This chapter is intended to give you a quick start in using the advanced GPS Panel that is deployed with IDimager.
The GPS Panel script can be opened by first opening the Script Panel from the left Explorer bar. That will display the script panel at the right side of the screen.
The script panel can contain any panel script so if the GPS Panel script is not loaded by default, then select it first by clicking the drop down arror in the panel's caption and then select the GPS Panel script.
The script panel will display the Google Maps(tm) interface. Optionally you'll need to sign up with Google first to acquire a Google Maps API key. If so, follow the instructions as outlined by the Google website that the script takes you to when you have no API key installed yet.
As with any Google Maps interface you can click the "map", "satellite" buttons to switch the map display detail from basic to full satellite view.
When your images have existing GEO data in them then they will be displayed as red markers on the map. Optionally zoom the map with the [+] and [-] buttons on the map or by double clicking to zoom in and double clicking with the right mouse button to zoom out.
The script uses a "focused" marker (the marker with a dot in it) to highlight the image currently active. As we'll see later, the script offers some features that works with this focused marker.
The interface of this script is kept simple.
The elements of the interface are:
Images Panel |
This panel can be toggled on/off;
The Images Panel contains a drop down list of all the images that you have selected in the Collection Viewer. When these images have a GEO location in them they will be displayed as markers on the map. If the images don't have a GEO location in them then it is selectable here and from here you can place those images on the map.
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Search Panel |
This panel can be toggled on/off;
The Search Panel allows you to search for any location in the map. Simply enter the street name or object name you want to search for here and press enter to position the search marker on the map. Examples are:
Statue of liberty <enter> wallstreet, ny, usa kalverstraat 30, amsterdam
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Tracks Panel |
This panel can be toggled on/off;
The Tracks panel van be used to work with GPS track log files and then sync the track log to the images in the selection.The track log can be loaded from GPX and NMEA log files.
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Each of these panel can be toggled ON/OFF for those situations where you either don't need them or just temporarily want to hide them. To toggle the panels you can click the monitor icon in the left side Options Bar and then select "Panels". That opens a sub menu where you can toggle each of these top panels.
The Options Bar located at the far left of the script panel contains these options:
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Display button;
Use this button to change the display settings of the script. It contains options to toggle markers on/off, toggle panels on/off, toggle marker groups on/off (like the search marker, favorites, etc), zoom options
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When you have changes on the map (blue markers) then you can store these changes with this button.
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Zoom the map to display all the markers currently on the map
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Place the currently selected image in the Images Panel at the current position of the Search Marker
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Place all images from the Images Panel at the current location of the Search Marker
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Open the options dialog
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Open the Google Maps(tm) application to display the images on the globe.
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How to GEO tag images that have no pre-existing GEO information
1. Select on or more thumbnails in the Collection Viewer
2. Open the Script Panel and load the GPS panel script
3. Use the Search Panel to find the location on the map
4. Select the first image in the Images Panel
5. Drag the preview image in the Images Panel to the location on the map
6. Click the Save button in the Options panel to save the GEO tags to your images
As an alternative:
1. Open the Script Panel and load the GPS panel script
2. Use the Search Panel to find the location on the map
3. Drag your thumbnail from the Collection Viewer directly to the map of the script panel
4. Click the Save button in the Options panel to save the GEO tags to your image
5. Repeat for the next image
How to change existing GEO locations
1. Select on or more thumbnails in the Collection Viewer
2. Open the Script Panel and load the GPS panel script
3. The existing GEO locations are displayed as markers on the map
4. Zoom the GPS Panel to a convenient zoom level
5. Drag and Drop the markers on the map to their new position. The marker turns blue to indicate that it is changed
6. Click the Save button in the Options panel to save the GEO tags back to your images
Working with Stored Locations
The GPS Panel script allows you to save a list of locations that you use often (e.g. your home address). Then it is fairly easy to re-use the information stored in the location to GEO tag new images.
1. Use the Search Panel to find the location on the map. This will display the search marker (the green pin).
2. Optionally right click on the search marker and select "Save as new favorite location"
3. Now enter the details of the location
That's it.
Notice that the Stored Location is marked with a red pointer on the map. The new Stored Location is now available from the Drop Down list in the Search Panel. You can now use the same procedure to create a next stored location.
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Tip!
You can not only right click on the search pin, but you can follow similar steps by right clicking on any image marker on the map to store it as a Stored Location. |
In the location details you can enter a Radius value.
The default value for this field can be set in the Options dialog of the script.
This value basically means that all images that are dropped within the radius ("range") of the stored location will automatically inherit the details of that location. That makes it much easier and faster to fill the location information for your images.
TIP! IDimager will write the coordinates to the XMP data in your images. You need to sync your images to dump the XMP to the image file itself before you'll see the coordinates in 3rd party applications