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2009年3月20日星期五

OSX討論區 :: Geotag on Mac (for amateurs like me)

GPS logger usage on OSX

發表人: colinlai
主題: Geotag on Mac (for amateurs like me)
發表於: 星期日 二月 08, 2009 6:33 pm (GMT 8)
主題 回覆: 7

For pros the following review may be childplay. Just want to share some experience on what I did with my recent trip to Taipei and import into iPhoto 09. (This is an article I originally posted on the HKMUG BBS.)

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With the introduction of "Places" in iPhoto 09, I've bought a GPS tracking device and brought it to a recent trip to Taipei. After some experimentation, it works quite well for me. Here are some reflections of the process.

1. The GPS Tracking Unit:
I've bought the Amod AGL3080 GPS Data Logger. (http://www.amod.com.tw/) It's not the cheapest unit on the market (around US$70 on internet stores, excluding shipping) and even the one from Sony is less expensive, but it's guaranteed to work with the Mac. No other that I can find on the web claims this compatibility.

Use of the unit is simple. Just tie it to the camera or your backpack (need to be more or less steady, not swinging), switch it on and go. After 2-3 minutes the green LED will flash and it means it is tracking GPS signals. So just take the photos and turn it off when you're done.

Importing GPS data to the Mac or Windows PC is also simple. It's connected as a USB Flash Drive. (In fact the manual says you can use it as one. It has 128MB of capacity.) Copy the files to your hard drive.

2. Making GPS tracking files:
[Image:Picture 1.jpg]Then you need to convert the log files into .GPX format. Fortunately a web site does it for free for you. Go to http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/ and convert your files one by one.

The outputed files will use a suffix of ".xml". Some apps may not recognize it, so change the suffix to ".gpx".

3. Geotagging photos:
Then you need to merge the GPS data into your photos. You may use the Windows apps that comes with the GPS unit. For the Mac you need to use JetPhoto Studio 2 (also included but feature-limited for free version).

Open JetPhoto, import the JPEGs into it to make an album, then choose the photos in the same location. (See jetphoto.jpg) Click "Geotag" on the right pane, and then click "Edit". (See geotag.jpg)

Here you can import your GPX files. Then click "Automatic Locating". It'll match the geotags for the photos according to the capture time in the photos' EXIF and the GPS tracking time. If the two times are different, use the "Calendar" pane to sync the two time logs by just selecting a pull-down menu item. After a few seconds, JetPhoto will know where those photos are taken, and a small "G" icon will appear on the left corner of their thumbnails (as shown in jetphoto.jpg).

As for those that are not tagged (maybe you were indoor where GPS signals cannot reach when you took the photos), you can manually locate them. Select the photo and choose the "Geotag" pane. Click "Point Photo Location on Map". Google Map will show up with a crosshair in the middle. Just point it to where you think you took the photo and click "Locate Photo!". Then close the window. It'll now be tagged. It's just that simple. (location.jpg)

4. Importing into iPhoto 09:
But the GPS data is NOT embedded into the JPEG EXIF, so when you import them into iPhoto it'll "forget" the locations. To remedy it you have to shell out US$25 to upgrade JetPhoto to the Pro version. Then you can choose the "Merge GPS Metadata into JPEGs" command from the menu to embed the data. Now the JPEGs will contain the location data no matter where you save them to. Now you can import them into iPhoto and everything will be fine.

Cheers!
Colin
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Colin Lai
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Mac & Chelsea Evangelist

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