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Guilford County GIS & Tax Appraisal Departments Street Level Photography Project. A Technical Discussion of the Tax Photo Geotagging Processes. Eric Funderburk, GISP/GIS Analyst, Guilford County GIS. Street Level Photography Project Overview.
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Guilford County GIS & Tax Appraisal Departments Street Level Photography Project A Technical Discussion of the Tax Photo Geotagging Processes Eric Funderburk, GISP/GIS Analyst, Guilford County GIS
Street Level Photography Project Overview • Appraiser needed help processing large numbers of street level photos • No Budget to pay for a solution • Utilized “no-cost” resources • Automated Workflow
Street Level Photography Project Processes • Collecting Photos • Using ArcPad to create a photo point map • Retrieving Photos • Synchronizing Field Data from the Mobile PC • Geotagging Photos • Renaming Photos by Parcel ID
Collecting Photos Tax department staff took photographs of single-family residential structures to assess their current value
Equipment Used Basic Point & Shoot Digital Panasonic Toughbook Trimble Handheld GPS External GPS Antenna
Automating the Image Copy Process Once the SD card is removed from the camera, and loaded into the USB card reader. It is inserted into the users USB port, and is recognized by the user’s local machine. Then a python script is executed from the user’s desktop by double-clicking the "GetPhotobyDate" Icon. The script reads the SD card in the card reader, and reads the time and date that each digital image was taken. It then creates a directory on the server by date and copies the images by date to their corresponding directories. "GetPhotobyDate"
The ArcPhoto Tools and Geotagging Images The ArcPhoto Tools are a set of geoprocessing tools and ArcMap user interface enhancements to enable the quick import of digital photographs into the ArcGIS
EXIF (Exchangeable Image File Format) The EXIF (Exchangeable Image File Format) data is information that is encoded into standard digital imagery. EXIF Data Includes: • Camera Type & Model • Focal Length • Aperture • Flash • Time & Date • GPS • (Latitude & Longitude)
Renaming Photos by Parcel ID 0179470 Renamed Photo File – r0179470.jpg RenamePhotosByParcel
Conclusion • Reappraisal productivity at Guilford County increased immediately and dramatically. • After implementing the use of ArcPhoto into their workflow, their productivity increased at a phenomenal rate. Productivity increased from the 50 to 75 photos per day to 1500 to 2000 per day. At the end of the photo season were we able to process and geotag 75,000 images. • Although Guilford County had no money to fund its reappraisal project, using in-house equipment and existing expertise, the tax and GIS departments collaborated and improved the daily output associated with this project. 2009-2010 Solutions Awards Significant Achievement In- House Collection of Street level Photographs This project was featured in the Fall 2011 edition of ArcUser Magazine