topic Re: GPS Enabled Cameras in ArcPad Questions

GPS Enabled Cameras

MattMorris — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 17:10:10 GMT

I am looking for input from any who are using GPS enabled cameras...which ones are good and why, what you like about them, what you don't. We are looking hard at putting them into field use and it would be great to get some direct input from current users.

Any help is appreciated

Matt

Re: GPS Enabled Cameras

GregGriffiths — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 20:33:02 GMT

We have a RICOH Caplio 500SE. We bought it to record the locations of street signs and ultimately add them to our Enterprise GIS. Unfortunatly the GPS position quality of the RICOH is nowhere near what our Trimble GeoXH can achieve, so the cameras most redeeming feature has not been it's GPS capabilities but instead it's Bluetooth/Wireless one. While GPS'ing the street sign with the Trimble we have been taking a picture with the RICOH and sending it to the Trimble via an FTP link (MochaFTP).The photo ID is then stored in an attribute field for the sign and the photo is stored in a folder ready for download back in the office. Works well and suits and our needs.

Good luck.

Re: GPS Enabled Cameras

KyleCollins — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 15:22:59 GMT

I am looking for input from any who are using GPS enabled cameras...which ones are good and why, what you like about them, what you don't. We are looking hard at putting them into field use and it would be great to get some direct input from current users.

Any help is appreciated

Matt

Matt you have a good question, and G_Grifiths has a good method. However, what your readers are missing to be able to answer your question is the scope, scale, and accuracy requirements of your project. Do you have GPS data collectors already?
We have several projects using GPS data, each having different quality requirements, each using different equipment for the job.
The RICOH 500SE with Bluetooth/WiFi works great by themselves and using ArcPhoto Tools in ArcMap to view the images. A 3 to 5 meter quality variance is fine for that project.
We also use some GeoXT/H Trimbles that get great accuracy, but to add photos to the data we have tried using various digital cameras, along with image matching software from WindImage, and GPS-PhotoLink from GeoExperts.
Most of them do the job, but like G_Grifiths, we wanted the imagefile name incorporated into the data.
The RICOH cameras run about $1200 + each, so to save money we went with a good quality but relatively inexpensive digital camera plus the Trimble "Trimpix Pro" system that uses a trick SD card to send the image to the GPS data collector using a Wi/Fi network.
So take your pic, but keep in mind that the price of the project equipment goes up in direct porportion to quality requirements.

Kyle

Re: GPS Enabled Cameras

JoshWhite — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 15:52:45 GMT

We have Trimble Nomads that we use in conjunction with Pro XH receivers. The Nomad works great for taking the pictures and attaching the photo to the feature as a BLOB.

Re: GPS Enabled Cameras

ZoltanKovacs1 — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 11:29:11 GMT

If you already have Trimble equipment (with GPS), you don't need a GPS-enabled camera on the first place. You can use Trimble's TrimPix Pro solution as well (uses an Eye-Fi WiFi SD card w/ custom app and works similarly like G_Griffiths wrote down.) However, RICOH rugged cameras are very good to use on field (but it could be expensive), indeed.

Hope this helps.

Re: GPS Enabled Cameras

Ann123 — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 18:36:29 GMT

Just wondering about the workflow of getting an image from a GPS enabled camera into ArcMap 10? A simple (ie. inexpensive) GPS camera. Most of them seem to support putting the image into google earth - but I'm not sure about into ArcMap. Anyone use those?

Re: GPS Enabled Cameras

RolfBroch — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 07:02:07 GMT

alta4 (www.alta4.com) has a solution for both ArcMap (PhotoMapper Desktop) and ArcGIS Server (PhotoMapper Server) that will enable you to manage your georeferenced images within the Esri framework.

On another note (with regard to this thread).
One of the advantages of using the Ricoh Camera (latest model is the G700SE) is the incorporation of the compass so which enables the image direction to be recorded as well as the lat, lon.
You can also use the Ricoh camera to collect attribute information (up to twenty fields with dropdown boxes for easy adding of information) while you record the image.

Rolf

Re: GPS Enabled Cameras

SisiYan — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 16:55:51 GMT

Just wondering about the workflow of getting an image from a GPS enabled camera into ArcMap 10? A simple (ie. inexpensive) GPS camera. Most of them seem to support putting the image into google earth - but I'm not sure about into ArcMap. Anyone use those?

You can use the GPS-photo link software to upload the pictures. It will output automatically with formats such as shapefile or kml. Here is the link:
www.GeoSpatialExperts.com

Re: GPS Enabled Cameras

EddieViljoen — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 10:59:16 GMT

We have Trimble Nomads that we use in conjunction with Pro XH receivers. The Nomad works great for taking the pictures and attaching the photo to the feature as a BLOB.

We are trying to use the Nomad as well, but seem to run into a problem. When you capture an image, it looks OK on the Nomad screen, until the image has been saved. At that point the image goes very dark.

Any body else with this issue and/or possible sollution?

Eddie

Re: GPS Enabled Cameras

MicheleMattix2 — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 15:13:28 GMT

Another workflow you can consider involves the following 3 items:
* A GPS photo-linking program (a free one to try is JetPhoto)
* Any digital camera
* Turning on and using the ArcPad Track Log

Set the time on your mobile device and the digital camera to be the same. In the field, turn on the ArcPad Track Log. It will log your GPS positions as a 'bread crumb' trail and store them in a dedicated shapefile. My preference is to turn on the Track Log but turn off its visibility in the map -- it really adds clutter to the map. Meanwhile, use your digital camera to take photos of your field assets and use ArcPad as normal to log features.

Back in the office, download the ArcPad Track Log shapefile and your digital photos. The Track Log contains GPS positions and their associated times. The digital photos will contain a timestamp in their EXIF file. Use your GPS photo link software to geotag the photos. It does this by comparing the time of a photo to the time of a GPS position in the Track Log. When you save the geotagging, you end up with photos that align to the GPS position where they were taken.

If you want the photos to be stored as attributes of features, you will have to incorporate extra steps into your workflow. But, if you are on a budget and want to geotag photos easily, this method is available for free provided you have a GPS unit running ArcPad and a digital camera.

Re: GPS Enabled Cameras

roberthaught1 — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 14:31:25 GMT

Have you tryed a blue tooth camera, it should be able to link photo to photo is field via the nomad blue tooth

Re: GPS Enabled Cameras

BrianChaille — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 21:51:57 GMT

The Ricoh G700SE does look like it was designed for enterprise wide accurate photo location tagging. Has anyone had experience with Nikon's Coolpix AW100? I'm hoping for 3m +/- location accuracy and say 11 degree direction accuracy in a GPS/Compass Enabled Camera. I understand that the Ricoh G700SE has an optional GPS WAAS enabled attachment that can provide 3m and 3 degree accuracy. I havn't found similar specs on the Nikon, but I prefer it's compact design. Both claim field ruggedness. I'm not particularly interested in adding a lazer rangefinder to the mix which the Ricoh can add through its Bluetooth capacity.

Re: GPS Enabled Cameras

GrahamW — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 03:10:14 GMT

the richo 500SE can recieve a NMEA stream from bluetooth..... I've attached that to an RTK unit for centimeter photos.. but the direction of photo is also important when we are talking about that sort of accuracy.. so the GPS/Compass unit is still nessecary..

Re: GPS Enabled Cameras

IvanKautter — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 21:29:34 GMT

Some very expensive solutions being discussed in this thread.

We purchased a Pentax WG-1 GPS camera ($250) about 6 months ago and have had good results even under relatively heavy tree canopy. In an urban environment, I would expect performance equal to smartphone GPS chips. The Pentax also makes a primitive KML-based GPS tracklog. The camera itself is pretty terrible under low light conditions. If we had it to do again, I would have recommended that we purchased the Panasonic DMC-TS3A ($240) which has better low light performance.

Back at the office, one can use ArcPhoto ( http://arcscripts.esri.com/details.asp?dbid=14856 ), a free set of tools that will read the embedded GPS data in the EXIF, to create a geolocated photo layer on-the-fly or create a photo feature class with option to treat the photos as managed or unmanaged rasters.

If you are looking for "good enough" and cheap, I'd suggest exploring these options. We have yet to attempt integration with ArcPad.

Re: GPS Enabled Cameras

ColinLee1 — Tue, 22 May 2012 02:44:29 GMT

mmattix444;150535 wrote:
Another workflow you can consider involves the following 3 items:

* A GPS photo-linking program (a free one to try is JetPhoto)
* Any digital camera
* Turning on and using the ArcPad Track Log

mmattix: I've had luck using a garmin gps tracklog with a digital camera and post-processing with gpicsync, jetphoto, arcphoto, and microsoft prophoto tools (all free). BUT, I'm having trouble getting this to work using arcpad because the track log is saved as a shapefile, while the programs require .gpx. I tried converting the shapefile to gpx using dnrgarmin, but it didn't read it correctly. Any help with this? Thanks.

Re: GPS Enabled Cameras

MicheleMattix2 — Tue, 22 May 2012 20:25:32 GMT

Colin -

You can try the free My GeoData online converter http://converter.mygeodata.eu/. Another suggestion is to first convert the SHP to KML and then use GPS Babel to go from KML to GPX.

Good luck!
Michele

Re: GPS Enabled Cameras

PaulHuffman — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 16:56:23 GMT

http://arcscripts.esri.com/details.asp?dbid=14856[/url] ), a free set of tools that will read the embedded GPS data in the EXIF, to create a geolocated photo layer on-the-fly or create a photo feature class with option to treat the photos as managed or unmanaged rasters.ArcPad.

I've been trying that ArcScript but I can't get it to run with Desktop 10.1. When I try to run the exe, it asks for ESRI .NET support. I verified that the machine has .NET Framework 2.0 installed. When I try to add .NET support to ArcDesktop 10.1 with add remove programs, I don't see the option for .NET anymore.

Re: GPS Enabled Cameras

IvanKautter — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 22:35:05 GMT

At 10.1 you don't need to use ArcPhoto as much of the functionality is available in the Photo Toolset

http://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/main/10.1/index.html#//001700000164000000