LeseSolm Files

LeseSolm 0.0.4
==============

Two AWK scripts for usage with the GPS Logger "Solmeta Geotagger Pro". This device is a direct geotagger with magnetic compass for certain Nikon SLR cameras. In addition, it logs the GPS track in its internal memory in plain NMEA format.

"LeseSolm" downloads the track log from the Geotagger and the NMEA data written into a file. Also, you can show the memory usage and erase the logger memory.

"GeotagSolm" reads the NMEA file and geotags the images that have been taken while the Geotagger was on the camera hot shoe. This may work only with the old hardware version of the Geotagger. The universal meta data tool "ExifTool" by Phil Harvey is used for writing the GPS data into the image files.

The LeseSolm package including GeotagSolm comes without any warranty.
USE AT YOUR OWN RISK.

Project homepage: http://sourceforge.net/projects/lesesolm/

SYNOPSIS:
LeseSolm [COMPORT]
GeotagSolm NMEA TIME IMAGEFILES


1. INSTALL
==========

The two scripts "LeseSolm" and "GeotagSolm" can be placed in any directory. Open a terminal there. Make the scripts executable by "chmod +x LeseSolm GeotagSolm". If that directory is in PATH, you can start the scripts just by "LeseSolm" or "GeotagSolm", respectively. Otherwise you have to write the full path. E.g. if "LeseSolm" is in the current directory it can be started by "./LeseSolm". In the following we assume that the directory is in PATH.


2. LeseSolm
===========

"LeseSolm" downloads the GPS track log from the Geotagger.

2.1 USAGE
=========

Connect the Geotagger to an USB port, open a terminal and change to the directory where the track log shall be saved. Turn the logger on and start LeseSolm by

LeseSolm COMPORT

Replace COMPORT by the serial interface to the logger. If COMPORT is omitted it defaults to "/dev/ttyUSB0". If there are other USB-COM devices you may have to replace 0 by a higher number. You need read and write permissions to the serial interface file. In Opensuse 11.3 it is sufficient to be member of the group "dialout".

>LeseSolm 0.0.1: Auslesewerkzeug für Solmeta Geotagger Pro
>Leseprozeß mit PID 6784 gestartet, öffne Schnittstelle /dev/ttyUSB0, 4800
>Befehl: Version (v), Download (d), Löschen (erase), Ende (q), Abbrechen (abort)

Type "v" for showing the version (#Ver) and the used memory (#mem) of the Geotagger.

>Version anzeigen, 4800
>#Ver: Solmeta PRO V1.0-4 (Dec 03 2009)
>#mem:167KB

If nothing is shown try it again. Sometimes the Geotagger is ignoring commands.

The command "d" downloads the track log from the Geotagger and saves the data into the file "Solmeta_YYYY-MM-DD-HHMMSS.nmea", where YYYY-... denotes the date and UTC time of the first track point. Wait until the download is complete.

>Auslesen
>#connect
>Sende #down, 115200
>#download029e
>Lese Zeile  3149.
>#downcomplete
>3149 Zeilen gelesen.
>14 GPGGA Zeilen gefunden.
>NMEA Daten nach Solmeta_2011-01-22-114732.nmea geschrieben.
>Umschalten auf 4800

In this example 3149 lines have been saved into the file "Solmeta_2011-01-22-114732.nmea". Among them are 14 $GPGGA sentences which correspond to the track points where pictures were taken by the camera. You obtain this information only when the Geotagger was operational and mounted on the flash socket of the camera.

Now check the NMEA file for completeness. If everything is OK, you can erase the Geotagger memory by typing "erase". Wait approximately one minute until the process is finished.

>Logger leeren, 4800
>#StartErase
>Löschen läuft, bitte warten.
>#erasecomplete
>Logger geleert.

"v" will show you that the Geotagger is empty now.

>Version anzeigen, 4800
>#Ver: Solmeta PRO V1.0-4 (Dec 03 2009)
>#mem:0KB

Type "q" to quit. Turn the logger off.


2.2 REMARKS
===========

1. You can abort the download and erase processes with "abort". This may confuse the Geotagger and you may have to turn it off. Use this option only when the Geotagger hangs.

2. The LeseSolm script is experimental, it works fine for my configuration:
Old hardware version of "Solmeta Geotagger Pro"
Opensuse 11.3, gawk-3.1.6-31.1.i586, coreutils-7.1-11.1.1.i586

3. For me LeseSolm works better than the Windoze tool, which often hangs. The USB-COM driver is already part of the Linux kernel. No need to install drivers. The NMEA files created by LeseSolm are given reasonable file names.

4: The command "d" does not overwrite existing Solmeta_YYYY...SS.nmea files, instead the log is written into the file Solmeta_YYYY-...SS-xxxx.nmea, where xxxx is a number starting from 0001.



3. GeotagSolm
=============

"GeotagSolm" amends image files with GPS data from the Geotagger.

This is a very early release. Be careful! Geotagging is a delicate process because your image files will be modified. To be precise, it is the image meta data which will be amended by GPS data. It is strongly recommended that you keep your original files in a safe place. For the beginning, work only on copies in a separate directory.

GeotagSolm needs "ExifTool", which is available for Linux and many other operating systems. If you cannot find it in the repositories of your distribution, you can get it from the ExifTool homepage www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/


3.1 USAGE
=========

Start the geotagging script by

GeotagSolm NMEA TIME IMAGEFILES

Mandatory arguments:
* NMEA denotes the track log file from the Geotagger.
* TIME is the time shift between the camera time (EXIF:DateTimeOriginal) and GPS (UTC) time, precisely: (Camera time) = (TIME + GPSTime) with a 10 second tolerance. The format for TIME is (+/-)H:M:S. If the hour (H), the minute (M) or the second (S) are omitted they are set to zero. Examples: +1 = +1:0:0, -1:13:3, ::4 = 0:0:4, -0:3 = -0:3:0.
* IMAGEFILES specifies the files and directories to geotag. Wildcards (*) will be expanded by the shell. Be careful, * means all files and the files in directories. It is better to use something like *.JPG.

Example:
GeotagSolm Solmeta_2011-01-22-074402.nmea +1::7 DSC_4766.JPG DSC_4773.JPG Folder

This means that the camera time is assumed to be (GPSTime + 3607 sec). The files DSC_4766.JPG and DSC_4773.JPG will be geotagged as well as *all* suitable files in the directory "Folder".

The time tolerance for matching image time and GPS time is set to 10 sec by default.

After "GeotagSolm" has related the image files with the GPS data, and before the image files have been updated, it will present a menu:

>Befehl: (geo)  Geodaten mit ExifTool in Bilder schreiben
>        (list) Liste mit den zum Geotaggen vorgesehen Bildern anzeigen
>        (arg)  ExifTool Argumente-Datei anzeigen
>        (quit) Abbruch, temporäre Dateien bleiben erhalten

Type "list" to show which files are going to be geotagged. Check this list for errors. You can exit the list view with "q", which gets you back to the GeotagSolm menu.

"arg" shows the arguments to be passed over to "ExifTool". Again you get back with "q".

"quit" will quit without writing anything. Use this command if you have found errors in the lists.

After you have checked that everything is fine, type "geo" to let "ExifTool" write the geo data into the files. Now check if the geotagged files and the meta data therein can be properly accessed by your image applications. Consult the ExifTool homepage for compatibility issues.


3.2 REMARKS
===========

* GeotagSolm may work properly only with track logs from the old hardware version of the Geotagger. As far as I know, the new version lacks the "universal geotagging" feature, which is necessary for precisely relating GPS positions to images.

* If the correlation of GPS time and image time fails, improve the value of the TIME argument. The relation (DateTimeOriginal) = (TIME + GPSTime) must be true within the tolerance of 10 sec. See below how to change the tolerance.
It is a good idea to have the minutes and seconds of the camera clock synchronised with the GPS time before taking pictures. Then TIME is just the time zone designator, e.g. +1 in Central Europe (and +2 during summer time).

* The NMEA sentences in the track log must be time-ordered. GeotagSolm will work faster if the image files are time-ordered, too.

* The following EXIF tags will be (over)written:

GPS Version ID                  : 2.2.0.0
GPS Latitude Ref                : North
GPS Latitude                    : xx deg xx' 16.82"
GPS Longitude Ref               : East
GPS Longitude                   : xx deg xx' 5.00"
GPS Altitude Ref                : Above Sea Level
GPS Altitude                    : 350 m
GPS Time Stamp                  : 13:19:22
GPS Satellites                  : 11
GPS Status                      : Measurement Active
GPS Dilution Of Precision       : 0.8
GPS Speed Ref                   : km/h
GPS Speed                       : 0.1852
GPS Track Ref                   : True North
GPS Track                       : 72.39
GPS Img Direction Ref           : Magnetic North
GPS Img Direction               : 125.4
GPS Map Datum                   : WGS-84
GPS Date Stamp                  : 2010:12:08
GPS Differential                : Differential Corrected
User Comment                    : Blabla ; H: 125.4, P: 3.6, R: -1.3

The original UserComment "Blabla" will be appended by the image direction (compass heading H), the pitch (P) and the roll (R) given in degrees. The tag "GPS Dilution Of Precision" is always HDOP.

* Some parameters of GeotagSolm can be adjusted easily by editing the script file with a text editor. Search for "Einstellungen" near the beginning of the file. There you can modify several parameters:

  # Zeit Toleranz in Sekunden
  ZeitTol=10;
  
"ZeitTol" specifies the tolerance in seconds for matching GPS time with image time.
  
  # interaktiv: 0: keine Interaktion, 1: Frage nach vorm Geotaggen
  interaktiv=1;
  
Set "interaktiv" to 0 to turn off the menu. Then GeotagSolm will not ask for confirmation before modifying the image files.
  
  # Pfad zu "exiftool"
  ExiftoolPfad="exiftool";
  
If the "exiftool" executable is not in PATH, you can specify its exact location in "ExiftoolPfad".
  
  # Exiftool-Optionen fürs Geotaggen:
  ExiftoolGeotagOpt=""

In "ExiftoolGeotagOpt" you can set additional ExifTool parameters. They must be formatted for the usage in an argument file. Consult the ExifTool documentation for details.

  # -overwrite_original_in_place: Originalbilder überschreiben.
  #ExiftoolGeotagOpt="-overwrite_original_in_place\n"

By uncommenting the last line ExifTool does not make backup copies of your image files. Instead, the original files will be overwritten.


4. USEFUL RESOURCES AND LINKS
=============================

* LeseSolm homepage at SourceForge:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/lesesolm/

* Solmeta Geotagger Pro:
www.solmeta.com

* ExifTool:
www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/

* GAWK:
www.gnu.org/software/gawk/

* NMEA data:
http://gpsd.berlios.de/NMEA.html
http://www.gpsinformation.org/dale/nmea.htm

* Compass sentence $PTNTHPR
http://www.magneticsensors.com/datasheets/hmr3000_manual.pdf