New Features of ArcGIS 10.1 for desktop: geo-tagged photos

1. Introduction to geo-tagging photos

A geo-marked photo is a photo with geographic location information, usually taken by a digital camera or smartphone with built-in GPS.

If you can directly load a geo-tagged photo in the GIS software, and automatically generate corresponding points, including photo and time related property information, this will be very useful for many industries that involve data collection and inspection in the field. For example, environmental law enforcement officers can hold mobile devices to collect photos of environmental violations on the site, and then place the photos on the basemap for display and analysis.

ArcGIS 10.1 for desktop introduces a new geographic processing tool-geotagged photos to points. With this tool, we can read the longitude, latitude, and elevation information in a geo-tagged photo (in JPEG or TIFF format, containing the correct EXIF information) and generate the corresponding point element class.

The following describes how to use this tool to generate a dot element class. The photo used in this article comes from the author's windowsphone mobile phone, the photo shows the scenery of the author and his friends on their way to hongyuan and ruargel grassland.
2. Prepare materials using geo-labeled photos 2.1

First, you need to organize the photos in a folder, such:

To display the effect, load a basemap. This article selects data from arcgisonline in China, for example:

2.2 Use the geotagged photos topoints Tool

Find the geotagged photos topoints tool in the toolbox, for example:

Double-click the tool. The parameter dialog box is displayed as follows:

Parameter description:

1) Input Folder: the path of the photo file. The photos in the root directory and subfolders are scanned and added;

2) Output feature class: the vertex element class output based on the photo location information;

3) invalid photos table: an optional parameter. If this parameter is selected, a table is created for the unqualified photos (missing location information) (to distinguish which photos are unqualified );

4) include non-geotagged photos: an optional parameter. If this parameter is selected, a row of records (no geometry) in the element class will also be created for photos with missing geographic locations );

5) Add photos as attachments: an optional parameter. if selected, the photo will be added as an attachment of the dot element (at least ArcGIS fordesktop standard license is required ).

After setting the parameters, click OK. ArcGIS will automatically read the geographic location information contained in the photo, create a element class, and add it to ArcMap automatically, as shown in:

Note: The online basemap loaded in this example is the Web Mercator projection coordinate system, while the photo uses the GPS default WGS-84 geographic coordinate system, ArcMap has automatically carried out dynamic projection processing.

To better display the effect, the point layer is re-signed. The effect is as follows:

2.3 view photo information

You can use the identify tool to view the information, such:

You can also preview the image in the HTML popup window, for example:

Next:

2.4 complete photo information

We found that attributes in the element class just now mainly include the following:

1) path: the storage path of the geo-labeled photos, for example, D: \ testdata \ photos \ wp_000436.jpg;

2) Name: the short name of the photo file, for example, wp_000436.jpg;

3) datetime: Date and time of the original photo collection, for example, 17:26:17,. (for text fields, convert them to date fields using the convert time field tool, then it can be used for analysis and temporal display)

As mentioned above, this photo was taken when I went to the plateau for a visit, because the author was concerned about the altitude, but not in the default element category attributes, but the GPS information of the photo was there, therefore, you need to add a field, such:

Then, by calculating geometry (which must be in the editing status), the elevation information is automatically filled in with the new fields, such:

After the settings, click the OK button to automatically obtain the elevation information in GPS (some points are 0, because some photos fail to get the elevation information due to poor signals during shooting ):

With the elevation information, you can view the photo again. It is a Red Ocean scenic spot with an altitude of more than 3700 meters:

It is the grassland and river of hongyuan, with an altitude of more than 3500 meters:

Below is the ancient city of Songzhou, at an altitude of more than 2900 meters:

Below is the taima ancient road in maoxian County. At this time, the altitude has dropped to more than 1600 meters:

Which of the technologies and scenery in this article attracts you more?