If nothing else, it would help you rember where the picture was taken -- what that Florida or California, Greece or Italy, Aunt Sadie's or Aunt Flo's.

How about adding information for the exact orientation similar to that used to pin-point where a star lies in the sky? This would complete the quest for giving the same perspective.

Use to identify/verify fishing vessels poaching in restricted areas

Well, since there are programs that can generate a 3-D model from multiple 2d photos, we could pretty quickly 3d model an area by asking people to share GPD-tagged photos.

Or, you could have a "virtual" stereo camera by sharing shots from different angles.

Or, our agency, a county highway department, could use it to tie down "Which of 378 nearly-identical stop signs am I looking at here?"

Arborists could easily use it to id trees, biologists could use it to make instant field notes -- what a great idea!!

I think you would need a gyroscope to give you accurate orientation information, and it would need to be calibrated to a standard baseline... probably parallel orientation to the earth's true north pole?

Maybe there are sensitive 3-dimensional magnetometers that can point accurately enough toward magnetic north that the orientation can be inferred from the GPS data.

This idea might help resolve land titling problems that now hold back (c.f. Hernando de Soto) economic growth in developing countries.

Affordable cameras of this type could be used by villages to market out property boundaries, with images and locations integrated in GIS databases.

It would be especially helpful to have GPS cameras equipped with a compass, to provide directional info for each shot asa well as location/time/date stamping.

Digital cameras with audio capture capability could also record comments of the owners and their neighbors attesting to the accuracy of the recorded boundary lines.

If anyone would like to follow up on this, we'd welcome providing a proving ground for a prototype system. We are presently engaged in projects in Asia and Africa along these lines to enhance land values (and capture some of the appreciation for e-learning scholarship and microvoucher funds).

Mark Frazier (202.257.2574)

My camera (Canon G3) already saves all kind of information about the picture in the exif tag. Most cameras do. Mine stores info like shutter opening, iris, focus, position of the camera (sideways, level...), date, time, photographer name and email address....

Actually, GPS info in digital cameras is already a proposed spec. It just requires camera manufactureres and GPS manufacturers to put a cost-effective device together.

some more uses of GPS enabled camera:

1. think about serching (googeling) for pictures of a place/building/nature resort ... by location.

2. Automatic ordering of pictures by location - for example: - Visiting this butiful small vialge in ... - all pictures in my kid's kindergarten, in my parents town, on the beach ...

3. Help build my grand trip route according to the pictures locations + time stamp

Tax Assessors can use this along with real estate agents. Also road departments to log potholes, etc. How about archeology and natural resource surveys. Add cell phone and use as security system, accident calls with records to the police, or help calls from seniors who are having heart attacks...

GPS is very costly. I am not certain that two GPS satelite will give same reading with good enough accuracy.Secondly, will GPS give position of the object or position of the camera. For all you know some one may be shooting object from 20 m to 200 m

There are a couple standards initiatives that are of relevance for exchanging position info. In effect, they allow position info to be picked up from a nearby device, such as a mobile phone and/or passed to applications for use: The Java JSR179 Location API http://www.jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=179 (released) The Bluetooth Local Positioning Profile http://www.bluetooth.org (under development)

Some cameraphones are already equipped with GPS, and can already do this.

There is even a photoblog service that does all the metadata extracting and plotting on a map.

Found this info thanks to JL over at elastico.net [Spanish].

I had thought about this possibility, too and I think it could be useful. That said, I've used a couple of different GPS devices and I see some potential problems:

1. GPS devices all take a certain amount of time to get a fix when first turned on. In the case of snapshots, there would not usually be enough time to get a GPS fix unless the camera was turned on at the site for a minute or so. That means you would miss a lot of photos.

2. GPS accuracy and availability depend on a clear view of the sky. Indoor locations and outdoor locations with tall buildings or tree cover would be iffy.

3. Adding GPS to a camera would put an increased load on the batteries, especially if signicant time is required to get a fix before taking a photo.

4. Most inexpensive GPS systems are not accurate enough to get an exact location. They are usually accurate within 50 feet or less.

<a href=http://happysnapper.net>Happysnapper.net wasn't exactly setup with this purpose in mind, I had more of a tourist type, if you go here you can see these things, thing in mind, but it's also possible to plot the same location multiple times, so far there is a number of people starting to plot out locations, but you don't need a GPS, long/lat can be obtained via street address, or you can use a point and click feature to plot the location.

A makeshift version of this has been done for something called the California Coastal Records Project:http://www1.californiacoastline.org/

This is a photographic survey of the entire California coast taken from a helicopter, using a digital camera and GPS hooked up to a laptop. The site has info about the setup used. As you navigate up and down the coast, a map shows you the location, using the recorded GPS coordinates.

The company Geospan(.com) does this for cities, counties, road depts., etc. They have a special van with multiple digital cameras recording the whole 'scene' as they drive through an idea, and via GPS they auto-insert location data in all the digital imaging they are doing.

Perfect! This is a credit to the Historian development in the future that they can compare the photographs in the same place but in different periods.

A bit off-topic perhaps, but I thought you and others might enjoy the work of the Degree Confluence Project...

http://www.confluence.org/

Cheers,Matt

That would also be a good idea if the flash doubled as a kind of radar, or rangefinder, and there would be a device in the camera that recorded the distance, of all objects in view. If it was really good it would have the objects gps coordinates, etc. You could also add a atomic clock in the recorded info. The back of the picture, would have a computer laser code that would have all the GPS, time, distance information on it. Eventually, a holographic means of data storage can be used.

yes, not only digital photography, but digital video, built into a car. combined with wireless technology you could capture and send live video or save a video file and send it to someone else. visual directions -- a video file accompanies the directions to a destination, so instead of trying to remember landmarks or explain the difficult turnoff, you have visual instructions.

It would be very usefull for jornalists and editors. The gpsed pics would stand much better as proofs.

I think the gps information should be stenographed in the images. That way, the current image files standarts could be used.

While GPS alone doesn't work reliably indoors and in urban canyons, and GPS-only receiver accuracy is generally poor(except for very expensive professional devices), that will not be the case in 4-5 years. Newer technologies that compliment GPS with highly syncronous terrestrial positioning networks, using the same coordinate frame of lat/long/alt, are coming. They won't be eveywhere, but in places (e.g. campuses, cities) that employ them, reliable positioning will be instant and accurate (sub-cm), and the size and cost of receivers will be miniscule (and thus will be embedded within a range of consumer electronic devices).

Since this sort of meta-data capture is occuring in many devices already (including cameras), the "revised idea" should be "how to take advantage of GPS information with your digital media files". ;-)

We capture about 800mb's per person per year now(http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/research/projects/how-much-info-2003/), but what do we do with it - stor it in a file system that carries no discrete meta-data.

Intel was awarded a patent for GPS in cameras in the Summer of 2003

The Interactive Visual Media Group at Microsoft Research has developed the WWMX (World-Wide Media eXchange) project, which is focused on exploring the possibilities inherent in associating digital photographs with the location where they were shot. I qoute from a recent (2/2/'04) press release:

"The World-Wide Media eXchange (WWMX) is a set of technologies that features an online database of nearly 30,000 photos submitted by mostly amateur photographers and indexed by location. Downloadable software from the WWMX site can associate digital photographs containing date and time stamps with data collected from global positioning system (GPS) devices, and then link the photos to MapPoint or TerraServer maps on the WWMX site using the GPS coordinates. Colored dots scattered across a map of the world show viewers where to look for images that tell people's stories."

As an example of this technology, Andrew Skurka of Seekonk, MA, will post his geotagged pictures on his record attempt to become the first person to hike the entire 7,700-mile Sea-to-Sea Route (a linkage of existing long-distance hiking trails that spans continuously between Washington’s Cape Alava and Quebec’s Cape Gaspe).

A great idea, though already discussed extensively in a recent issue of "New Scientist" (3 April 2004).

When we integrate this with the Perfect Personal Audio [and video] Memory idea, we will be able to use the digital photos as bookmarks to replay the audio/video experience.

When we add GPS information, and enough people running around snapping photos at a particular time, we can "time travel" and "space travel" and see in near virtual reality what it is like at a different time and place.

History will never be the same. We will no longer be bound by time and space, being able to zap ourselves into another time and place, virtually.

this will eventually create the database necessary for a colossally-scaled immersive virtual-reality-reality. somebody somewhere will do it, even if it's never widely known. time travel will be a logical component of this vrr.

This would also help me to document travel, e.g. on a Mountainbike tour ... could even think of the getting the snaphot movie synchronized with the recorded GPS data while riding.

I'm shocked to read that Intel has a patent on GPS in cameras because I've been discussing this since 1993.

I used to work for a photo-library that specialised in travel. One of the photographers I represented complained that the hardest bit of his job was writing captions, but captions are vital for selling the pictures. Professional photography was exculsively 'chemical' at the time but codes such as time-stamps were routinely added to the edge of frames. I thought we could stamp coordinates and the direction the camera was pointing also in a machine readable format. When the film was processed, captions would be automatically generated for each frame. If the location was in the database, it would be printed on the slide mount, if not, just the district, country or coordinates would be added.

It would be nice if you could also add a feature that would let you identify someone once in a picture and from then on use face scanning technology to print a caption under each picture showing who's in it.

Google on photo GPS. Look over the results.

The technology to do this already exists in one form or another, it's "only" a matter of combining the elements into a single, integrated, affordable package. Ring laser gyros and accelerometers can determine orientation, and help GPS determine location.

They're just really expensive.

This is a very practical idea. Initially, it is likely to be economical only for certain commercial uses, such as those already doing it. Such users will either jury-rig something that works or spend a lot of money designing some special hardware. Over time, as GPS hardware becomes GPS-on-a-chip, it may become a standard part of many digital cameras.

This is a great idea. I saw an old reference to this being a product that might soon be released and did some research. Ricoh is making one, and Kodak may be, too: http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000663028166/

For those who already have a GPS and a camera, here is a link to software that will tie the two together, without wires. Now THAT is a great idea. http://www.geospatialexperts.com/gpsphotolink.html

Score one for the whynot team!

Most GPS units are already able to output their location though a serial or USB cable. Perhpas the best way to accomplish this, keep costs down, and promote an open standard, would be to add software to digital cameras that takes input from the device.
<Br>Since most cameras use USB and allow bi-directional communication, it shouldn't be hard to plug a portable GPS unit into a camera for this function.

I'm back. Holy smoke! How cool is this. I havent been back to WhyNot in quite some time. Its so cool to see that my idea (er - looks like I wasnt the only one thinking about this) spawned so many interesting comments. I supposed my Artsy Tile idea was nearly as well received. Fun stuff.

The GPS information in the Digital Photos could be used by tools like Google Earth to zoom in to the location based on the coordinates... So no one forgets where the image was taken.

Actually that already exists and it is not very expensive, I use it all the time

Tools needed:1. Symbian phone with good camera (I have a nokia 6600)2. Cheap bluetooth gps ebay.com 40$3. GeoCam application 10$ herehttp://my-symbian.com/s60/software/applications.php?fldAuto=1337&faq=4

It has already been implemented. Some new dSLR cameras have it as part of the EXIF data.

I have pondered this one since digital camers have become everyday items. It is a natural extension. Using a range finder and electric compass to tell the camera how far away the subject is and the exact direction every pixel could be coded with its precise location.

Continued from earlier post...

Using the data from multiple images taken from different angles, the image could be stitched together to become truly 3d.

Uses for this include: documentation of an accident scene documentation of murders and other police related efforts allows for a mechanism related to copyrighted materials anything a photographer photographs in their studio for instance photographs taken on location documentation for apartment managers oil field maintenance aerial surveying would also require altitude, zoom factor, & viewing vector photo-journalism would be able to precisely reproduce where and when a series of events took place anti-terrorist products (see www.DARPA.mil for similar proposals) digital photos could be fed into a national security database to track known or suspected terrorist activities anti-crime products when a crime occurs, the more info that is available, the harder it is for them to get away with a crime

Sony is releasing a small device to be used with Sony cameras to do this idea.

Sorry....

Sony and Ricoh have both tried this -- Sony has a standalone gadget and Ricoh has an integrated GPS reciever to integrate with Garmin products. Microsoft Labs is also trying to integrate directional sensing based on looking at the contents of a series of photos to create a 3-D map. It's on their labs site, very cool.

This is great. We should be happy that Sony adopted this notion and that it is commercially available to the wide public. Now it's a matter of acceptance by the public and whether people would fork out the money to inscribe the extra GPS information on the pictures they've taken. As said by the original author, it would be interesting what we can do with this extra information, individually and collectively. Cost-benefit is often a critical aspect for widespread acceptance.

Would be interesting if the idea catches on with other manufacturers.

... continued from earlier post

Actually that would be the question:

1. Who are to benefit from this marriage of technology?2. What real world convenient uses can come out of it?3. What real needs does/can it satisfy?4. What other "inventions" can support this "new invention"? ... so to make it really useful.

The idea has been implemented in the Navman iCN 750 GPS, also the Navman N40i, and N60i. I.e. the Navman iCN 750’s innovative GPS navigation lets you identify destinations as pictures, rather than just names, letting you define your world as you see it. You can take pictures using the innovative NavPix software and camera in the iCN 750, reference them so they integrate with the pre-loaded maps, and then select an image as your destination or a point en route.

Say you found an idyllic mountain lake, and you want to return to the spot again later. You simply select its picture and the GPS navigator will direct you back to it, from wherever you happen to be at the moment.

Check out these units at http://GoGPSDirected.com/navman

Sybille

Great idea. There are actually a few camera models now that have GPS built in. Also, some photo sites (like flickr allow you to tag photos with location information. Love it.

This is the basis for Web 2.0, except it's done with pretty much everything imaginable.

I agree that this is a great idea, but must point out that sony has just started implimenting this idea. with their newer cameras they offer a gps accessory which saves the location of each photo, and software which organizes your photos graphically on a world map, obviously great minds think alike.

We are working on a project to insert the gps, or cell info into the photo, and upload it to a geographical photo album as google maps. It will be finished in july.

I thought f this Idea myself about a year ago, when I first heard about NOKIA N95 (Cell with 5Mpixcam & GPS).I wanted the function for an art project, in which I needed the exact location of the shoot, and the possibility to upload the data to Google Earth.Tell me when it's ready ;-)

Great! Get Google Earth onboard.

I think Nikon has now taken your idea and incorporated it into there latest camera, D300!

I think that this already exists to some degree. I was at a party last night with a guy who works for a company called Buzznet (3rd most popular paparazzi site after TMZ and PerezHilton). They are working with paparazzi photographers to allow them to submit GPS-tagged photos of stars so that people can track (read: stalk) stars in real time. I don't know if this is live yet, but it should be soon.

People are already doing this- Google, for one. And as noted, it's in the proposed camera spec.

One can get GPS logger devices, which when it and the camera is correctly configured, you take your GPS logger and camera with you, and afterward you can use software to sync the location and time on the log to the time the camera sets on the photo, to geotag them.

heading info is mandatory i.e. (340.5 degrees)

Microsoft has something like what you're talking about for smartphones with cameras built in.It's called "Everytrail"Go here:

http://blog.everytrail.com/?cat=12

And this program DOES upload the images to Google Earth.

I think a less expensive way to do what you're looking for would be to have a way to hook up your digital camera to your cell phone (since most cameras and cellphones already have a USB connection), and upload it there since your cell phone already has a kind of GPS locater built in. (By law)(It's not really GPS,but a kind of cell tower "Triangulation". but software translates it into GPS code)

There are cellphones from both Sony Ericsson and Nokia that places geotags in the photofiles now. With one click you make your pictures a blog-entry, or a page on flickr, with references to google maps (i think). The latest Nikon compact has a built in GPS as well ;-)

Awesome idea! If they included a compass and an accelerometer you could include spatial coordinates. So, you would know exactly what's seen in the picture. I imagine, eventually, all picture-takers will upload their photos to the internet. In 50 years, the collection of images would be enough to search the database and find yourself in other peoples photos! Imagine that!

Awesome idea! If they included a compass and an accelerometer you could include spatial coordinates. So, you would know exactly what's seen in the picture. I imagine, eventually, all picture-takers will upload their photos to the internet. In 50 years, the collection of images would be enough to search the database and find yourself in other peoples photos! Imagine that!

Awesome idea! If they included a compass and an accelerometer you could include spatial coordinates. So, you would know exactly what's seen in the picture. I imagine, eventually, all picture-takers will upload their photos to the internet. In 50 years, the collection of images would be enough to search the database and find yourself in other peoples photos! Imagine that!

This is a very good idea, some additional uses of this could be to keep the camera on while driving and if you run into an accident it can provide information to cops on what happened on the scene. Also how many time someone cuts in to your lane in a traffic jam. You could send the image to cops and could be used by the department to issue a ticket. If nothing this will bring discipline as everyone will be afraid to cut lanes with the fear of being caught on someone's camera and it will surely reduce the number of accidents.

i like this idea

Nikon now has such a Geotagging device http://www.nikonusa.com/Find-Your-Nikon/Product/Miscellaneous/25396/GP-1-GPS-Unit.htmlconnects to their digital SLR and embeds the GPS coordinates within the pictures' EXIF data when shots are taken.

Good foresight! This idea has basically been implemented into many many camera phones and a growing number of digital cameras. For instance google earth and my iphone photo uploads synch up and correctly place the location of the digital photos I have taken.

Like it. for Smartphones with camera and GPS could be implemented with a yet to be written intermediate drive. A digital compass and inclinometer would solve for azmith and angle. throw in a laser ranger finder and specifics of the lens mechanics and focus and you have distance too... from that and estimation of obhect size..

Havent you heard of Geo Tagging?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geotagging