co-ordinates

[popeye]

Hello all

I am in the learning process using Affinity which I find an excellent program.

Before Mac I used a free photo editing program called FastStone Image Viewer. In that program it is possible to access Lat and Long co -ordinates by going to the exif data and clicking on the Google icons. I find this a very handy feature as my camera has an inbuilt GPS and I can identify sites where, mostly, imagers of flora are taken for reference to other users.

The co-ordinates are avialble in Affinity and I wanted to ask if anyone knows if its possible to view the locations noted in Affinity by opening them in Google Maps or Earth directly from the Affinity software 

Thank you and cheers

Popeye

 

[stokerg]

Hi Popeye,

In the Develop Persona within Affinity Photo there is the Location tab (Mac Only Feature) which can show you location on a Map BUT there isn't away to then open that in a browser, that i'm aware of.

I'll leave this here for now on the off chance someone knows of a method that i'm not aware of.  If not, i can get this moved over to Feature Requests as i can see it would be a useful feature  

[GarryP]

Just out of interest, who would this feature be useful to and in which ways?
Would it just be for people designing documents – to see where their photo comes from – or would it also be available to the readers of those documents?
I ask this coming from two directions:
1. It sounds interesting but I have never seen this in any software so I don’t know what it can be used for.
2. I have created some documents where I have given hyperlinks to locations – “Come visit us at...” – so it might be good if I could add co-ordinates to a photo (or whatever) instead and the reader could click the image to find it on a map.
P.S. Another thought would be, “To who’s maps would the link go to?” E.g. Google Maps, OpenStreetMap, What3Words, etc.

[Greyfox]

50 minutes ago, GarryP said:

Just out of interest, who would this feature be useful to and in which ways?

Garry,

I have that facility in the Digital Asset Management software I use (ACDSee Photo Studio). If the Exif data contains GPS co-ordinates the location can be displayed on a map pane within the ACDSee program.

The map shows a Google label.   

I find it particularly useful when tagging, cataloging and noting photos taken on motoring holiday trips after I return, to clarify and refresh my memory as to where particular photos were taken. One mountain range often looks rather similar to other mountain ranges.

 

 

[GarryP]

Greyfox, that’s a perfectly reasonable use, thanks for clarifying, although it seems to me more like a DAM feature rather than something to add to the current Affinity Apps. In other words, it sounds more like something you would use to organise images prior to using them rather than something you would need once an image has been inserted into Designer/Photo/Publisher (to get the info’, if needed, you can get it from the DAM). Or am I not understanding the situation fully?

[Greyfox]

@GarryP

Well I can't think of a situation where I would want to use it from a photo editor. As far as I am concerned it is indeed more related to photo organizing.

On a day to day basis I don't use it in the DAM software either. Most of the time I have the map pane turned off so I can use that screen area for more thumbnails. As I indicated in my earlier post it mostly only gets used after a trip during a cataloging session.

Possibly there are others who might make more use of it. 

 

 

[GarryP]

Maybe someone can come up with a really great explanation for why they need it - and maybe more of us will want to use it once it's been properly explained - but I’m currently sceptical about adding this functionality to the current Affinity suite.

[R C-R]

6 hours ago, GarryP said:

Maybe someone can come up with a really great explanation for why they need it - and maybe more of us will want to use it once it's been properly explained - but I’m currently sceptical about adding this functionality to the current Affinity suite.

As @stokerg mentioned, this functionality is built into the Mac version of Affinity Photo's Develop persona. The online help topic Location Panel (Develop Persona only) explains its primary features (although I have never seen the "History" button). 

As it says, this panel is only available to users of Mavericks (OS X 10.9) or later. I am almost certain it relies on the same Mac OS API that powers Apple Maps because there is a tiny "Legal" link in the panel just above the Scale guide button that when clicked opens https://gspe21-ssl.ls.apple.com/html/attribution-141.html. This would explain why it is not available in the Windows version.

That legal document might restrict the reuse of map data outside apps (so that might preclude using screenshots of the panel in documents) but I am clueless about that so consulting a lawyer before doing that is probably a good idea.

Anyway, at least for Mac users it is useful for adding GPS location data to native Affinity format files, although there are other apps that would probably be much easier to use to do that.

[GarryP]

Thanks for pointing out the specific documentation R C-R.
That makes it much clearer what the functionality does but I am still wondering why the functionality is there – in Photo – in the first place.
It looks like it could be a nice little feature if implemented more fully but I don’t understand what someone would do with it as it currently is.
I understand – as Greyfox has mentioned – that there could be times when someone might want to be able to ‘virtually visit’ the place the photo was taken in order to get more information about the image but why is this feature in Photo?
In other words, what is it that people can do in the Location Panel that they can’t get elsewhere?
At the moment it seems like more of a ‘cool toy’ rather than something that’s actually useful.
For instance, if it could show me the direction of the sun in relation to the photographer’s position at the time the photo was taken then I could see how that could be useful in doing composition work – getting the positions of shadows right, etc. – but I can’t see how useful it is at the moment.
As I said earlier, it seems more like an ‘image organisation’ feature than a photo editing feature, which is why I am questioning it being implemented in Photo.
Also, since it’s an OS X-only feature, it seems like the developers don’t think it’s important enough for all users to have. If Windows users can apparently do without it then why not OS X users too? (Windows 10 has an in-built Maps app too.) What do OS X users get from it that Windows users are missing out on?
I’m not saying that it has to be removed or anything like that, I’m just trying to understand what it’s in Photo for.
If someone can give me a good example of how they use it and why it’s useful – within Photo – then I would have no problem in dropping my reservations and just accept that it should be there.

[R C-R]

4 minutes ago, GarryP said:

That makes it much clearer what the functionality does but I am still wondering why the functionality is there – in Photo – in the first place.

In addition to providing a map of a location as a visual reference, it is useful because it provides an interactive way to add or edit the GPS coordinate metadata embedded in a file. There are 3 ways it can do this:

1. Drop a "pin" anywhere on the map.
2. Set a location based on a text search (like "Albuquerque, NM" or "London England" or even with the addition of a street name for a more precise location)
3. Set the location to the current one (if System Preferences is set up to allow apps to use the Mac OS Location service).

That metadata (for example as EXIF geolocation metadata) can in turn be used by DAM or other apps if the file is exported to (or already is in) a file format that those apps can read. (From what I can tell, while this metadata is embedded in native Affinity format files, it is not exposed to the Mac OS Location service, so the file would have to be exported to some file format like JPEG, TIFF, or whatever.)

 

40 minutes ago, GarryP said:

Also, since it’s an OS X-only feature, it seems like the developers don’t think it’s important enough for all users to have.

Just a guess, but perhaps it is just that it is relatively easy to implement on Macs & much harder or more complicated to do in Windows 10?

[GarryP]

I can imagine why someone might want to change the location data of a photo to make it more accurate.
I can also imagine why someone might want to add location data to a photo which doesn’t already have it.
Those are perfectly valid things for people to want to do and I’m fine with that.

I think I’m coming round to understanding what’s going on a bit better now. I don’t use OS X nowadays, nor do I take many photos (certainly not RAW ones that I would use the Develop Persona on) so this sort of thing is outside of my normal work-a-day world, and that’s probably where my confusion is coming from.

Would I be correct in saying that this feature is only there to allow users to set/adjust the location data so that this data is then accessible outside of Photo in some other software and it’s not actually used within Photo itself?

[R C-R]

3 hours ago, GarryP said:

Would I be correct in saying that this feature is only there to allow users to set/adjust the location data so that this data is then accessible outside of Photo in some other software and it’s not actually used within Photo itself?

AFAIK, the geolocation info is not used by any Affinity app. Of course, this might change in the future, particularly if/when Serif releases their own DAM.

By then, perhaps Photo for Windows 10 will have its own Location panel (I assume based on Bing Maps).

[GarryP]

That’s fair enough.
Thanks for explaining.
Maybe this will become more useful to more people in the future.
For instance, being able to place an image or Photo document into a Publisher document and then creating a link to an external map might be a nice extension. Or my idea about being able to get the Sun’s position given location, direction of sight and time might have some legs in certain situations. Or maybe not.
I’ll wait and see what happens.
Cheers.

[Greyfox]

Perhaps something to consider.

Incorporating an API to access detailed mapping within AP would introduce some reliance on another 3rd party provider, which long term may lead to additional product support or maintenance issues.  Garmin for instance used to have a menu item in their BaseCamp GPS software that allowed GPS waypoints, tracks and routes to be viewed directly in Google Earth. At various times when Google updated Google Earth, the link would stop working properly until a BaseCamp fix could be released. Eventually, (as I recall with the advent of Google Earth Pro), that function ceased to work altogether, and was eventually removed.

I imagine most detailed mapping API's would be subject to some form of licencing at some cost and  I assume that cost would have to in some way be passed on to the end user.

It is relatively simple to type a Lat/Long co-ordinate into Google maps and have the location displayed. Perhaps just being able to copy/paste the co-ordinate data from the Exif tab in AP into Google maps would be one way to go. (The Lat/long as shown does needs a minor edit to work in Google maps though).

Incidentally, Serif did have the ability to put the location of photos with embedded GPS Co-ordinates on a map within their PhotoPlus Organizer.  That brings back memories.

 

 

 

[R C-R]

25 minutes ago, Greyfox said:

Incorporating an API to access detailed mapping within AP would introduce some reliance on another 3rd party provider, which long term may lead to additional product support or maintenance issues.

FWIW, in the current Mac version, that provider is Apple & the API is part of the Location Services built into the OS. So in addition to any support or maintenance issues, there are potential privacy/security issues users should consider.

If in the future the Windows version uses whatever API powers Bing Maps, something similar would apply. This would also apply if either version enables using an API provided by Google Maps, Google Earth, or some other mapping service not built into the OS itself.

As it is now, both desktop versions of Photo provide only a 'nuclear' option to remove all EXIF metadata via the EXIF studio panel, so maybe it would be worth making a feature request for an option to remove only the geolocation metadata, both for native format & export file formats?

 

1 hour ago, Greyfox said:

It is relatively simple to type a Lat/Long co-ordinate into Google maps and have the location displayed. Perhaps just being able to copy/paste the co-ordinate data from the Exif tab in AP into Google maps would be one way to go. (The Lat/long as shown does needs a minor edit to work in Google maps though).

It would be nice if there was a one step way provided in Photo to copy that geolocation metadata to the clipboard in a format Google Maps (or other location services) could use. Maybe that could be combined with the feature request to remove just the geolocation metadata?

[Greyfox]

1 hour ago, R C-R said:

As it is now, both desktop versions of Photo provide only a 'nuclear' option to remove all EXIF metadata via the EXIF studio panel, so maybe it would be worth making a feature request for an option to remove only the geolocation metadata, both for native format & export file formats?

@R C-R

There is no option to remove, or to change, the geolocation metadata in the DAM software I'm using either, but If for any reason you do want to remove just the geolocation metadata from a photo, that can be done in ExifTool.

 

[R C-R]

56 minutes ago, Greyfox said:

... but If for any reason you do want to remove just the geolocation metadata from a photo, that can be done in ExifTool.

Not too surprisingly, geolocation metadata can be edited in XnViewMP (on Macs via Tools > Metadata > Edit GPS data). I could not find an explicit way to remove it but setting everything to zero probably amounts to the same thing.

Interestingly, XnViewMP can display a Google map location based on the geolocation metadata embedded in a file, & even show a Google street view of that location, but disappointingly it can't set geolocation metadata from within the info pane that shows the map. 

If you know the latitude & longitude values you can type them in (or copy & paste them in one at a time from a text document) in the Edit GPS data window, but at least on Macs if you don't set the elevation to a non-zero value, the Google map display places the location in the middle of the Atlantic along the equator!