GPS and Photos

I haven't ironed out all of the bugs, but I've started geotagging my photographs. Using the wonders of technology, I can match the date stamps hidden inside each digital photo (using JPEG's EXIF data) against my waypoint log on my new Garmin Foretrex 101 GPS unit. Doing so allows my photos to get fairly precise coordinates that can then be used to show them on Google Earth. “Say, where's that photo I took down on the Katy Trail by the Page Ave. bridge? I'll just look in Google Earth.” I also understand Apple's Spotlight search can do some geographical searching, though I've not tried it yet.

The easiest to use Mac program for the job crashes on my main computer and another one requires taking over iPhoto's job as my photo organization tool, so for the moment I'm using a Perl script to handle the geocoding process of matching the GPS's GPX log to the JPEG files. Hopefully I can get my preferred application choice to quit crashing (it doesn't crash on my Mac mini), but even with the added hassles of my current temporary solution, it is really amazing to get to look in Google Earth and see where I've walked and what photos I took along my path.

I'm sure I'll be posting more on this in the coming days. If you haven't yet figured this out, getting the data off my new GPS unit was why I was complaining about serial devices the other day. I had to buy a serial to USB adapter to get it to work on my “legacy free” computers. sigh