Pinpointing with a satellite printout

Here is the same tree we considered in the page on extracting location data from Geo-tagged photos.

This satellite view shows the area where the tree is located, in the couryard surrounded by courts 18, 15, 16, and 17. The location of the tree extracted from the EXIF data in the photo is also shown. We will take a printout of this to the actual location and try to determine the precise location.

A printout of the satellite view on a clipboard - ready to take to the field.

Perpendicular lines drawn from the Courts 18, 15 and 16 (Court 17 was blocked by trees), intersect to show the location of the tree. Note that it is relatively close to the location determined by Geo-tagged photo, but at least ten or fifteen feet away. Also note that the location we determined sort of appears to be in the middle of an existing tree. However, if you look at the photo of the tree again, you can see it is in the shade, so that's probably what we are seeing in the satellite view (shade - not another tree).

This is a screen shot of a Google My Map with the location that we had determined from form the Geo-tagged photo shown. In order to find the coordinates for the point that was determined ih the last step, we will add a Marker over that point. Click on the Marker icon, drop it  and then drag it to the point we have identified.

The blue marker is our best guess at the actual location of the tree. Notice that we determined the location with an Apple Satellite view on an iPhone and we used a Google Satellite view to place the marker. Among other things, the shadows from the trees are different, but the locations of the buildings of course, have not changed.

Click on the blue marker to get the location information, 39.90993, -74.81675. This the latitude and longitude information that will identify this tree in the database. Notice again the difference between the geo-tagged photo location and the location we just determined.