ericStimmel

some shots of the last drive's setup... no geocoded pics yet. still having some issues... see the previous post.

notes to explain later...

drive used Palm Tungsten T3 with Holux GM-210 serial gps running CetusGPS software
downloaded track.pdb files from pda with HotSync Manager
tried converting *.pdb files to *.gpx files with TrackData but it wouldn't load in WWMX LS
converted *.pdb files to *.gpx files with GPSBabel thru the GPSVisualizer site [ web based converter ]
also downloaded google earth *.kml files from this site [ remember to upload them for public viewing ]
inserted *.gpx files into WWMX Location Stamper [ working on a pc since mac hdd failed ]
locations don't line up... ugh.
trying to figure out the issues... time differences? something off in the time stamps...
also... the pics from the dlink webcam don't have EXIF data... that means the geocoding isn't going to work straight away...
must be some way to take the date stamp in the filename and put it in the EXIF data... figure out how.

finally i got the webcam to do what i want. sort of... but pretty much, it's working. here's the link so you can check out my studio while things are active. don't complain too much though if it doens't update correctly because i'm still tinkering with the whole thing... oh, and it says the image updates every 30 seconds, but really it just refreshes every 30 seconds... the image is new every 2 minutes. i've got to learn a little more javascripting to fix that one...

but the real coup of the day was getting my shell script to rename and ftp the images so that i can build an archive of images rather than just view the current image and have that written over each time. i think it still needs work, but it seems to be going pretty solid... since about noon anyway. that's all for now.

i've started to field test my mapping/photography project even though it isn't completely functional [ by that i mean there's some manual set up required on my part and on the part of you, the viewer ]...

briefly, this is what i've done... i've taken the stompbox out on the road with a gps attached to it... i connected to that box with my laptop [ mac powerbook 12" osx 10.4.4 ] wirelessly... i ran two scripts [ both perl, both running on my laptop ] to log gps points... one logged the points automatically each second to a file locally [ on my laptop ] and the other logged points remotely [ to a file on my web server ] each time i ran the script. this dual logging is a result of not being able to get either one to do both things i wanted simultaneously... nor was i able to get either to run on the stompbox itself. ideally, the script would run on the stompbox [ therefore not requiring my presense or a second computer. it would log location [ as well as time, altitude, velocity ] at even increments to a remote XML file on my web server... at any rate this is what i've got working so far...

so... here's what you have to do... view these images using firefox 1.5 or higher, install the greasemonkey extension [ you'll have to restart firefox ] and load the GMiF script [ right click on the link on that page and select install user script ] and then when you view this image in flickr you will get a new button above the image at the right side that says Gmap... click that and the images will load on a map right in flickr [ thus, GMiF or Google Maps in Flickr ].

some of the other steps i needed to work out to make this work were to add the longitude and latitude data to the photos... for this i used GPSPhotoLinker to write to the EXIF meta data of each photo... this is okay for the above solution because GMiF reads EXIF data, but other flickr/gmap hacks do not... they read IPTC meta data which is also converted into tags in flickr, so there may be a more elegant solution to this that doesn't require the viewer to install anything... i'll be looking into this.

i'm also not convinced that all the locations are in the correct places, but i have some solutions in the works for refining that information as well... in the meantime, this is as good as it gets... enjoy.

here's a brief update on the YMCA bench project that andy and i installed right before the christmas break. check it out at this page and check out all the benches for the Y here.

so you might notice that i've added two blog links to the 'architecture studio links' since marty and dharmesh have joined us this semester. check out what they are doing [ well, maybe give them a few days to get some actual work posted... assuming they actually do post something which has been a major hurdle for many of the students here... but to each his or her own ]

as for me, i had a major breakthrough yesterday [ or was it the day before ] when i actually got my script to do it's job and append a line of data to a remote file. you might be saying 'what the heck does that mean?' and you'll have to just trust me that it's important and wait to see it actually working. i've had to take a short break from that in order to complete a few other projects that are hanging over my head... not the least of which is an artist statement and some images of my work for the grad book... i'm a little behind on that one and it's past due. time for a snack and a coffee and another long night. actually i've been on the night schedule lately... it screws around with your head a little, but i can't seem to get back on a normal schedule.