GPS Enabled Cameras

[MattMorris]

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

[GregGriffiths]

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.

[KyleCollins]

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

[JoshWhite]

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.

[ZoltanKovacs1]

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.

[Ann123]

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?

[RolfBroch]

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

[SisiYan]

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

[EddieViljoen]

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

[MicheleMattix2]

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.