Introduction to GPS-Photo Link

1. Introduction to GPS-Photo Link By GeoSpatial Experts Modified by NRCS Nebraska for use as a Field Office Step by Step Guide. Viewing Instructions : Click left mouse or press Enter to continue slide show Modified for Printing as a Step by Step Guide.

2. How to use GPS-Photo Link Slides 3 - 4 Slides 5 – 7 Slide 8 Slides 9 – 10 Slides 11 – 19 Slides 20 – 28 Introduction Camera Setup/Use GPS Setup/Use In the Field Back at Computer Final Product Output Directory Web pages ESRI ArcView & ArcGIS

3. What is GPS-Photo Link? GPS-Photo Link is software that “links” digital photos to the GPS coordinates where they were taken WITHOUT any connecting wires in the field.

4. How can it link photos to GPS coordinates without wires? • GPS-Photo Link downloads the photos from the camera and the GPS tracklog or waypoints from the GPS receiver. Next it matches the timestamp from the photo to the closest timestamp in the GPS data. What if the camera and GPS are not set to the same time? GPS-Photo Link allows you to correct for differences when you run the program.

5. Camera Setup (Date & Time) • Set the Date and Time (Olympus C-4000 Zoom) • This affects the way image files are named, and each picture will be recorded with date and time information. • Set the mode dial to "P" and press . The monitor turns on and the top menu appears. • Press on the arrow pad to select MODE MENU. • To access the Date/Time menu, press three (3) times to scroll to the SET tab. Now press . • Press five (5) times to select , and then press . • Use the keys to select the desired date format (usually M, D, Y). • Press to proceed to the next field. Adjust the date and time in the appropriate fields using the keys. Repeat the process until all date/time fields have been set. • Press twice to set the date and time and exit the menu. • Note: Time is entered using the 24-hour format.

6. Camera Use (Taking Pictures - Viewfinder) • Taking a Picture with the Viewfinder • Turn the camera Power/Mode dial to "P" (Program shooting). • Frame your subject using the crosshairs in the viewfinder. • Press the shutter button halfway. • The C-4000 Zoom confirms the focus and exposure are properly set when you see a steady green lamp in the viewfinder. The orange lamp informs you that the flash is recommended and/ or recharging (when blinking); or ready to fire (when steady). • Press the shutter button completely to take the picture. • A short beep confirms your picture has been taken.

7. Camera Use (Taking Pictures - Monitor) • Taking a Picture with the Monitor • Turn the camera Power/Mode dial to "P" (Program shooting). • Press once and frame your subject using the full-color monitor. • Icons representing camera settings appear on the monitor, telling you important information such as the flash, aperture, shutter speed, image quality modes, and the number of frames remaining. • Press the shutter button halfway. • The C-4000 Zoom confirms the focus and exposure are properly set when you see a steady green lamp in the viewfinder. The orange lamp informs you that the flash is recommended and/ or recharging (when blinking); or ready to fire (when steady). • Press the shutter button completely to take the picture. • A short beep confirms your picture has been taken. • Press once to turn off the full-color monitor (save power).

8. Refer to NE GPSmap76 Note – V1 (4/16/02) found on the Nebraska NRCS State Office “O” drive. (O:\GIS_GPS\NE_GPSmap_76_Note.doc) Garmin Waypoints or Track Logs can be used as the source of the GPS information for digital photos. GPS Setup/Use • GPS Track Log Method • Page 13 & 14 from NE Note doc. • ADVANTAGES: • Tracks automatically recorded while the GPSmap76 is on, no need to remember to MARK the waypoint where photo was taken. • You can concentrate on taking photos without worrying about collecting GPS data. • Can be used as a backup to the Waypoint method. • GPS can be ignored once running, put in pocket, no juggling. • Disadvantage: • Need to make sure Track Log is in a recording mode. • No backup if not used with Waypoints. • GPS Waypoint Method • Page 12 from NE Note doc. • ADVANTAGE: • Each site where photo is taken is confirmed with a Waypoint data collection procedure. • GPS data can be backed up with TRACK Log data. • Disadvantage: • Need to remember to collect GPS data for each photo taken. • Juggling use of two pieces of equipment Camera and GPS.

9. In the Field – Get Ready • Simply go to the site of the photos, turn on the GPS and make sure it has a position. • Next, take a photo of the GPS. • Be careful to prevent sun glare on GPS screen. • Photo of GPS must have legible information of the current time. • Take another photo if you are unsure. • Do not change the Camera Time setting after taking photo of the GPS time because the linking of the photos to the GPS data will be incorrect.

10. In the Field – Take Pictures • With Camera and GPS in tow, take pictures of subjects while: • GPS is running a track log. • Check map screen to verify track log is running. Look for “cookie crumb” trail showing where you have recently been. • Or • Enter a waypoint when the picture is taken (shortly before or after picture is taken).

11. Back at ComputerMove photos to Customer Folder • Create a new site visit photo directory in “Assistance_Notes” directory of the Customer Folder. • With camera OFF, attach camera to computer USB port. • Turn the Power/Mode dial to , this is the computer communications mode. • Copy photos from camera E:\DCIM\100OLYMP drive and paste photos to the site visit photo directory created in the Customer Folder. • Review photos in Customer Folder. • Be sure there is one good photo of the GPS with time info legible. • Delete unwanted photos now if you like. • Delete photos from camera after review. • Safely remove camera from computer and shut camera off.

12. Run GPS-Photo Link Software Wizard 1) Select options as shown. 2) Change “Camera Folder” using […] button to select the directory created under the customer folder that contains the photos copied from the camera. Note that screen will update with # photos found in the directory. 3) Change “Photo Root Folder” to the same folder used for “Camera Folder” above. 4) Name “New Folder to be created…” as “GPS_PHOTO_LINK”. 5) For “Original Photo Action”, select “Move photos to output folder” or “No Action”. See [Help] for more info on option. 6) Click [Next>] Feel free to play with the settings as you get more comfortable with the software.

13. Run GPS-Photo Link Software Wizard 1) Connect GPS unit to the computer COM port. Turn on GPS unit and verify “Interface” = GARMIN. Switch Garmin to “Start Simulator” mode. (see top of page 15 in GPS Note doc) 2) Select options as shown. 3) Change “Download” options accordingly. This example uses Garmin Track Logs with GPS unit “on port” COM 1. 4) “Datum/Position Format” should match GPS unit settings. (see page 7 in GPS Note doc) 5) Click [Next>] and the “Downloading…” progress bar shows the GPS data process.

14. Run GPS-Photo Link Software Wizard 1) Select options as shown. 2) Note the option to use “GPS position only if within X seconds” limits which GPS locations will be used. Uncheck this if using Waypoints and you forgot to take a photo within the specified time. 3) Review Matching options below 4) Always check the box for ”Auto adjust for daylight savings”. 5) Click [Next>] - Match to closest GPS point - Matches the photo time to the nearest GPS point, whether it is before or after the photo was taken. - Interpolate between closest track points - This option will compute the position of the photo by interpolating between the two points in the track log closest to the photo time. - Match to closest point BEFORE photo - Matches to the closest GPS point that occurred before the photo was taken. - Match to closest point AFTER photo - Matches to the closest GPS point that occurred after the photo was taken.

15. Correct for time differences 1) Select photo, click once on the photo filename listed. 2) Find photo of the GPS unit. 3) Enter GPS Unit time displayed in photo. 4) The software calculates the time offset between the GPS unit time and the time recorded in the photo file. - The photo file contains an internal time stamp, it is not displayed on the photo itself. - Note large offset in this example. The camera local time has not been updated for daylight savings. It maybe worth while to adjust the camera time setting (slide 5) to more closely match the correct time, but not necessary. DO NOT CHANGE CAMERA TIME AFTER TAKING PICTURE OF GPS TIME! - Note you can exclude this picture in the final output.

16. Customize Photos 1) Review each photo. Select photo, click once on the photo filename listed. 2) Use “Photo attributes” options to adjust Brightness, Contrast or Rotate Images. 3) Select check box to “exclude” bad or unwanted photos from the final output. - Note, if you selected the option to “Move Photos to output folder” on slide 12, the photos checked for not including will be permanently deleted. 4) Click [OK] after reviewing all photos listed.

17. Adjust font & color Select which information to include Preview Customize Photos • You can choose from a wide variety of colors and styles for the photo labels (watermark). 1) Select Options. 2) Click [Next>] Note on slide 13 we selected UTM so the output is grid, not Lat/Lon.

18. Finalize Photos • 1) Select options and add unique information to each photo. • 2) Select each photo listed to apply information accordingly. • - Name all the photos in the series. • Give individual photos unique “Photo Comment”. These comments can be used in the next step to rename photos. • Enter direction, comments, etc. • 3) Click [OK] after applying unique options to all photos listed. Note photos previously selected to be excluded from output are not listed.

19. File Output 1) Select options. 2) Select [Help] to review all the available options. 3) Renaming photo files is a nice option. 4) If you create web pages, consider downloading all web page images to local file. - This will enable you to better distribute the web pages without need for internet access. For example: writing the folder to a CD ROM for the producer to look at on his/her home computer. 5) Click [Finish] and processing begins. Feel free to play with the settings to find your desired output.

20. Files in output directory 1) Double click “index.htm” to open the created home web page. 2) Each photo has a web page. 3) Note all files renamed to the “Photo Comment” from the “Extra Data Entry” screen (slide 18). 4) Note in example, original photo was moved to “GPS_PHOTO_LINK” directory from directory “grp_photo_followup_nov_04”. 5) The original photo with GPS info appended is named with “_tag”. 5) ArcView shapefile created named “picture” which can be used with the ArcView Extension for viewing “Hot Linked Photos” in ArcView. 6) Garmin Track Log saved ArcView shapefile named “track”.

21. Sample Overview web page 1) Overview map shows where all the photos were taken. 2) Click on a point and that photos individual web page will appear. 3) Click on a thumbnail photo and that photos individual webpage will appear. Thumbnail Directory

22. Sample individual photo web page and distributing the web pages on CD-ROM 1) Individual photo web page includes watermarked photo, maps downloaded from internet and information about the photo. 2) You can move the original photo site investigation folder to any other location and the web pages will work. 3) Write the folder to a CD-ROM to give to the producer for review on his/her home computer. In this example, after creating the CD-ROM the producer would open the file: D:\grp_photo_followup_nov_04\GPS_PHOTO_LINK\index.htm

23. GPS Photo Link ArcView Extension 1) Copy the “gpl.avx” ArcView Extension file (C:\Program Files\GPS-Photo Link\gpl.avx) to “C:\ESRI\AV_GIS30\ARCVIEW\EXT32”. 2) Start ArcView and select File>Extensions…. 3) In the Extensions pop-up window place a check mark in the box for GPS-Photo Link and click [OK]. 4) Note we have added the “picture” shapefile from the output directory shown on slide 20, turned it on and made it “Active” (raised). 5) The Photo Link [camera] button is now available.

24. ArcView Extension 1) Click and hold down on the [camera] button. - Select the “blue” camera for showing the photo in an ArcView view. -Note attempting to use JPG images may result in Segmentation Error as JPG is not a default ArcView HOT LINK type. - Select the “green” camera for showing the photo using Windows default JPG viewer. 2) Click on a point from the “picture” shapefile and the photo will open for viewing.

25. ArcView Hot Link Old Photos 1) In this example we have some old site photos we would like to link to an old GPS point shapefile called “photo_points_2004”. This can be done in ArcView using the HOT LINK tools. - NOTE, ArcView default HOT LINK Tool does not handle JPG Images. In this example we first had to open the original JPG file and save it as a GIF, which ArcView will handle (BMP, TIFF will also work but may result in very large files).

26. ArcView Hot Link Old Photos 1) Edit the point table to include an attribute field with the filename of the photo you wish to hot link. 2) With the point theme active select Theme>Properties. 3) In the theme properties window, select the Hot Link icon along the left side and fill in the drop down items. 4) With the point theme active, note the [lightning bolt] hot link button in the View button bar, click it once. 5) Click on the point in the view and the linked photo will appear.

27. Arc GIS Extension Install 1) The ArcGIS Extension is installed when the GPS Photo Link Software is installed. 2) Open ArcGIS. 3) [Right Click] in the tool bar area. 4) Scroll down the pop-up menu and select “Customize…” 5) In the Customize pop-up window, under the [Toolbars] tab, place a check mark next to “GPS-Photo Link”. 6) Click [Close] in the Customize pop-up window.

28. Arc GIS Extension • Arc GIS extension allows hot-linked photos plus: • Hover over a point and the thumbnail photo will popup (must have "Web Pages (HTML)" selected as file output in GPS-Photo Link). • Click on a point in the picture.shp theme, the watermarked photo will then be displayed. • Right Click Point - Load Picture as Layer : Loads the photo as a theme in ArcMap. Useful for use in layouts. • Right Click Point - Load Background Image - Loads a downloaded background image, such as an aerial photo or topo map.