September 2007
I tested the freeware GPicSync offered by Google to geo-code digital pictures, i.e. the software that allows to write the GPS data of a picture shooting point within the EXIF embedded data like aperture value, time, focal length, kind of lens, camera serial number, etc. This operation is carried out without the need of any physical connection between the GPS and the camera.
This software is extremely easy to use, it is safe for the pictures and results are guaranteed. The unique operation to perform carefully before starting to shot pictures is the synchronization of the camera time to the Universal Time displayed by the GPS. Not a difficult task with a good camera; it is like setting a stop-watch. While shooting pictures it is very important to log a GPS track with a high sampling rate. At home, before running the application, the difference to the UT is to be set in input If the camera is originally set on the local time. Every owner of a GPS like the Garmin Map CSX60 will benefit of the possibility to configure the device to automatically save on the included micro-SD the track log in the GPS interchange format file (*.gpx). Dropping the gpx file in the same destination folder of the pictures it is all what is needed to operate the software and maintain a well ordered archive of geo-coded images.
This nice piece of software recognizes the Canon RAW format. I presume it does the same with all the other major proprietary RAW formats. GPicSync has many interesting features; we just remind the automatic creation of a file in the *.kml format used by Google Earth. It is therefore possible to display in a fly the shooting points as waypoints on the globe of Google Earth or on the map view of any other navigation software.
Before modifying the EXIF data, the software create a back-up of all the pictures. It is an extremely cautious approach: in fact, I verified with the original RAW converting software offered by Canon that no alteration of the picture is induced by the insertion of the GPS data in the embedded EXIF data
|
