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Digital images
A method of assigning geotag data to the digital images as explained within
If you have used a digital camera to capture field conditions and want to organize them to promote efficiency consider using ProjectWise spatial functions. Images from digital cameras can be georeferenced in ProjectWise just like your CAD drawings, maps, and areal images. New in ProjectWise SELECTseries 2, the Scan Spatial Locations… tool can be used to spatially locate digital images. The images geotag data is mapped to ProjectWise attributes and then just run the scanner using the Extract Location from scanned images tagsoption.
Documents in ProjectWise having a spatial location can be easily located by using the search tool to define an area that is used to constrain the search along with other criteria. Another way to find spatially located images is to just open the folder that contains the images and use the Spatial/Geospatial view in Explorer to zoom in and visually examine the map to locate the images according to their spatial location.
In a separate functionality, thumbnails can be displayed in Explorer by toggling the preview pain on and using the Preview tab. Or, just select the Thumbnails option in the View menu. Images do not display the thumbnail until they are successfully scanned for spatial location.
The source of images that contain tagdata can be from a digital camera, a scanner, phone camera, or any digital image that supports the Exif tagdata. I checked my images from old pictures that were scanned, digital cameras from 2005 and later, and my cheap old phone camera. All contained Exif tagdata. Some of the tags hold GPS data, others relate to the camera, the shutter speed, aperture, date taken and much more.
The simplest way to view the tagdata is to use Window Explorer. Using Windows 7, the Windows Explorer properties of digital camera files display the tag data in the Details tab as shown below. Using my Windows XP machine there is no Details tab and the same information is not available.
If you don’t have a Windows 7 computer, free software can display the tag data. MicrosoftPro Photo Tools is a free download. Using it, if the format does not support Exif tagdata an error message is displayed.
Here’s how to view tagdata of an image using Pro Photo Tools
Tagdata refers to the Exif specification. This is from the Wikipedia website.
Exchangeable image file format (Exif) is a specification for the image file format used bydigital cameras (including smartphones) and scanners. The specification uses the existingJPEG, TIFF Rev. 6.0, and RIFF WAV file formats, with the addition of specific metadata tags. It is not supported in JPEG 2000, PNG, or GIF
There are several ways to assign values to the geotags in an image file.
Tag data is assigned to all images using, it seems, any digital camera. If you want the spatial location information assigned by the camera, it must have GPS capability. There are many new cameras with this feature. Otherwise a separate application is used to assign the latitude and longitude data and optionally the altitude: Some applications are: Microsoft Pro Photo Tools (freeware), Geosetter (freeware), Picassa and Google Earth (also freeware).
The use of Microsoft’s free Pro Photo Tools is explained here to edit geotag data. It is a free downloaded available from Microsoft and elsewhere.
General steps to spatially locate digital images in ProjectWise
1. Assign geotag data to images
To Edit tagdata using Pro Photo Tools
To assign the spatial location to the tag data
OR use Picasa with Google Earth to assign the spatial location tag data to an image.
Click the Geotag button to assign the spatial tags.
2. Import the images into ProjectWise
3. Create a ProjectWise Environment
For specific help open ProjectWise Administrator. From Help menu selectEnvironments, Attributes, and Interfaces > Setting up Environments >Creating Environments.
First create the attributes. Refer to ProjectWise Geospatial Administrator Help >Using ProjectWise Geospatial Management Implementation > Attribute Mappings > Create Raster Metadata Attribute Mapping. There you can just follow the illustration to create attributes as shown. Make sure all the data types are CHAR and long enough to hold ALL the data.
Then create the interface adding and positioning the attributes as desired.
4. Define the Raster Metadata Attribute Mapping
NOTE: to see more tags click the last option <More…>
The final mapping could look like this.
5. Assign the Environment to the ProjectWise folder
The image environment created in step three is assigned to a folder or project. By doing so, all documents within inherit that environment.
6. Scan the Images to assign Spatial Locations
NOTE: For specific help open ProjectWise Explorer. From Help menu selectProjectWise Geospatial Management Explorer V8i (SELECT series 3 (or 2)) Help: Using ProjectWise Geospatial Management Explorer > Assigning Spatial Locations > Spatial Scanning and Loading. The link Extraction Options provides details of the options in the Spatial Locations Scanning Tool Metadata Extraction Options dialog shown above.
The results indicate both spatial location assignment and attribute assignment.
In ProjectWise Explorer select the Spatial or Geospatial view. As you hover over the pin icon, or other shape if that is the option you chose, and the file names are listed.
Try assigning a spatial criteria to a search to locate the images.