into geocaching, and asked if I knew a way to get waypoints into TomTom Navigator 5 on his Palm from his Mac. While I'd heard of Geotagging (with reference to tagging images with GPS co-ordinates), my first step was to find out something about geocaching. Then I could start looking at the problem... According to Wikipedia: Geocaching is an outdoor activity that most often involves the use of a Global Positioning System ("GPS") receiver or traditional navigational techniques to find a "geocache" (or "cache") placed anywhere in the world. A typical cache is a small, waterproof container containing a logbook and "treasure", usually trinkets of little value. Participants are called geocachers; those not familiar with geocaching are called geo-muggles or just muggles, a term borrowed from the Harry Potter series. Geocaching is similar to a much older activity called letterboxing. The major difference is its use of the GPS and the Internet. Err... interesting! The Geocaching.com website has a great tagline: "The sport where You are the search engine". An exchange of e-mail determined Jeff had the following requirements: To download a geocaching.loc file from http://www.geocaching.com; To use GeoNiche, a Palm app, to view the data when walking; To get the data in the .loc file into .pdb format for GeoNiche using the Java applet EasyNiche); To use the same waypoints in the file from 1. with TomTom maps in order to find the locations in the car. As Jeff explains ...