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by Douglas Clifton.
Original Post: Geo Afflicted
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Hello, my name is Doug, and I am a geotagging addict. They tell me I should admit that I am powerless over this terrible affliction. Perhaps, some day, I will start down that long road to recovery.
In the meantime, I'm having too much fun. If you would like to join in, here are some steps to get you started.
1. Get yourself a Flickr account. Anyone can sign-up for free, and this worked for me for a while. But if you grow tired of the ads, and the monthly bandwidth limits that restrict the number of pictures (or rather the total amount of data) you can upload, then a pro account is less than $25 US per year. Which, when compared to the typical chemical addiction, is dirt-cheap.
2. If you haven't already, install a copy of Firefox. The extensions available for this browser are worth the admission price alone. Which is also free by the way. Many platforms are supported, including Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, FreeBSD and other Unix-like operating systems that support a graphical (GUI/desktop) interface.
3. Install Greasemonkey. If you have Firefox 1.5, then make sure you install version 0.6.4 or later. What is Greasemonkey? It's a scripting language that allows developers to modify the look and behavior of any Web site (within reason). Price: Free.
4. Install Google Maps in Flickr (GMiF). Once Greasemonkey is installed, this is as easy as right clicking on the link and selecting "Install User Script..." Free.
5. If you don't have one already, a digital camera is a must. I suppose you could use a conventional camera and scan your prints, but with the ubiquity, price, and selection of digital cameras these days, there really is no reason to stick with the old analog variety. Not free, but they are a lot cheaper and feature-rich when compared to just a few years ago. I have a Sony Cybershot, a nice little pocket-rocket camera.
6. Upload some photos to Flickr. You can use the standard browser interface provided with your Flickr account, or there are a number of tools available to make this easier.
7. Determine the location of your pictures in terms of latitude and longitude (in decimal precision rather than minutes and seconds). An inexpensive GPS handheld unit of the backpacking variety works great for this. I bought my eXplorist 200 (thanks Nick!) for under $100. Or you get an even fancier GPS such as the bluetooth TomTom that interfaces with your PDA. If you really want to go all out, have a look at the Ricoh Pro G3 digital camera, which embeds the geographic metadata using GPS technology right into the JPEG format of each photograph.
8. Geotag your photos. You can either tag each photo as you upload them (or collectively), or tag them once they are already part of your Flickr library. If you don't have a GPS device, all is not lost. If you find the spot on Google Maps or the new beta version of Yahoo! Maps, simply check the URL in the address bar of your browser for the latitude and longitude. But wait! There's an even easier way, since you already have Firefox and Greasemonkey, install the Tags for Geobloggers user script, and the tags needed for your Flickr photos are much easier to access so you can copy and paste them into Flickr. The three essential tags you need are:
geotagged
geo:lat=value
geo:lon=value
Keep in mind that if you are west of the Greenwich Meridian (for example in the United States), the longitude is expressed as a negative value. Likewise, if you are below the Equator (for instance in South America), the latitude is also expressed as a negative value.
9. Now you are ready to enjoy your photos enhanced with geographic metadata using the GMiF Greasemonkey script. View one of your pictures: Above and on the right of each one is a new Gmap button. Click on it and a map appears, replacing the picture. That's right, you don't have to leave Flickr to use this feature! That's the power of Greasemonkey in a nutshell. The photo will appear as a thumbnail in a tooltip pointing at the location on the map. Included with the tooltip are the title of the picture, the latitude and longitude and links to other Flickr and external functions. Along the bottom of the map are all of your geotagged pictures, and a set of controls that allow you to cycle through them, or play them as a slideshow while the map updates to reflect the current image. Neat, eh?
10. Join the Geotagging Flickr group. Now you can load all of your pictures and, from the sidebar, select the group so you drag and drop your photos for everyone in the group to enjoy.
11. Don't forget to check out the pictures from the other enthusiasts in the group! Remember, the tools you now have at hand will work for any photo on Flickr, as long as it is geotagged. It's a fascinating "armchair" way of traveling all over the world, and see it through someone else's camera lens.
12. Share your pictures with friends, family (send them an email with a link) or everyone by making your Flickr photos publicly viewable. By using a link to the Geobloggers Web site in your geotagged photo's description, like this:
Then anyone can follow the link regardless of which browser they are using and see the mapped location of the picture. Note: Geobloggers was down for retooling at the time of this writing, look for it to be back up soon.
I suppose you can blame me if you become a geotagging addict too. See you at the meetings! Or more likely, the Geotagging Flickr group.
Enjoy your holidays, and don't forget to share some photographs.
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Hello, my name is Doug, and I am a geotagging addict. They tell me I should admit that I am powerless over this terrible affliction. Perhaps, some day, I will start down that long road to recovery.