Using the Blackberry Storm's GPS Facilities Synchronised With a Camera

When I went skiing, I was amazed by my friend's placing of pictures on the route which we'd done that day. I was suitably impressed and asked how he'd done it. He had a Garmin GPS device from which he exported a .gpx file of the day's skiing (or in his case boarding). He then used some software to synchronise the his route and his pictures which he then put on a site called Every Trail. I knew that my Blackberry had a GPS device within it, and had been entertained on Google Maps watching my progress while walking over Christmas. I thought that there must be some way of doing something similar from my Blackberry as my friend had used his iPhone to achieve the same results as his Garmin and camera.After much searching, I found that I could achieve the same using my Blackberry Storm's GPS capabilities along with some bits of software. It took some finding, to get the things I needed, so I thought I'd put it all together with my experiences to help anyone else out there trying to achieve the same thing, or to help me, if I forget!

Basic Concepts

  • Record your route for the day

  • Take your pictures for the day

  • Merge the two together

Save Your Route

My friends had Garmin devices which showed speed, altitude, distance, etc. I had a Blackberry Storm which I knew had GPS capabilities. "You need to save as a gpx file" my friend told me. Nothing that I could find on the Storm by default would do this. I had hoped the Google Maps application might do this, but sadly no. A bit of searching the web and I came across as site called Sanoodi. This appeared to do the job and my friend (who used an iPhone) went for a walk with my phone and his to see how they might compare. Twittering the line "I'm off to take the Blackberry for a walk!" he departed for a walk around Les Gets. Sure enough we got two routes (virtually identical) and the Blackberry had performed admirably! I was delighted and excited to try out my new found gadget. After a couple of puzzling battery quirks, where the Storm seemed to flatten when turned off, I got a day's skiing tracked and saved. I saved a .gpx file to the Blackberry (using the export function from Sanoodi), then connected via USB to copy the file to my PC for further use.Since then, I downloaded some software from Every Trail for the Blackberry. This, I think, works better, but I had to upload the trail to the site. There was no local save option. Not a problem here in the UK, but wasn't going to pay for internation roaming data!Neither application is optimised for the Storm and from what I can gather may work better on other Blackberries. I've been in touch with both companies (both very friendly and helpful, by the way) and they are trying to improve software's compatability with the Storm. The problems are that the numeric keypad is always displayed and that the touch screen does not work correctly. Instead you have to scroll up and down fields by moving your finger up and down the screen. Then you have to press the screen to click. I assume this is how other Blackberries work - a scroll wheel and click. It's not a major problem, but you do have to get used to it.The next step was to snychronise with the camera.

Take Your Pictures

Before setting out, you MUST set the (correct) time on your camera. It is the time on the camera which is used to link pictures to the track. If the times on the camera and GPS differ, you won't be able to synchronise them properly. Just take pictures during the day as you usually would and download them to your PC at the end of the day. One helpful tip is to take a couple of pictures where you know the location on the map exactly. This will help make sure the synchronise has worked correctly and, if the time is out slightly for some reason you can adjust the route and correct all picture locations.

Merge The Two Together
Using GPicSync, you can link the two things together. There are a few options: you can get the program to modify your photos and put a geocoding property on them. Alternatively you can create a new file which stores the photos and their GPS coordinates. Depending on what you want to do next will determine which option you choose.

Other Tools
There are a few things you might want to do now.Google Earth will allow you to open a .gpx or .kml file and view your trip on its maps.GPS Track Maker is a useful tool to view you trail (not necessarily on a map) and see a few stats about your route. It will also allow you to edit the track. This can be useful if your GPS loses coverage for a while which can make your route look strange.EveryTrail allows you to upload the track and the photos (with GPS coordinates). You can then allow other people to view them or keep them private.

References
Sanoodi Mobile Software Page
Every Trail Link to Software

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Morrisons Three Fish Roast

Get Friends and Family to Record Onto Your Yoto

How to Stop the Annoying Nag Message in Outlook Asking to Take Outlook Anywhere