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Navigation Using Photos

posted by Satri on Monday April 03, @01:15PM   Printer-friendly   Email story  Permalink  Trackback URI  Slashdotthis  Diggthis  Del.icio.us
from the does-that-nice-picture-helps-you-getting-anywhere? dept.
Transportation Geocoding
Very Spatial links to a Shiny Shiny article about "GPS in-car Sat Nav device that will take you to your destination using only the power of photos". From the article: "Snap a photo of - say - your mum's house on your next visit using the in-built camera, and the unit will record the co-ordinates. Next time you want to be a good daughter and pay a visit, you can just bring up the pic of the parental abode and the Navman will guide you in [...]."

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Geocoded Photos for Navigation 2 comments [+]
IntrepidAntipodean writes "Navman, makers of in-car sat-nav systems, have released their NavPix website to the public. The NavPix Library lets users download and upload (free registration required for upload) photos and geocode them using a street address or lat/long, it'll also read the Exif tags if you've already coded them. If you own one of their devices you can load the images on to it and use the picture as a destination. A great way to plan a road trip." See also numerous links in previous stories provided below.
Technology: Info on Geocoding Photos 3 comments [+]
rakerman writes "I am interested in automated geocoding of photos from GPS track logs, so I have put together a page with all the information I could find: geocoding photos. (I consider geocoding to be embedding the GPS info into the EXIF metadata.) I have also included information on the related topic of geotagging for Flickr and other photo sites."
Technology: Camera Phones and GPS-Enabled Cameras [+]
Spatially Adjusted discuss Microsoft's project to use camera phones in conjunction with Virtual Earth to aid map searches. From this article: ""When you are using a mobile phone, then inputting text can sometimes be difficult. So we decided to make the camera the input," said Xing Xie, a Microsoft researcher who was demonstrating the technology." Meanwhile, Ogle Earth and APB links to a new GPS-enabling device for SLR digital cameras, which uses a post-processing technique to reduce disk space and power uses.
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  • Different, but better?

    (Score:4, Informative)
    by geognerd (63) on Monday April 03, @02:05PM (#581)
    Using pics instead of a name for a waypoint/POI is interesting, but not something I'd go for or would find particularly useful. Now what do you do when you save the coordinates for two McDonald's? Most McDonald's look pretty similar. Unless you have a photographic memory, how are you going to remember which photo goes with which McDo? And if you remember which photo goes with which restaurant, you probably remember where the restaurant is, meaning you probably can figure out how to get there sans GPS. Maybe I don't get it. I do applaud them for creating a device that lets you attach coords to a photo though.

    This review [pocketgpsworld.com] raises an interesting prospect. A database of POI photographs. From the review:

    "You can imagine creating tour guides where you can be directed to the exact viewpoint. Plug these into itineraries and you can have compact city guides.

    Want to let your friends know what your house looks like as they come for your dinner party? No problem stand outside snap a quick picture and share the NavPix POI with them."

    Now that's a good application of georeferenced photos. I'm starting to understand how this feature might be useful...

    Many counties have photographs of buildings attached to their parcel layer. Nice, but not that interesting or useful. This might be an example of a technology that does better in the hands of Joe Consumer than GIS User. Hmmm, I went from dismissing this product to seeing potential value in it.

    • Re:Different, but better?

      (Score:3)
      by Satri (3) on Monday April 03, @03:04PM (#582)
      ( http://alexandreleroux.blogspot.com/ | Last Journal: Friday March 17, @05:07PM )
      "Hmmm, I went from dismissing this product to seeing potential value in it."
       
      :-) :-)

      "This might be an example of a technology that does better in the hands of Joe Consumer than GIS User."

      Well, I am a GIS user and I believe photos would help me find my way. Probably the main reason is often my interpretation of directions varies from the source's interpretation. Having a photo would certainly reduce the confusion on at least some occasions.

      We'll get there soon I guess. With all those small devices (palms, blackberrys, iPods) able to show pictures...
      [ Parent ]

      • Re:Different, but better?

        (Score:3, Interesting)
        by geognerd (63) on Monday April 03, @05:28PM (#583)
        Maybe I used poor wording. But in my particular GIS job, I wouldn't benefit much from a GPS device that takes photos and attaches coordinates. But Joe Consumer (and myself in off-hours) will have an absolute field day being able to show people on a map what I saw on the ground.

        To concur with Satri, I think it would be pretty cool to have a photo of your destination appear on the GPS device's screen just before you arrive. That way you know what to look for. Or perhaps have a photo of the storefront or entrance of the POI available on-demand. You could look up the storefront image before departing. But imagine the work it would take to photograph the thousands of POIs (such as restaurants) and link/join them to each point. This is where some user-based repository of images and associated coordinates could help out. Then you'd need to have some sort of standard for the images so they and the associated coordinates could be displayed on GPS-enabled mobile devices. Maybe a standard exists already?
        [ Parent ]

        • Re:Different, but better?

          (Score:3, Insightful)
          by redgeographics (145) <hansNO@SPAMredgeographics.com> on Tuesday April 04, @04:27AM (#585)
          ( http://www.redgeographics.com/ )
          A9 is working on that street level imagery, but it's currently only available for small sections of a few cities in the US. It certainly would be nice to see a photo of your destination. Obviously not really critical if you've been there before, but if you haven't, it can save you some time.

          I seem to recall a report from a few years ago that it was possible to obtain your location by taking a photo of the buildings around you on your cellphone. The idea was that a small section of city (London's Oxford Street iirc) was digitized this way. By checking in which cell area you were and matching the building shapes with the database, a location could be pinpointed with reasonable accuracy.

          --
          Hans van der Maarel
          [ Parent ]