Ok here is the next project I have been working on out side of work !!!

My brother and I are building a robot made of the base of an old power chair.

The idea is to have a robot that can be remote controlled over the internet and have a camera to see the video.

Now there are a few projects that have ALB (Already Been Done) but I am doing this to learn and not just to build so there we go.

So here is a rundown of what we have to work with....

Power Wheel Chair Base (HUGE & HEAVY) 2 Large 55~70AH AGM Batteries (A steal at $35.00 each) Make Controller & Adruino (both are MCU's that we will be using) MRC w/ Dynamic Breaking / Mixing for motor control WAMP Server for Apache and PHP... The code for the web server to control the MCU over the network with the OSC protocol. Skye and the older version of a remote control program for use with an old API...

I will post some more Photos, Code, Downloads, & ETC as I get them together...

73,

Gavin

In past discussions with a friend of mine the question was raised about geotagging photos. So today, I set-out to find a working solution for a group of people taking tornado damage photos from a small aircraft.

I was lucky enough to find a used GPS unit that was gutted out of an old fleet tracking device. The unit is nice, small, with a voltage regulator for 12volts, a long power cord, and the active ant. for $20 dollars. What a steal! I put that in a rat shack case and it works like a charm.

So with just 20 dollars invested (I already had on hand a 20 amp auto switch and inline fuse link so I am set to go.)

Now onto software. I was looking for a no frills freeware program to log RAW NEMA sentences off the GPS receiver. With some fairly active google-ing I found this program.


VisualGPS (FREEWARE)
http://www.visualgps.net/

"VisualGPS" is a great program for logging for geotagging. Logging is as simple menu option.

Next...

The problem I face is that my GPS is an OEM unit and not a hand held unit like most people will have. I am not able to display the time that the GPS unit sees with much ease. The only working solution for me so far is a commercial demo of the TAC32 from http://www.cnssys.com/. You probably will have a hand held unit that can log the waypoints and tracks on its own, but this is for us NEMA out only users. So if anyone knows where to find a working GPS clock (software) please let me know.

GPS Time Clock - Free utility from TimeTools to periodically monitor and synchronise to any standard NMEA GPS receiver.

http://www.timetools.co.uk/atomic-clock/fw/gps-clock.htm

After sync of the GPS clock and the camera clock I started to drive around and take photos. VisualGPS is just sitting on my laptop logging its little guts out.

Next...

After you are done shooting take your camera and off load the images to your PC, in my case, laptop.

Visual GPS is logging the RAW NEMA data from the GPS so we need to convert that using a freeware tool called GPSBabel. I am running the GUI interface to GPSBabel called GPSBabelGUI, that is available when you extract the compressed files.

Visual GPS saves the log files where ever you would like, I placed the TXT file 'test2.txt' under 'My Documents.'

Here is a screen shot of the settings I have used... When all setup click "lets go" and *poof* it will now be in GPX XML format.

GPSBabel (windows version) FREEWARE
http://www.gpsbabel.org/download.html

Next...

Now I am not big on cross platform Java applications, BUT this one is simple and worth the Java download.

Step one... if you dont have it already, get the Java SE 6 runtime installed.

After the Java install you will need to do one more thing before we can get going.

You need to download the ExifTool by Phil Harvey.

Extract that to c:\exiftool so it will be easy to find when we setup Geotag. This tool will allow us to write back the GPS data to the image files.

Now with that done we can now run Geotag.

Goto this launch link below and click on "Launch" icon You can download the standalone address with the links on the left hand side of the page.

TO LAUNCH GEOTAG CLICK HERE!

FYI Geotag is also freeware!

After Geotag has downloaded it will run. Please allow GEOTAG to run and unblock any ports that windows firewall might gripe about.

Before we get started in GeoTag you will need to tell Geotag where the exiftool is at.

Here is a screen shot of my settings. I put my exiftool under c:\exiftool\ so all I have to do is click the "..." box to the right and find the directory and locate the program "exiftool(-k).exe".

Settings is located under the 'File' menu.

Next...

***Now we are ready to go. Click 'File' and then 'Add images from directory.'

Select your images.

Now that the images you want to geotag are loaded you will now go to 'File' and then select "Load tracks from file."

I selected the file'test2.gpx' from the desktop where we told GPSBable to place it a few steps ago.

Now the GPS data is loaded into Geotag. Notice at the bottom of the screen it will display how "*** locations loaded." Mine says, "615 locations loaded."

Now right click on any iamge and select "Find Locations" and under that submenu select, "For all images."

This will now load the gps data into the list on the screen.

Now we need to save the location data to the files. Now right click on any image and select, "Save New Locations," and under that submenu select, "All Images."

As it adds the GPS data image the bold highlight will go back to normal and there is a status bar at the lower edge of the screen to show how many images have been processed and are left to process.

Now we are ready to upload and share.

Now after all this work I went on a hunt for something simple and easy to use. That is where Panoramio comes into view. This gold nugget of a website is run by google. Simple and Easy uploads and edits....

Go over here to take a look.... CLICK HERE...

There we go ready to go.... What more could you ask for? (Don't answer that!)

73

Unmanaged

***Update***
krmicros has a small 600k serial data logger for the pc that looks like it would be an alternative to Visual GPS....

http://www.krmicros.com/Utilities/DataLogger/DataLogger.htm

****UPDATE****

Found a better and much easier way to geotag photos...
GPicSync....
http://code.google.com/p/gpicsync/

Not all of the song but a great cover of Bob Wills...