Geoff Jones

Inveterate dabbler in business, travel, gadgets & life

Tag: Garmin Etrex

Rambling and geotagging

Another great short walk of 13miles , this time ably led by Chris of Newmarket Ramblers. Here is the track with photographs:-

Newmarket Ramblers – Stetchworth Walk

Widget powered by EveryTrail: GPS Geotagging

For anyone interested I’m using the Garmin Etrex Legend HCx. Reading the track stored on the Garmins datacard by using its USB interface attached to XP (I’m using Parallels on the iMac as the Garmin software is PC only)

with the Garmin Mapsource software (6.14.1).

The software allows you to edit the track and shows the track as a crude map to make the editing easier.I then export the file as a gpx file to the HoudahGeo software on the iMac  where I can import any pictures previous captured from the camera using iPhoto. Before setting out I have carefully set the camera date and time to the GPS!

HoudahGeo can then embed geotags into the photos and export them to Flickr.

I can then upload the gpx file to Evertrail and import the geotagged images from Flickr to give the trail shown above. A bit tedious but it does incorporate three of my interests, Internet, walking & photography. Today was also my second anniversary of meeting Sally on one of her walks so I guess that four interests!!!

Interestingly HoudahGeo also allows direct export to google earth so maybe Evertrail and wikiloc will get crushed under the google juggernaut.

EverTrail on the iPhone

Another day another new iPhone application. Today it was EveryTrail.

In the past I used my Garmin Etrex as a GPS and a regular camera, by fiddling with LoadMyTracks, HoudahGeo and Flickr I managed to upload my walks to Everytrail. Today it all changed 🙂

Here is my test walk around Cambridge with the iPhone:-

cambridge station walk

Widget powered by EveryTrail: GPS Geotagging

EverTrail iPhone screen

On the iPhone the application looks like this, very intuitive to use, give it your login name ad password then just walk and take pictures. It isn’t using the cell networks or WiFi so these can be switched off. I didn’t and the iPhone battery was dead in about 2 hours 🙁

Battery life is a real issue with all these new applications, it means its a playphone rather than a real tool for saying doing day long hikes.

Other than that its a great little application – the log was uploaded over WiFi in a few minutes at home.

It could be improved by having the screen shut off and some positive indication that it is locked to the satellites, maybe buzz if it loses the GPS signal. A screen showing satellite positions and strengths would be cool too. I also noticed that it lost the Altitude data when transferring to Everytrail – not so bad in Cambridge but annoying on a mountain walk.

Apologies for poor image quality – obviously a sticky finger left some traces on the camera lens – a snag when you have to hold the phone for so long!

A good free application that is really only limited by the poor iPhone batteries and satellite receptio.

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