Is there a way to put the gps coordinates onto a photo?

Is there a way to put the gps coordinates onto a photo?

I have Windows 10 and Android 11. I am working on a project with multiple very large apartment complexes. I have a paper colored apartment complex map for each complex. The map does not seem to be online so it's a paper handout. At each complex I'm expected to visit a set of given units each day for various reasons and all they give me is this paper map to find each unit.

That works. But it's inefficient. They do this to everyone, not just to me.

We're expected to use the paper map with hundreds of apartments and dozens of buildings, where the numbering system for buildings usually makes sense but not for the apartments. Sometimes we even need to visit parking spaces as we have vehicles parked which we have to put notices on where the numbers make no sense on purpose for security reasons.

Once I find a given location, I've been using OSMand+ to save the current position. First off I'm surprised that OSMAnd+ doesn't have a "Save Current Location" option which I thought almost all map programs would have had.

These apartments all have individual outside entrances so it's not like a hotel where you go down a long hallway to serially find the door number you need.

So what I do is establish my current location & long press the blue dot.

When I get to the right apartment door I step outside the entrance on the ground floor and press as close as I can on the blue location dot which pops up a "Looking up address" OSMAnd+ menu which usually gives the same address for all locations. Then I press the "Add" star and change the name to "Complex Bathroom" or "Complex Pool" or more commonly "ComplexBldgApt" such as "RedwoodApts Bldg15 Apt489" or "RedwoodApts Lot15 Spot489" or something like that.

Once I've renamed the current pressed location, I hit Save and then I can navigate walking after that where OSM can talk me through the steps even when the phone is in my pocket and my hands are full.

Having to fatfinger the location isn't as accurate as having a "Save Current Location" button would be but it's definitely good enough for government work as they say.

When I need to navigate to a given spot I first point the phone north with a compass app because moving compass navigation directions aren't so easy when walking and then I orient the OSM map toward that heading to get my initial bearings of which way to start walking and about how far it will be. Usually I'm carrying tools or supplies so my hands are almost always full.

That's all I need but I'm working with others from the local work to future group where everyone else wastes time trying to find the building & apt.

What I want is take a jpeg picture of the paper colored apartment complex map which I can then hand to each person whose phone can then point to the location.

All of that brings me to my question of how to make that jpeg gps map.

Is there a way to put the gps coordinates onto a photo?

Reply to
mark
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Hi Mark, happy to help here.

First, you need to pull your f****ng head out of your ass.

Once your head is out your of your ass, take your camera and snap a photo of the coordinates on your GPS receiver. Voila!

G Marconi

Reply to
Guglielmo Marconi

Will this work for you?

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Install Irfanview viewer and plugs:

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Open a picture.

Hit "e" on the keyboard. That should bring up the EXIF data.

Highlight the EXIF data you want to insert using the mouse and the shift or control key.

Right click the mouse and select "Copy selected lines to Clipboard" or hit "alt-S"

Exit EXIF info window.

One the picture, use the mouse frame an area where you want the text to appear.

On the menu line above the picture, select: Edit -> Insert Text (ctrl-T)

Hit <ctrl-V> to paste the text from the clipboard into the Text box.

It should look something like this screen dump:

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Play with the options. Hit OK.

Save the picture and you're done.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

mark wrote at Wed, 21 Sep 2022 17:31:47 +0200 :

I don't know if a georeferencing program exists on Windows or on Android for jpeg images but what you need for your jpeg is similar to what common georeferencing software does for a PDF to establish the coordinates for every point on the grid of the jpeg.

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Once you associate the coordinate grid onto that jpeg file, the map program will be able to navigate based on those reference points.

Those talking about exif data don't understand how navigation works.

It's common to georeference a PDF but a google search finds you can georeference an image also if you know what you're doing.

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Reply to
curmudgeon

Based on that reference, it looks like I need to find a program for Windows which will georeference the digital image so that the georeferenced digitial image can then be distributed to the team to be used for map app navigation on their phones.

They got hung up on it being an image and they didn't read the rest of the question because the question has nothing to do with exif data.

It may be impossible to georeference the jpeg but I can convert it to a pdf using windows irfanview conversion plugins.

Once I have the georeferenced pdf, any good map navigatation program on the phone should be able to navigate using that georeferenced pdf as it's map.

If I convert the digital image to a pdf, do you know of a windows program that can georeference that pdf?

Reply to
mark

[...]

Georeferencing images predates georeferencing of *.pdf files by decades. An excellent free GIS program for Windows (and other operating systems) capable of georeferencing is QGIS:

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Here is a tutorial:

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F-Up set to sgs-n Bernd

Reply to
Bernd Rose

Jeff Liebermann wrote at Wed, 21 Sep 2022 09:34:38 -0700 :

What the OP needs to do is assign a gps coordinate to each pixel in his/her raster images using XYZ tile layers for each zoom level.

He/she probably will want to gather the coordinates for a few ground control points from OpenStreetMap. Using those selected ground control points he/she should use the free Windows QGIS version 3.20 or newer tools which have a built-in OpenStreetMap based nominatim geocoder to warp the image to his/her chosen coordinate reference system.

Most likely he/she will choose the EPSG 3857 Pseudo Mercator as his/her target coordinate reference system with the polynomial 2 transformation type and LZW compression settings.

A good tutorial for georeferencing JPG images with Windows QGIS3 is here.

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Reply to
curmudgeon

That can't work.

But the op can download Google satellite image map tiles & OSM map tiles.

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I would think those tiles would come with the georeferences already.

But that free MapTilesDownloader utility from Ali Ashraf requires Python. Is Python on Android?

Reply to
Lawrence Aracabia

The way I would add gps coordinates to every pixel in an image would be to use the free Adobe Acrobat product to turn the image into a geospatial pdf.

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People do it all the time for navigating airport terminals for example.
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Firefighters & emergency responders use EGP to add geospatial coordinates.
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But I'd use Adobe Acrobat since it's easy to edit the image as a PDF.
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Most governments recommend navigation in the geoPDF in Android/iOS Avenza.
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Avenza is limited to 3 active maps (although they can be combined).
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If you need more than 3 active maps, use Android/iOS Paper Maps instead.
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An easy way to test how geopdfs work is to download them from the usgs.
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Zoom to the 24K/7.5-minute quadrangle of interest & download the geopdf. You can even choose historical geopdfs from the 1800's and 1900's.

An example is this Grand Canyon geopdf to use in either of those two apps.

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Reply to
Erholt Rhein

So far I'm failing miserably to create a geospatial PDF using Acrobat.

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From these instructions it will only work with Acrobat 9 & above
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But I think it needs the Acrobat Writer and not the Acrobat Reader.
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I found the latest full offline Adobe Acrobat Reader installer here.
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Does anyone know if the reader can create the geospatial PDFs? Or just the writer?

Reply to
mark

I wasn't able to get that OSM tile downloader to work on Windows 10.

But I found a way to download the apartment OSM map tile as an osm file.

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From Windows you use the OSM web interface to export *.osm tiles.
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{latitude}/{longitude} Then I converted that exported *.osm file to a series of SHP files.
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These SHP files are actually of a bunch of formats inside a zip archive. amenity_polygons-polygon.cpg amenity_polygons-polygon.dbf amenity_polygons-polygon.prj amenity_polygons-polygon.shp amenity_polygons-polygon.shx buildings-polygon.cpg buildings-polygon.dbf buildings-polygon.prj buildings-polygon.shp buildings-polygon.shx landcover-polygon.cpg landcover-polygon.dbf landcover-polygon.prj landcover-polygon.shp landcover-polygon.shx roads-line.cpg roads-line.dbf roads-line.prj roads-line.shp roads-line.shx

If anyone knows what to do next, please let me know.

Reply to
mark

mark wrote at Sun, 2 Oct 2022 17:37:17 -0000 (UTC) :

I've never done it but the OSM wiki says you can edit a local copy of an OSM map using either a JavaScript ID editor or a Java OSM editor (JOSM).

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I'd suggest the more powerful Java OSM (JOSM) editor over Javascript ID.
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The Windows 10 JOSM installer should be located at their home page.
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Reply to
curmudgeon

mark wrote at Sun, 2 Oct 2022 17:37:15 -0000 (UTC) :

My reader doesn't have the commands for importing the OSM shape files. Therefore I think you need the Adobe Acrobat Writer (not the reader). The writer costs money so you're better off with portable GIS or JOSM.

It won't be as simple to set up as you might like it to be though as Portable GIS has a dependency on C++ and JOSM has a dependency on Java.

Reply to
curmudgeon

I installed Microsoft Visual C++ 2015-2022 Redistributable x64 which didn't ask where to put it so I assume it went onto the almost full system drive.

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Then I installed portable GIS (pgis) onto the removable drive and the button for the Desktop Packages "QGIS" brought up QGIS 3.4.7 as stated. https://portablegis.xyz/ The suggested tutorial is for a much older version of QGIS unfortunately.
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On my portable QGIS version 3.4.7, "Raster>Georeferencer" doesn't exist. Neither does "Layer>Georeferencer" so I gave up on that old tutorial.

The QGIS interface is so complex that I need to look for a newer tutorial.

Reply to
mark

If you get QGIS up and running, you can embed OSM inside your maps and export OSM data to other formats, like shapefiles.

F-Up set to sgs-n Bernd

Reply to
Bernd Rose

mark wrote at Mon, 3 Oct 2022 05:03:18 -0000 (UTC) :

You've invested so much into QGIS you should most likely keep going until you succeed, but if you find the need to give up on QGIS, Ozi Explorer works too for georeferencing map files on Windows 10 computers.

OziExplorer GPS Mapping Software which runs on your PC or laptop and will work with Garmin, Magellan, Lowrance, Eagle, Brunton/Silva and MLR GPS receivers for the upload/download of waypoints, routes and tracks and most brand of GPS receivers for real time tracking of GPS position (Moving Map).

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By some accounts Ozi Explorer is way better than QGIS but I can't speak for either one based on my lack of personal experience.

Reply to
curmudgeon

I meant to address this from the beginning and unfortunately forgot while reading through your very long OP:

Point positions can be saved in OSMAnd as markers by long clicking on any point in the map:

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Zoom sufficiently deep into the map, beforehand, to ensure the required accuracy. Label name (= info) and style can be adjusted in the AddMarker dialog.

These markers can either be exported to a *.gpx file from MyPlaces menu: Click on the icon with 3 linked dots and choose a file manager like TotalCommander as target.

Alternatively, you can use Backup&Restore from the Settings menu. Select "local backup -> save as file". Then open the MyPlaces drop-down list and tick on Favorites. "Continue" and, again, select a file manager als target. Now the *.gpx file will be saved inside a *.zip-file named *.osf. (Rename it to *.zip, if you want to access the content with any *.zip browser.) Alongside the *.gpx will be a *.json file with some additional info.

You have to check, whether my information for markers and favorites need to be exchanged. (Especially wrt. exporting.) I use the German version of OSMAnd and there seem to be translation issues, mixing both point features up, sometimes...

F-Up set to sgs-n Bernd

Reply to
Bernd Rose

To close the loop on this seemingly missing basic functionality to "Save current location" without needing to zoom and fatfinger the spot, Bernd Rose wrote the following about where OSMAnd put that (hidden) feature.

It's not intuitive to long press on the blue GPS-center button to get a menu to save the current location, but once you know how, it works great.

Reply to
mark

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