Using Geo-Tagged Photos

Introduction

Most modern cameras, including those in smart phones (e.g. iPhone) include the ability to embed GPS location data in the photo, so that later on it is possible to view where the photo was taken. The GPS location recorded with the photo is the location where the camera is, not where the subject of the photo is. This location is also subject to GPS errors of up to 15 feet.

Google has made it easy to combine their Photos App with their My Maps App in order to create maps that can be viewed in any web browser or in the Google My Maps, Google Earth or Maps App on a computer or mobile device.

The following procedure uses a computer web browser to create the map using photos taken with a mobile phone, which can then be viewed on any computer or mobile device.

Note that you need a Google account (you@gmail.com or you@medfordleas.net) to create the Map, but not to view it. Anyone can view the maps if you have made the map public.

1. Upload photos and create an album in Google Photos

Collect all the photos that you want to include in the map into one place (a directory or folder) to make it easier to upload to Google Photos on the web.

Then upload photos and create an album in Google Photos

In your web browser, open Google Photos: https://photos.google.com/

Click on UPLOAD


Navigate to where the photos are on your computer and select the photos that you want to upload and eventually have on the map. Then click Choose.

The photos will start to upload to the Google “cloud.”

When all the photos have finished uploading, click on ADD TO ALBUM.

Click on New Album to create a new album.

Add title for the new album

2. Create a map from your photos in Google My Maps

In your web browser, open Google My Maps: https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/

Click on CREATE A NEW MAP

Edit the map title and description

To add the geo-tagged photos, click on Import

Select Photo albums

Select the photos in the album that you want to map.

Now you can see the icons representing each photo and its location on the map.

Note that Google makes an attempt to make sense of the location of the photos in terms of addresses rather than latitude and longitude.

Clicking on either the listing or the icon, shows the photo and the description that Google has created.

It is possible to change:

  • The icon and its color by clicking on the tilting paint bucket
  • The description by clicking on the pencil.
  • Change or add another photo by clicking on the camera


We changed the icon and its color by clicking on the tilting paint bucket.

We changed the title and removed the description by clicking on the pencil.

Since our items of interest are in the meadow and not street addresses, it makes more sense to view them with a satellite base map. Click on Base map, then click on the Satellite view.

As mentioned earlier, the location shown for each birdhouse is actually the location of the camera/Smartphone when it took the photo, and since it is based on GPS, it may be as much as fifteen feet away from where the birdhouse actually is. We can definitely see things as big as trees in this view, but the birdhouses are rather small to show up in a satellite image. However, there are small white areas near where the birdhouses show up. Lets assume that they are the actual birdhouses. We can now move the icons to match the white areas.

If we double click on the icon, we can then drag it anywhere we want and if we know where it should be, we can drag it on top that point on the satellite view. We can call this pinpointing the location.

3. Add more data fields to the map

Right now, you have a map with a name for each item (Box 1, Box 2, etc.) and its latitude and longitude, but nothing else. For the map to be useful we want to include a way to record and view data about each box. For example, maintenance/cleaning and nesting activity.

One way to do this is to convert the My Map to a spreadsheet, add columns for the desired data and then convert the spreadsheet back to a map. However for now, we will continue in My Map and use the built in Data Table

To open the Data Table of the My Map, click on the three vertical dots for Layer Options.

In the pop-up box, select Open data table.

By default there is already a column for description, so enter something in this column. For example, "Bluebird Nesting Box."

Next, we want to add columns for the two new items, Maintenance and Nesting Activity.

Click on the drop down arrow at the right end of the column heading and then click on Insert column after to create another column to the right of the one for description.

Repeat the same procedure as above for the second new column, "Nesting Activity."

Information for these fields can be gathered in the field and then entered in My Maps on a desktop computer, or they can be entered directly in the field with a mobile device running My Maps.


4. Update or enter more data in the field with My Maps App on a mobile device

To save the steps of hand writing data in the field as you go from birdhouse to birdhouse, and then copying it into the My Map Data Table on your desktop computer, the data can be entered directly into the mobile device with the My Maps App.

Open the map in Google My Maps by going to:

https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/

Click on the pencil icon to begin editing or adding data.

Once you are in edit mode, enter new data in the Maintenance and Nesting Activity boxes, then click Save.

Now the new data has been saved for Box 2.

In this example, we have only documented three of the many Bluebird boxes in the Medford Leas Meadow. If we want to add the rest, it is easy to do in Google My Maps. Go to this page, Using Google My Maps, to find out how.