The onset of the Global positioning system (GPS) technology was originally developed for military use. It is used today as the foundation for some great innovative gadgets that we use on a daily basis. GPS is used in cellphones, automobile navigation systems and standalone GPS's used by joggers, hunters and people from all walks of life. Just in the last few years the technology is used to tag digital photos with GPS data containing precise geographic information.
Do you have boxes of photos that you can't remember where they were photographed, or the date and time? It can be a frustrating process trying to remember the information. Well there is a solution to the problem, called geotagging. When you geotag photos, you are adding the latitude, longitude, and altitude information into the image file. It adds the data into something called the EXIF (exchangeable image file format) area of the image file. Additional information such as time and date can also be included in the stored image file.
Newer cameras have global positioning system (GPS) units built into them. When a photo is taken, it is automatically stamped with the camera's location. This method produces the most accurate result. Because not all cameras come with a built-in geotagging device, there are a number of geotagging devices that are mountable on cameras that have a hotshoe. The devices normally come with software which adds the data after the photo download, to the file associated with the photo image. Recent innovations add the GPS receiver right in the camera. This does two things, it provides GPS locations for photos and automatically adds the data into the EXIF area which saves the frustration of trying to marry the data with the photo by using other processes.
There is a company in Germany that has enhanced the acquisition of geodata by developing the JOBO photoGPS will also includes the address (i.e. country, city, street) and closest point of interest in the image file. This enables you to search for specific places, streets or points of interest without having to tag each picture individually. And the best part is that the JOBO photoGPS works in nearly all countries worldwide. For access to geotagging devices and cameras and additional information take a look at placeforgps.com.
