DavidW
7th of October 2006 (Sat), 08:30
Tommy's post here (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?p=2088046) about the possibility of a framer in EE inspired me to mention an idea I have for EE.
My current project with my own photos
A long term aim of mine is to geocode my outdoor photos. I've got the necessary GPS recording working with my iPAQ, Bluetooth GPS and GpsGate (http://franson.com/gpsgate/) - I'm recording RMC (for time, date, latitude and longitude) and GGA (so that I also get altitude) to a file every ten seconds. That 'logger' works fine for several hours on battery power for both the iPAQ and the GPS with my Pocket PC's backlight turned off. Using GpsGate doesn't interfere with use of my GPS in other applications, as they can connect to a GpsGate virtual COM port. I keep the file recorder in a separate instance of GpsGate so that I can turn it on and off independently of the rest of the application.
Indeed, I can also send my position back to my home computer using UDP to GpsGate on my Windows machine (for economy on my GPRS bill I use the same 10 second repeat of RMC and GGA), though if all you want is a way of sharing your GPS on your Pocket PC and logging data to a file, you just need the Pocket PC program.
Certainly from now on I intend to record GPS data whenever I shoot outside - if I've got the data I can always make use of it at a later date.
To geocode the pictures using that recorded data, RoboGEO (http://www.robogeo.com) looks like the favourite application, especially when teamed with Google Earth. Unfortunately RoboGEO doesn't (yet) support XMP sidecar files (though it does support JPEG and DNG), though I've been in touch with the author and he's interested in adding XMP support. If you want to add a 'me too', then the email address for suggestions is at the bottom of the FAQ page (http://www.robogeo.com/home/faq.asp).
Both GpsGate and RoboGEO are commercial software, but both are inexpensive. If you already have a handheld GPS with a suitable cable, you may well be able to get the necessary data directly into RoboGEO. For various reasons, my only GPSes are Pocket PC based ones.
Where EE comes in
When I get some geocoded photos (even if I finish up doing my post-processing, then using RoboGEO to geocode the resulting JPEGs - though it would be neater to geocode the XMP sidecars so that GPS data is in the metadata of all the resulting files), I'll be looking to add GPS data to EE's metadata reading routines.
Once EE is capable of reading GPS metadata, it would be a case of agreeing which tables and fields would be used to store this in the EE database with Pekka, and add the necessary code to store the GPS metadata in the database.
Once GPS data is in the EE database, there's all manner of ways it can be used. Particularly exciting to me are the possibilities for outputting KML files to Google Earth, which can, of course, be dynamically generated using PHP. KML feeds of galleries, latest pictures and so on are all possible.
I must stress that this is a long term project that may take some time to come to fruition. I'm hoping that the initial stages of this - getting as far as having GPS data in the EE database - may be possible within the next two months. However, I can't promise if any of this will actually happen - my priorities may change as my life is, like everyone's subject to outside pressures.
Some thoughts about third party development of EE
Pekka - are you interested in working with other developers on enhancements to EE code, on the basis that all code is contributed to the main EE2 distribution under the terms of the EE2 licence, and that you remain in overall control of your project? I believe that the EE user community has the capability of offering significant enhancements to all EE users.
If any significant efforts are made by other developers, it may be worth moving EE to a revision control system such as Subversion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subversion_(software)) to keep hold of the master EE code. That would offer various advantages, such as the ability to revert individual (mistaken) changes, and even the possibility of offering read-only access to the repository for people to retrieve interim versions of files to solve individual problems.
There are open source Subversion clients around, such as Web Client for SVN (http://polarion.org/index.php?page=overview&project=svnwebclient) and Subversion (http://subversion.tigris.org/) is itself open source. One advantage of using Subversion is that the server itself can be run under Apache 2 using WebDAV. Windows binaries for the server are available, too.
Final thoughts
For now, my priorities are to get a debuggable jailed Apache and PHP setup running on my FreeBSD box (hopefully today - we'll see), and work on a few glitches that I'm seeing in the metadata handling, with any fixes contributed back to Pekka via the forums.
None of this other stuff I've mentioned is necessarily going to happen, but I thought I'd float it here as EE excites me tremendously.
To be clear, I am not suggesting any move from the current setup, where EE is Pekka's project that Pekka is in control of. I'm also not suggesting any deviation from the licence that Pekka has placed EE2 under.
I'm merely trying to suggest ways that the community could add features to EE under Pekka's oversight, and suggesting that consideration is given to handling EE files under a revision control system (for which Subversion looks particularly attractive due to it being available free of charge to run under a Windows or UNIX based Apache 2 server).
David
My current project with my own photos
A long term aim of mine is to geocode my outdoor photos. I've got the necessary GPS recording working with my iPAQ, Bluetooth GPS and GpsGate (http://franson.com/gpsgate/) - I'm recording RMC (for time, date, latitude and longitude) and GGA (so that I also get altitude) to a file every ten seconds. That 'logger' works fine for several hours on battery power for both the iPAQ and the GPS with my Pocket PC's backlight turned off. Using GpsGate doesn't interfere with use of my GPS in other applications, as they can connect to a GpsGate virtual COM port. I keep the file recorder in a separate instance of GpsGate so that I can turn it on and off independently of the rest of the application.
Indeed, I can also send my position back to my home computer using UDP to GpsGate on my Windows machine (for economy on my GPRS bill I use the same 10 second repeat of RMC and GGA), though if all you want is a way of sharing your GPS on your Pocket PC and logging data to a file, you just need the Pocket PC program.
Certainly from now on I intend to record GPS data whenever I shoot outside - if I've got the data I can always make use of it at a later date.
To geocode the pictures using that recorded data, RoboGEO (http://www.robogeo.com) looks like the favourite application, especially when teamed with Google Earth. Unfortunately RoboGEO doesn't (yet) support XMP sidecar files (though it does support JPEG and DNG), though I've been in touch with the author and he's interested in adding XMP support. If you want to add a 'me too', then the email address for suggestions is at the bottom of the FAQ page (http://www.robogeo.com/home/faq.asp).
Both GpsGate and RoboGEO are commercial software, but both are inexpensive. If you already have a handheld GPS with a suitable cable, you may well be able to get the necessary data directly into RoboGEO. For various reasons, my only GPSes are Pocket PC based ones.
Where EE comes in
When I get some geocoded photos (even if I finish up doing my post-processing, then using RoboGEO to geocode the resulting JPEGs - though it would be neater to geocode the XMP sidecars so that GPS data is in the metadata of all the resulting files), I'll be looking to add GPS data to EE's metadata reading routines.
Once EE is capable of reading GPS metadata, it would be a case of agreeing which tables and fields would be used to store this in the EE database with Pekka, and add the necessary code to store the GPS metadata in the database.
Once GPS data is in the EE database, there's all manner of ways it can be used. Particularly exciting to me are the possibilities for outputting KML files to Google Earth, which can, of course, be dynamically generated using PHP. KML feeds of galleries, latest pictures and so on are all possible.
I must stress that this is a long term project that may take some time to come to fruition. I'm hoping that the initial stages of this - getting as far as having GPS data in the EE database - may be possible within the next two months. However, I can't promise if any of this will actually happen - my priorities may change as my life is, like everyone's subject to outside pressures.
Some thoughts about third party development of EE
Pekka - are you interested in working with other developers on enhancements to EE code, on the basis that all code is contributed to the main EE2 distribution under the terms of the EE2 licence, and that you remain in overall control of your project? I believe that the EE user community has the capability of offering significant enhancements to all EE users.
If any significant efforts are made by other developers, it may be worth moving EE to a revision control system such as Subversion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subversion_(software)) to keep hold of the master EE code. That would offer various advantages, such as the ability to revert individual (mistaken) changes, and even the possibility of offering read-only access to the repository for people to retrieve interim versions of files to solve individual problems.
There are open source Subversion clients around, such as Web Client for SVN (http://polarion.org/index.php?page=overview&project=svnwebclient) and Subversion (http://subversion.tigris.org/) is itself open source. One advantage of using Subversion is that the server itself can be run under Apache 2 using WebDAV. Windows binaries for the server are available, too.
Final thoughts
For now, my priorities are to get a debuggable jailed Apache and PHP setup running on my FreeBSD box (hopefully today - we'll see), and work on a few glitches that I'm seeing in the metadata handling, with any fixes contributed back to Pekka via the forums.
None of this other stuff I've mentioned is necessarily going to happen, but I thought I'd float it here as EE excites me tremendously.
To be clear, I am not suggesting any move from the current setup, where EE is Pekka's project that Pekka is in control of. I'm also not suggesting any deviation from the licence that Pekka has placed EE2 under.
I'm merely trying to suggest ways that the community could add features to EE under Pekka's oversight, and suggesting that consideration is given to handling EE files under a revision control system (for which Subversion looks particularly attractive due to it being available free of charge to run under a Windows or UNIX based Apache 2 server).
David