Photo Navigation: Has anyone had any sucess with this? 265WT

See:
http://www.poi-factory.com/node/14944

Thanks. I've seen that post. I am able to see the geotagged photos I copy to my Garmin 265wt, or to my SD card, but the unit does not seem to recognize that they are geotagged and therefore cannot use them to photo navigate.

I have not tried it on my unit yet but hope to.Please post on your results if you get it to work.My understanding from reading pages 11 and 20 is that you open up the Garmin drive and place the geotagged photo pictures in the jpeg file then they will show in your favorites and you select it and touch go.Is that what you tried?

Yes. I can see the photos on my unit but cannot use them for navigation ("Go" is not a listed option with the geotagged photos I have loaded).


http://www.poi-factory.com/node/14944


As I mentioned in the other post...

The Garmin Connect site, resizes the JPEG and then creates a .gpx file that references it. It then uses the Garmin Communicator to copy both files to the unit.

Now, there's nothing particularly complicated about these steps - and you can perform them using other software (though, there's none that I'm aware of, that does it in one step).

What you can't do, is just copy the JPEG to the unit...
...the unit itself can't see that they are geotagged - it uses the information it finds in the .gpx file, that Garmin Connect extracted from the JPEG's Exif data.

The manual needs to be more clear on this.I may buy a camera in the future with the features for geotagged photos.This may come in handy when we travel.I emailed Garmin and ask them what the steps are for this.

What would be interesting to know, is what actually happens on a supported device, when you follow the procedure at the Garmin Connect site...
...I don't think we've ascertained that yet.

(Presumably a 'Favourite' will be created. Presumably there will be a JPEG that you can view in the conventional Picture Viewer. But what else? (if anything))

I went to the download site http://connect.garmin.com/photos signed in and then downloaded a photo,then clicked send to gps.Once completed clicked on favorites.Now my screen shows All favorites on one line and the next line says Panoramio Photos.I touch that and see the photo I downloaded.Touch the picture and see on bottom of screen back,map,delete and go.Touch go and it starts navigation to the location of the photo.Real neat.I did notice something else that I believe may be the answer to the posters problem.Across top I see Upload your Photos to Panoramio.com.I don't have a picture to upload to the site.I would bet that is what you have to do.Upload the photo then download to the gps.

Thank you for the clarification. I have not yet tried Garmin Connect to load the photos. What you say makes sense, but what threw me was the FAQ on Garmin's site that states:

"Question: Can I use Panoramio instead of Garmin Connect for photo navigation?
Answer:

Yes, you can use Panoramio instead of Garmin Connect for photo navigation. To use Panoramio, you will need:

* Compatible Garmin GPS
o nuvi 205
o nuvi 205w
o nuvi 255
o nuvi 255w
o nuvi 850
o nuvi 860
o nuvi 880
o nuvi 5000
* Panoramio account
* Garmin Communicator Plugin
* USB cable"

But when I tried uploading a geotagged photo to the Panoramio site, I could find no way to download it to the GPS--others had noted the same problem in their forums.

If I have to download photos from somewhere in order to navigate to them I doubt I'll bother.

Thanks again for your help.

David

That was the same way I understood it.I need to read more on FAQ but I did notice when you upload the photo it does resize it.The site does allow for sharing.It may not be that much to uploading and downloading back to the gps.It does give 2gb for storage.

when I was playing with the 255 in the store, before I bought it for our son, I was trying to figure out that whole geo photo nav thing....

I noticed that I could have the usual jpegs, AND then attach them to a favorite - like a relational db link. I too thought that the geotagged photo was being used as a single unit, but maybe they just use the normal "relational db link" and create the 2 required elements (photo + fav entry) externally via those websites.

It would be interesting to see what the generated jpeg looks like, the naming, along with the generated GPX file display.

Well, this sure has been an interesting thread. I have a nuvi 250. I knew I was giving up TTS for price when I bought it, but one of the things that I was sad about was that I knew it did not support geotagged photos like even the 205 did.

And I had even tested this myself, learning how to geotag a photo, tagging one, loading it into the nuvi and confirming that there was no way to access the tagging information.

But after reading this thread, I downloaded some photos from the Garmin site. Much to my surprise (and, honestly, disgust) I find that these photos are now showing up in "my favorites", under Panoramino Photos.

How lame it is to call this geotag support! The GPSr doesn't understand geotagged photos at all. This is just some sort of marketing tie-in with Panoramino, they download custom entries into your Favorites file when you download the photos. And you can't even navigate to them from the photo view (no "Go to photo" button there), only from the cryptic and rather meaningless names that have been placed in your limited space Favorites file.

So even my nuvi 250 has this "feature". Wish it didn't, wish that Garmin had done it right and really supported geotagged photos, even if that would mean that I personally can't use the feature. But this hack, which they are trying to pass off as support for geotagged photos, is nothing more than downloading locations into the favorites file, and poor support to try to navigate to them as well.

Geotagging could be a really handy feature if supported properly. I could imagine slipping in a SD card with many photos and being able to navigate to a location based on the selected photo. One might even use it as a POI replacement by storing lots of photos rather than just text POIs, select the one that you want to go to and navigate to it. But the Garmin approach, requiring downloads fro a specific website and just filling up the favorites folder with location links, falls far short of anything desirable.

I guess I don't see all the negative you do with this process.It would be nice to be able to just put the geotagged photos on a card and just click go.I have emailed Garmin and still waiting for answer on the way the process it outlined in the manual and why it does not work that way.

My wife and I have traveled by car to 48 states and have tried to see the highlights of the state.Examples Mt Rushmore,Needle,Bad Lands,Yellowstone,Tetons you get the picture.It would be nice to download from the Panoramino site famous places that we have missed and save them in favorites and be able to go directly to that spot.Most units now allow for 1000 favorites.

I got answer back from Garmin and seems to be what we expected.
Thank you for contacting Garmin International. How do I load my pictures to Garmin Connect Photos?

Garmin Connect Photos is integrated with Panoramio™, and all photos come from their site. You will need to create an account at Panoramio™ and follow their upload process. Once your photos have been loaded to Panoramio, they will eventually appear at Garmin Connect Photos.

With Best Regards,
Michael K
Software Support Specialist
Software Team

Thanks to all who have responded. I have no interest in all the hoops Garmin is asking me to jump through in order to navigate to a photo I have already geotagged.

David

I have succeeded in transferring geotagged photos to my Nuvi 765T. It was a pain, but it worked. Caution - for geeks only! Here is the scoop.

1) Download a photo from the Panoramio site to the Nuvi. Look in the Garmin/GPX folder for the file (locate it by date, since it will have a long numeric name). This file will become your template. Here is a sample file (it is in XML and does not reproduce fully in this forum page):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>Portland Head Lighthouse, MEPanoramioimage/jpegRobLittletext/htmltext/htmlScenic AreaPanoramio Photos

I initially tried to remove most of the information that seemed irrelevant, but the Nuvi crashed. I removed the altered files using the PC link.

2) Go to Google Earth and enter the coordinates from your geotagged photo (get this from the EXIF information in the photo)... into the search box and search for the location. Set Google Earth to display the coordinates in decimal form (Tools/Options/Show Latitude-Longitude/Decimal Degrees). Hover your mouse over the location of your photo on the map and copy down the coordinates (displayed at the bottom of the screen).

3) Open the XML file that was installed with the Panoramio download in Notepad (or another editor) and create a window wide enough to eliminate wrapping. This step is so that you can follow my line numbers for the changes. I changed the following items in the file:

Line 3: the numerical values for latitude and longitude. Be careful not to edit out any quotes or < > symbols. Enter the decimal values that you copied down.

Next on that line, change the name of the image to a name that you want to give your photo. Again, watch that you do not delete any other characters. This is NOT the name of the JPG file

Line 4: Change the name of the photo. There seems to be something critical about the name. I named my photos 'Panoramio_40410xx.jpg', where x is 01, 02, etc for each of the photos (don't enter the single quotes). Keep the format the same, and be certain to leave the Garmin/JPEG/ prefix.

Line 5: I changed the User ID to my Panoramio User ID and inserted my name to replace the name that was there. This name appears in the photo legend on the Nuvi.

Line 6: Change the photo number (404xxxx) to (in my example) 40410xx (all numeric).

4) I am not sure what size photo is allowed, but the one I downloaded from Panoramio was 200x160. I reduced my photo size, keeping the aspect ration constant, to 200x160 (the 160 will vary), just keep the aspect ratio fixed. Rename your photo to the name you gave it on line 4 (Panoramio_40410xx.jpg in my case).

5) Copy your photo to the Garmin/JPEG folder on the Nuvi (not an SD card). Copy the edited GPX file to the Garmin/GPX folder on the Nuvi. I named the GPX file to match the number that was edited in on line 4, e.g. "Panoramio_40410xx.GPX"

It takes longer to read this than to do it. As I said it is a pain, but the photos now appear in a Panoramio Photos folder in Favorites.

Hope this helps. If the Nuvi restarts as soon as it gets to the "Agree" page, then something was mis-edited in the GPX file. Connect the Nuvi to the PC and delete the GPX file that you copied over and check for errors (I placed the original file and the edited one adjacent to one another on my screen and checked that I did not mess anything up.

As Garmin warns, do not mess with any of the other files on the system.

-Herschel

The easiest way I found to navigate using my photos is to simply upload them to the Garmin/JPEG folder then manually create a favorite using an address or coordinates and attach a photo to it.

Then you can use picture viewer to click on a photo and Go to it.

That is a much easier way than editing all the files as I indicated earlier. I do that as well. You can enter the GPS coordinates (any format you need) from the EXIF info, then save the location to Favorites, then load the photo and attach it.

I noticed that if I have a photo attached that is on the SD card, it will be un-associated with the waypoint if I remove the card, turn on the Nuvi, and then reinsert the card.

-Herschel