Taking the Grunt out of Geotags

Here's a matlab script to automatically compile all geo-tagged images from a directory and all its subdirectories into a Google Earth kml file showing positions and thumbnails



Like most of my matlab scripts, it's essentially just a wrapper for a system command. It requires exiftool for the thumbnail creation (available on both *nix and for Windows). It also needs the (free) Google Earth toolbox for Matlab.

Right now it's just set up for JPG/jpg files, but could easily be modified or extended. As well as the kml file (Google Earth will launch as soon as the script is finished) it will save a matlab format file contining the lats, longs, times and filenames.

Outputs look a little like this (a selection of over 30,000 photos taken in Grand Canyon)

A cooler shell prompt

In ~/.bashrc:



time: username: directory

much better!

How to start a BASH script

Use chance!



Flip a coin. If heads, allow fortune to generate a quotation and cowsay to present it:

If tails, figlet your 'splash' message:

Discuss

Destination point given distance and bearing from start point

You have starting points:

xcoordinate, a list of x-coordinates (longitudes)

ycoordinate, a list of y-coordinates (latitudes)

num_samples, the number of samples in the plane towards the destination point

bearings:

heading, a list of headings (degrees)

and distances:

range, a list of distances in two directions (metres)

This is how you find the coordinates (x, y) along the plane defining a starting point and two end points, in MATLAB.

Routine BASH memory aid

Some common things I do in BASH