I enjoy reviewing GPS photo tagging gadgets here on The Gadgeteer, so I will be interested to see how ATP’s latest PhotoFinder device compares to their previous models. They are hailing it as the answer to Sony’s GPS-CS3KA. The PhotoFinder Pro does sound like it has the upper hand due to the fact that it can support an external battery pack, external GPS antenna, POI (Point of Interest) recording. It will be available at the end of July for around $119.

Filed in categories: Digital Cameras and Gear, Travel Gear

Tagged: Geotagging, GPS, Photo tagging, Photography, Spotlight Gadgets

Tag, you’re it with the ATP PhotoFinder Pro originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on May 27, 2009 at 7:54 am.

I recently reviewed the ATP GPS PhotoFinder mini photo geotagging module. I liked the concept, but found some issues with usability. Today I have a similar product for you. It’s the i-gotU USB GPS Travel Logger GT-120 from Mobile Action. It’s smaller and even easier to use than the PhotoFinder. Let’s take a look.

If you are not familiar with this type of geotagging product, it interfaces with any camera or mobile phone, so that the images that you snap can be tagged with the GPS longitude and latitude coordinates where they were taken. The i-gotU goes a step farther in that it will allow you to upload your trips to a special free online server, create nifty little animated movies of your travels and share them with anyone.

Hardware Specifications

Dimension: 44.5 x 28.5 x 13 mm
Weight: 20g
Built-in SiRF StarIII 65nm low-power chipset
Built-in GPS patch antenna.
Built-in flash memory. 65000 waypoints for 30 days( when the logging interval is 15 seconds and use it 8 hours per day)
Built-in 230mAh Lithium-ion battery.
Operation time: Up to 30 hours ( when the logging interval is 15 seconds)
2 LED for tracking and battery/charger status indication.
Average acquisition time for cold start: < 35 seconds, hot start: < 1 seconds.
USB 1.1 interface for PC connection
Operation temperature: -10 to + 50 degrees centigrade

Package Contents

i-gotU module
USB cable
Mini CD with software and manual

The i-gotU module is a very small White plastic rectangle, with one button. The Blue silicone skin is removable. There are two LEDs (not visible in this photo) located on either side of the power button. One is Blue and one is Red. When the module is powered on, the Blue LED will blink every 15 or so seconds. If there is a GPS signal, the Red LED will also blink.

One end has the proprietary USB connector and a lanyard attachment eyelet. Surprisingly, no lanyard or keychain was included in the package.

Before you use the i-gotU, you must first charge it using the included USB cable. The initial charge requires 4hrs and subsequent charges will require 2hrs.

Operating this device is about as simple as it can be. Just hold down the only button for a couple of seconds till you see the Blue LED blink. Then go outside to allow it to get a GPS lock. You will know when you have a signal, when you see the Red LED blinking along with the Blue one. Most of the time, this only requires a minute or so. Now all you have to do is carry the i-gotU along with you, while snapping pictures with a camera that has the correct time set. I used my cellphone during the review. Since mobile phones typically set the time via the carrier, I didn’t need to worry about that aspect.

When you’re finished for the day, load up the included software on a Windows PC and launch it.

The @Trip software has an easy user friendly interface. Clicking the Import GPS Track button in the upper Left corner will guide you through the steps of retrieving info off the i-gotU module. Click on screenshots for full size images.

You will be prompted to connect the i-gotU to your PC with the included USB cable. Once you do, it will automatically start downloading the info.

You will then be presented with a list of trips. In the screenshot above, I have 3 separate trips for that day as I had powered the i-gotU on and off at the start and end of each trip. The software will automatically select multiple trips for that day. If you want to combine them all together, click Next, otherwise, you can uncheck the trips you don’t want to include.

You then have the option of three different trip styles. More about that in a bit.

The next step is to import the images that you took while the i-gotU was powered on. The images that were taken during the same time that the module powered was on and receiving a GPS signal, will have a G next to them.

After the images are imported, your trip will be shown using Google Maps, complete with start and end points. Depending on the style that you selected, imported images will show up on the sidebar. If you combined multiple trips into one, each leg of the trip will be a different color.

If you picked the sport style, you will see some some cool info such as distance traveled during the trip, max speed, altitude, etc. All three styles allow you to ‘play’ the trip and if you want to share it with your friends, you can upload it to the @Trip website for free.

It’s pretty fun to watch the animated trips. Here are two examples. The images aren’t that great since I snapped them really quickly with my phone. But it gives you an idea of what you could do with this device and your camera.

http://www.a-trip.com/tracks/view/16297 – Sport style trip

http://www.a-trip.com/tracks/view/16202 – Classic style trip

There are two things is one thing that I found missing with this product. It does not have the ability for imported images to automatically map to the last known coordinates for those times when the module did not have a GPS signal. For example, if you are driving to a museum and have the i-gotU on your car’s dash, it will record your trip and the images that you snapped along the way. But, if you take the i-gotU inside a building where it can’t get a signal and you continue to snap pix, the trip won’t include those photos. It would be great if the software would automatically allow you to map images to the last known location. That said, the software will allow you to manually map an image to a specific waypoint. But, it’s not very convenient or straightforward as to which waypoint you should pick.

The other issue is that the software does not add the longitude and latitude coordinates to the image EXIF data. It does add that data to the imported images that make up the trip, so you can view your trip through the web interface and then copy the images back out. But that’s a pretty annoying way to do it. There really needs to be an option to geotag your original images. **Update 04/11/08 This product does add longitude and latitude info to images.

I found this module and software to be much easier to use than the ATP PhotoFinder mini. You don’t have to worry about missing the time zone setting as you only need to set once the first time you import data from the i-gotU module. There’s even a daylight savings time switch. It’s also a lot faster at exporting data than the PhotoFinder.

I didn’t have problems with it keeping a GPS signal even while driving over 60MPH. The images that I took matched up very well with the locations where I snapped them, even if I was driving at the time.

The i-gotU is a fun and relatively inexpensive little gadget to play with if your camera does not already have geotagging features. You can find this USB version and a Bluetooth version at eXpansys. And FYI.. if you want to skip the whole separate module thing and you already own a Symbian, Windows Mobile or a phone that supports Java, you can download the free @Trip software for your phone. It will upload your images to the @Trip website.

How many of you out there use a geotagging phone or camera for your photos?

Filed in categories: Digital Cameras and Gear, GPS, Travel Gear

Tagged: Geotagging, GPS, Photo tagging, Photography

i-gotU USB GPS Travel Logger (GT-120) Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on March 19, 2009 at 7:51 pm.

I have a nifty little gadget for avid photographers that have a less than stellar memory. If you’ve ever looked back at your old photos and wondered where you were when you shot them, the PhotoFinder Mini from ATP will cause you to wonder no more.

These days a lot of the newer cameras and even cellphones have the ability to geotag images. What is geotagging? It’s a method of writing the longitude and latitude coordinates into a JPEG image’s EXIF-data. With this extra bit of information, you will never have to remember where you were when you shot that perfect sunset because the image itself will have that information embedded in it.

A little over a year ago, William Ray reviewed the first version of this product. He had a few complaints with it, so I was curious if this new version would work better for me than the old one did for him.

Specifications

Chipset: SiRF Star III
Channels: 20
Sensitivity (Tracking): -155dBm
Reacquisition: 0.1 sec typical
Maximum Altitude: 18000 m
Maximum Velocity: 514 m/s
Update rate: Continuous operation: 1Hz
GPS Frequency Response: 1575.42 MHz (L1 Band, C/A code)
Operating Time: More than 16hrs
Memory card: 128MB MMC Micro memory card

Package Contents

PhotoFinder mini GPS device
Dock
AC Adapter with plug adapter
User Manual
CD with user manual

The PhotoFinder mini is a small block shaped fob with an attached metal carbiner. It doesn’t have a display, but has three status LEDs and one button on the side that toggles power.

A rubber flap on one end covers (badly) a mini USB connector and an MMC micro memory card slot. I have no clue why ATP decided to go with an MMC micro card instead of the much easier to find microSD card.

The mini USB connector is used to charge the internal batteries and for connecting to the dock.

Three LEDs on the face of the module show the status of power, GPS and memory.

To use this product to geotag your images, all you need to do is to correctly set the time on your camera. It doesn’t have to be set to UTC time, which was required for the original PhotoFinder device.

Then you power on the PhotoFinder mini by pressing the side button. After  a few seconds, it will start trying to acquire a GPS signal. That means that you’ll need to be outside, with a view of the sky. Sorry, this device won’t work inside a building. It should work fine in a car as long as you put it on  the dash and don’t have heavily tinted windows.

Approximately every 10 seconds, the PhotoFinder will check the current GPS coordinates and write a log entry to the MMC micro card. The card can hold approximately 1000 hours of log entries. When you return home, you connect the PhotoFinder mini to the dock.

The dock has a small backlit LCD display and four buttons to navigate menu options.

It uses USB for power and has a cord built right in, that be stored in the bottom.

If you don’t want to use a USB slot on your computer, you can use the included AC adapter to power the dock.

The PhotoFinder connects easily to the dock. Just lift the flap and plug it in.

On the Right side of the dock is a SD/MMC/MS card slot and a CF card slot.

Take the memory card out of your camera and plug it into the appropriate slot.

One surprising thing about the dock is that it can NOT function as a card reader when plugged into  your computer. Although you can use the USB cable to plug it into a free port, it will not be recognized by the OS. It just uses the connection for power. Kind of a bummer…

Once everything is plugged in and connected to power, you can start geotagging your photos. Pressing the mode button will cycle between options for Mapping GPS Data, Self-Test, Format System, and Generate KML Data. I’ll talk about KML data later. At this point you want to select is the Mapping GPS Data option. The dock will then check the PhotoFinder mini’s MMC micro card for log files and will check for an inserted memory card from your camera in the dock.

It will then show you the message shown above. This is a VERY important step. You must set the correct GMT offset for your time zone. This wouldn’t be any big deal except for the fact that this message only stays on the screen for about 10-15 seconds. Once that time has elapsed, the message disappears and it will use default setting of GMT+0. Why is that important? Because this is how the dock will match the images on camera’s memory card with the log files in the PhotoFinder mini. If the times aren’t set correctly, you’ll have images with the wrong GPS longitude and latitude settings added to the EXIF-data. I learned this lesson the hard way… I took the PhotoFinder mini with me on vacation to Florida last October. I thought it would be cool to be able to include some fun images showing the places I visited. But when I came home and did this process, I got distracted and didn’t set the Time Zone setting. As a result, I ended up with .jpgs that had the wrong locations associated with them. (

Assuming that you didn’t screw up like I did, the next step in the mapping process shows the number of files that the dock will try to map GPS data to.

It will then begin the process of writing the EXIF-data into each image on the card that you plugged into the dock. This is a surprisingly slow process. Too slow I would say. I think it took about 15-20 minutes to tag 70 images. Maybe I’m just impatient…

You’ll receive a message telling you how many images were successfully and unsuccessfully tagged. What would cause an image to be unsuccessfully tagged? No log file with a time that also matches the time an image was saved. This can easily happen when the PhotoFinder mini loses its GPS signal acquisition. If you go into a building and take pictures, they won’t be tagged. That’s the nature of this type of product though.

When the tagging operation has completed, you can remove the card and view the EXIF-data.

Click thumbnail to see full size image

I just googled for an OS X EXIF viewer and found a free tool that shows the info that you can see in the image above. That data is all well and good, but unless you’re some kind of GPS savant, seeing longitude and latitude coordinates are not going to mean all that much to you. That’s where Google Earth, Picasa and a service called Locr come in.

Click thumbnail to see full size image

These services will allow you to upload your  photos and view their location on a map.

The PhotoFinder mini dock has another feature that will create KML files from the logs. KML files (Keyhole Markup Language files) are special files that Google Earth and other applications can read to show the path that you’ve traveled with the PhotoFinder mini.

Click thumbnail to see full size image

Hmmmm, looks like I was busy walking all over my property. Pretty cool…

While it isn’t perfect, I think that the PhotoFinder mini has been improved from the previous version that Bill reviewed. I really only have two main complaints about it. The mapping operation and KML file creation processes are too slow and need to be sped up considerably. My only other complaint is that the Time Zone setting part of the process needs to stop and wait for you to enter something instead of timing out. It would be nice if it saved your time zone setting as well. Other than that, the PhotoFinder mini is easy to use and will make your photos remember things that you will never remember on your own.

Right now the PhotoFinder mini is only available in Europe at Amazon.co.uk and soon Expansys.

Filed in categories: Digital Cameras and Gear, GPS, Travel Gear

Tagged: Geotagging, GPS, Photo tagging, Photography

ATP GPS PhotoFinder mini Photo Geotagger Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on January 21, 2009 at 9:00 pm.

I got a chance to try out the new Photo Finder from ATP Inc.. When Julie asked me if I would be interested in reviewing a product that geotags photos, I said of course. Now… please tell me what that means…

It turns out that geotagging is the act of embedding GPS location data in the header or EXIF data portion of an image file. Here is sample EXIF data from one of the shots I used in my test of this device.

Note that it includes latitude and longitude information (circled in red). This data was not included in the original jpg file as it came from my camera – it was added later by the ATP Photo Finder. We will discuss this in greater detail shortly.

For more information about Geotagging and Geocoding, check out the following links:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geocoded_photo
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeoTagging

The Photo Finder is an unassuming device. It is a bit smaller than a typical cell phone with a two line text LCD screen, three LEDs and three buttons.

The device runs on two AAA batteries. It comes with a mini-USB cable, as well as a mini-USB male to full size USB female adapter. The mini-USB cable allows you to connect the Photo Finder to a computer to view the GPS data log files. For a sample log file, view this text file: atp-photo-finder.log.

The mini to full size adapter allows you to connect a card reader to the Photo Finder for geotagging photos on cards other than SD, MMC, or MS – which are supported through integrated slots in the device (theoretically).

The Photo Finder also comes with a carabineer for clipping the device to your belt.

This helps to keep the device properly oriented with the antenna facing straight up.

When you turn on the Photo Finder, the center blue LED begins to flash indicating that it is attempting to find a GPS signal. Just in case you failed to read the manual and are unable to decipher this flashing blue signal, the LCD screen also indicates that it is Searching GPS Signal.

I was never able to get a signal lock indoors, but it did work pretty well hanging from the rear view mirror in the front windshield of my car. When you get a GPS signal lock, the device records the time stamp along with latitude and longitude information in its 128MB of memory (good for as much as 550 hours of log files). Every five minutes it checks location and records another time stamp/location entry in the log file.

In order to make this work, you have to set your camera to UTC time – Coordinated Universal Time as measured at longitude 00 00 00. You obtain this from the Photo Finder when it first obtains a GPS lock. The latitude and longitude data will alternate on the LCD screen with the UTC time. I was not overly thrilled to time stamp my photos for some other time zone, but acquiesced for the purposes of this review.

One of the main issues I have with this device is its tendency to shut down when it does not get a GPS signal for a few minutes. This means that if I step inside for five minutes, the Photo Finder will most likely shut down. If I don’t notice (and that happened several times during testing), I will have no GPS data to apply to my photos.

After I finished shooting several test shots during the course of a weekend following my son around North East Indiana to his various basketball games, I attempted to attach my card reader using the included adapter. My Canon 30D does not use one of the three directly supported card formats (SD, MMC, or MS), but the device is supposed to work through a card reader to geotag other formats.

I never could get this function to work. I tried connecting my card reader first and then powering on the device – both with and without a Compact Flash card inserted. I also tried powering on the Photo Finder followed by plugging in the card reader – both with and without a Compact Flash card inserted. All attempts ended with failure. Either the device simply powered down or it emitted a disturbing squeaky noise.

Pretty disappointing.

Ultimately, I ended up transferring a sample of twenty-four pictures onto an SD card and inserting it into Photo Finder’s integrated slot. This yielded more satisfying results, although still less than perfect. It failed to tag six of the files – probably due to a shut down and failure to log a GPS location within a reasonable time frame in relation to these six pics.

Using Google’s Picasa software, I uploaded my pics to a web album. This part of my testing worked pretty well. The Picasa Web album is a fairly standard interface for sharing photos online, but it adds a map on the left side of the screen with push pins indicating the locations where photos were taken. Here is my Picasa test album: http://picasaweb.google.com/bill.ray/ATPPhotoFinder.

I also used the Google Earth pick on the Tools menu to use Google Earth to view a map with markers for photo locations marked against satellite images. I don’t know how useful this is, but it really looks pretty cool. The following are screen captures from Google Earth:

I did a fair amount of driving over the weekend.

Here is a tagged photo of the front of my gym, Total Fitness of Columbus, Indiana, taken from the parking lot.

Several different shots taken in Wabash, Indiana. The two of the capital building are incorrectly tagged about two blocks away from where they were actually taken. This is probably due to the five minute gap between GPS log entries.

Okay, what do I make of Geotagging? I guess my experience tells me it isn’t quite ready for prime time. I don’t like the way it times out and powers off. I would prefer a button that lets me manually initiate a GPS log entry, rather than depend on the device to take a reading every five minutes. This would conserve batteries and memory space, as I would only need to take a single reading at any given location. Perhaps the device could add a manual mode?

I have three Canon DSLRs that all use Compact Flash media, so I need a device that actually works with more than SD, MMC, and MS media. That could be solved by making the card reader connection work, or by adding more card slots.

At this point, I cannot recommend this device, but I like the concept. I could envision providing my iphotosports.com customers another way to visually index my offerings.

Available Q1 2008

Filed in categories: Digital Cameras and Gear, GPS, Travel Gear

Tagged: Geotagging, GPS, Photo tagging, Photography

ATP Photo Finder originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on December 31, 2007 at 1:18 pm.