Automatically Geotag Video Files

Table of Contents

Feature Availability #

 

You can automatically geotag video that has some kind of GPS data log file available to reference.

For automatic geotagging, ideally you would keep GPS log(s) that are longer in time than the video recording segments, which helps insure there is plenty of GPS data to more accurately geotag your video.  You can see an extreme example of this is in the snowboarding video below where the GPS is logging throughout the afternoon and the snowboarder only turns the video camera on just for the downhill runs. In this example, he loads the hour and a half long GPS log file but only geotags a video clip for one of the runs.

Most GPS devices and smartphone apps will create a GPS log in GPX file formats, however we can support many of following GPS log file types if properly formatted:

  • GPX
  • CSV
  • KML
  • XML
  • SRT (some DJI UAV models)
  • DJI Drone Flight Logs (encrypted text file)

To automatically tag your video: #

1. Launch geotagging functionality by either 1) selecting the Geotag menu at the top > Launch Video GeoTagger or by 2) clicking on the GeoTagger panel tab.

2. Select the video you want to geotag by clicking the Browse button to find your video file.

Browse for the video you'd like to geoTag.

3. Select the GPS data file you would like to sync the video with by clicking the Browse button to load the GPS data file.

Select the GPS file to associate with the video using the Browse button.

4. Now click Load for Geotagging. You will see the video gets loaded to the Video Viewer and the GPS track is presented in the Map Viewer.

Click Load Files for Geotagging

5. Find an obvious known visual place of reference in the video and then find that same corresponding place on the GPS track on the map.

NOTE: Often users will associate the first frame in the video with a point on the GPS track on the map. However you can associate any frame in the video with its corresponding place on the GPS track, and the geotagger will calculate the appropriate distance in the GPS log before and after the video frame, as in the snowboarding video in the beginning of this section. In the screenshot below, we associate a river crossing in the video with where we see the track cross a river in the map.

Associate a known location in the video with a known location on the map.

 

6. With video paused at the place selected above, right-click on the corresponding GPS point that corresponds to the location seen in the video frame, then select Geotag Video Here.

Right click and select "Geotag Video Here"

 

7. Now there will be a portion of the GPS track highlighted in yellow that will show the section of GPS that will be synchronized with the video. If you are happy that this highlighted GPS track represents the “Continuous Location” of where the video was captured, then click Geotag Video.

Geotag Video button.

8.  After clicking Geotag Video button, only the new shorted GPS track (now in red) is shown and a “Video Successfully Geotagged” message box appears letting you know the new (selected) GPS data has been associated with the video allowing for geospatial playback.

Video Successfully Geotagged message

9. The video is now geotagged and can be played back “geospatially” where users can click on any of the GPS points and/or track and the “Video Location Indicator” is following the approximate path the camera traveled.

 

HOW-TO VIDEO: Automatically Geotagging video #

See for yourself how easy it is to automatically geotag a video below. (For Adobe PDF users, click here)

Because the video is now geotagged, you can also display a virtual dashboard with gauges representing various GPS and system data. To do this select Dashboard > Show Virtual Dashboard.

Virtual Dashboard and how to access it.