# Geo-referenced photography > A 2004 reference list of papers, projects and tools for geo-referencing photographs by combining camera timestamps with GPS tracklogs. - Page: https://www.elasticspace.com/2004/07/geo-referenced-photography/ - Author: Timo Arnall (https://www.elasticspace.com/) - Section: Projects (https://www.elasticspace.com/project/) - Published: 2004-07-06 - Updated: 2026-07-04 - Tags: GPS, Locative Media, Photography, Photo-research, Place, Research, Technology - Site map for agents: https://www.elasticspace.com/llms.txt --- The simplest way to link a photograph to a location is to combine two time-stamps: one from the digital camera, one from the GPS receiver. Given both sets of timestamps over the same period, a series of images and tracklogs can be processed to stamp each image with location metadata. *Compiled in July 2004 at the Hofn workshop in Iceland, during the work that became [Time that land forgot](https://www.elasticspace.com/2004/07/timeland/). A working reference list of papers, projects, guidelines, tools and the technical issues that surrounded geo-referenced photography at that moment. Most of the links below are now dead; the list is preserved as a snapshot of what the state of the art looked like in 2004.* ### Papers - [Position-annotated Photographs: The Geotemporal Web](http://www.dmst.aueb.gr/dds/pubs/jrnl/2003-PC-GTWeb/html/gtweb.html) - [GEOREP: Digital Library for Spatial Data](http://www.dlib.org/dlib/december96/canada/12proulx.html) - [Geographic location tags on digital images, Microsoft](https://web.archive.org/web/20040703104925/http://wwmx.org:80/docs/wwmx_acm2003.pdf) - [Portable digital photo album](https://web.archive.org/web/20040611210522/http://www.ece.ubc.ca:80/%257Eelec418/project/project2handedin/nsiu/prototype.html) ### Prior work - [Tokyo Picturesque](https://web.archive.org/web/20040708070451/http://www.downgoesthesystem.com:80/devzone/exiftest/final/) ([details](https://web.archive.org/web/20040708065914/http://www.downgoesthesystem.com:80/devzone/exiftest/details/)) - [Habitat Perspectives](https://web.archive.org/web/20040202155151/http://www.marumushi.com:80/apps/perspectives/) - [Photo Location](http://www.986.org/sites/ghogh/CDC/CDC_5505.html) ([metadata notes](http://www.986.org/sites/ghogh/CDC/CDC_metadata.html)) - [Geo Snapper](http://www.geosnapper.com/index.php) - [WWMX web demo](https://web.archive.org/web/20040705030645/http://wwmx.org:80/WebClient.aspx) - [Good list of other photo mapping projects](https://web.archive.org/web/20040810155022/http://transmutable.com:80/PhotoMaps/) ### Geo-referencing Photos Commercial applications and scripts that link photographs to geographic information: - [Robophoto](http://www.robophoto.com/settings8.html) - [93 Photo Street](https://web.archive.org/web/20040712053125/http://transmutable.com:80/93PhotoStreet/) - [Photofusion](http://topofusion.com/photofusion/) - [Media Mapper](https://web.archive.org/web/20041010035103/http://www.redhensystems.com:80/products/) - [OziPhotoTool](https://web.archive.org/web/20040606145219/http://oziphototool.alistairdickie.com:80/) - [GPS photo link](https://web.archive.org/web/20040705082941/http://www.geospatialexperts.com:80/) - [GPS TrackMaker](http://www.gpstm.com/eng/screens_eng.htm) - [QuakeMap](http://www.earthquakemap.com/) - [WWMX Travelogue application](https://web.archive.org/web/20040705023337/http://wwmx.org:80/Download.aspx) - [AkuAku: GPS tagged jpegs](https://web.archive.org/web/20040719022845/http://akuaku.org:80/archives/2003/05/gps_tagged_jpeg.shtml) - [Adding GPS Information to EXIF Images with Photostudio](http://www.stuffware.co.uk/articles/00000001.html) - [GPS Photo Linking in iViewMedia Pro](http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2004/06/15/gps_photo.html) - [GPS plotting in Flash](https://web.archive.org/web/20040607161732/http://www.marcosweskamp.com:80/components/tokcomponents/geoplotter/demo.html) ### GPS track and waypoint extraction Transferring data from GPS devices is awkward. For this to work in a wider collaborative context there need to be guidelines. It’s also important to make sure units and timezones are correctly set up on all software, so no translation happens as the data is converted. Exported data also tends to be messy, mixed tracklogs and waypoints, which for us meant a lot of hand-tweaking. - [Garmin Mapsource](http://www.garmin.com/cartography/) - [MacGPS Pro](http://www.macgpspro.com/) - [GPS Babel](http://gpsbabel.sourceforge.net/) - [GPSylon tool for downloading/viewing GPS data](http://gpsmap.sourceforge.net/) - [GPS to GEO-RDF](https://web.archive.org/web/20040708091425/http://www.hackdiary.com:80/archives/000040.html) - [Some notes on coordinate translation](https://web.archive.org/web/20040626083505/http://life.csu.edu.au:80/geo/dms.html) ### Extracting EXIF data To get at the photographic data we need the embedded EXIF information: capture date, time, exposure, aperture. - [Python Exif Parser](http://pyexif.sourceforge.net/) - [Media Metadata for Python](http://sourceforge.net/projects/mmpython/) - [Extracting EXIF data with Python](https://web.archive.org/web/20040625052210/http://simon.incutio.com:80/archive/2003/11/13/exif) - [Geo tagging images: Exif GPS with python and java](https://web.archive.org/web/20040626040101/http://kennethhunt.com:80/archives/000935.html) - [EXIF metadata extraction in java](https://web.archive.org/web/20040707082611/http://www.drewnoakes.com:80/code/exif/) ### Content metadata guidelines To standardise the sharing of geographic information (tracklogs and waypoints) the format matters. We initially intended to use Locative Packets but have ended up with GPX alongside some custom XML for time and photo information. - [Locative packets](https://web.archive.org/web/20041011153201/http://locative.net:80/workshop/index.cgi?Locative_Packets) - [Other recommended vocabularies](https://web.archive.org/web/20041011155615/http://locative.net:80/workshop/index.cgi?Recommended_Vocabularies) - [GPX namespace manual](http://www.topografix.com/gpx_manual.asp) - [JPEG RDF strategy for storing location info](https://web.archive.org/web/20040603072142/http://www.nwalsh.com:80/java/jpegrdf/jpegrdf.html) - [W3 RDF geo-vocabulary](http://www.w3.org/2003/01/geo/) - [Describing and retrieving photos using RDF and HTTP](http://www.w3.org/TR/photo-rdf/) - [Exif vocabulary workspace – RDF Schema](http://www.w3.org/2003/12/exif/) - [Vocabularies for w3photo project](http://esw.w3.org/topic/W3PhotoVocabs)