Video GeoTagger
1.Video GeoTagger - Overview
Video GeoTagger
User Manual (FREE and PRO Editions)
The easy way to Map & Geotag Your Videos.
Release Versions:
FREE & PRO edition: 23.4
Contact:
Remote GeoSystems, Inc.
3307 S College Ave.
Suite 211
Fort Collins, CO 80525 USA
+1 970.367.7808
info@remotegeo.com
1.1.About Video GeoTagger
Video GeoTagger comes in FREE and PRO editions.
FREE Edition Features
Automatically Geotag Video – Video GeoTagger lets you easily combine any GPS log and video to automatically synchronize the video file with a GPS track with just a few clicks on the map.
Manually Geotag Video – No GPS log file? No Problem! Just select as many points along the map as you want for points of interest you want to geotag in the video. Video Geotagger does the rest and will create geotagged video files! You can even geotag digitized historical video for documentaries and other location-based projects.
Click-on-Map Video Playback – Video GeoTagger is also a free interactive geospatial video viewer. Open any properly geotagged video for playback using the same professional Esri mapping technology used by organizations across the globe.
GPS Data Displays – Once video is properly geotagged, Video GeoTagger offers options for reviewing GPS and other data elements such as lat/lon, altitude, heading, speed and UTC time for any point during the video recording.
Virtual Dashboard Gauges – An Optional panel appears below the map with virtual navigation instruments and gauges which displays information pulled from the GPS companion file, including: heading, speed (in MPH and KPH), UTC date and time and altitude.
DJI Drone Flight Log Support – Have you been wondering what to do with those encrypted DJI flight log .TXT files or how you can you can continuously geotag your DJI drone videos? Video GeoTagger includes a proprietary parser for creating standard .GPX files which then allows you to easily geotag your DJI videos and also show other data elements on the map.
LineVision Compatible Video – Video and GPS files created from Video GeoTagger FREE Edition are ready for import into Remote GeoSystems professional LineVision suite of software.
Encrypted Geospatial Video Files – Videos geotagged in the FREE edition are encrypted meaning they can only be opened for map-based playback in Video GeoTagger, Video GeoEditor, LineVision and other Remote GeoSystems solutions. For un-encrypted geospatial video file please upgrade to Professional edition.
Non-commercial Use – Video GeoTagger FREE edition is for personal, volunteer and not-for-profit non-commercial use. Professional commercial users will appropriate the extra features offered by upgrading to Professional edition.
PRO Edition Features
Everything in FREE edition – Plus+
Commercial Use – Video GeoTagger PRO edition offers unrestricted use for commercial, government and other for-profit projects.
Un-encrypted Geospatial Video Files – Need to use your geotagged video files in non-Remote GeoSystems, 3rd party software? Video GeoTagger Professional edition allows you to save your newly-geotagged video in an unencrypted format(s).
DJI Drone Closed Captioning SRT Support – Video GeoTagger PRO edition allows for simple mapping and playback of DJI videos that have GPS data in the closed captioning of the video.
Advanced GIS Map Layer Control – Video GeoTagger PRO edition comes with the same Layer Control panel found in LineVision Esri Maps, offering capabilities to add map data layers to your video geotagging project. Even if you are not a traditional GIS or Esri user, you can utilize your own background maps with shapefiles, imagery and streaming endpoints and map server data produced by GIS specialists in your organization.
Esri ArcGIS Online Authentication – The Advanced GIS Map Layer Control also includes support for authenticating users against your ArcGIS Online Enterprise account for data access.
Need more advanced commercial survey inspection software? Then check out our LineVision Esri Maps options. Click Here.
2.Installation and Registration
2.1.PC System Requirements
Before you install Video GeoTagger, verify your system meets these hardware and software requirements:
Minimum
- Processor: Intel Core i5 or better
- Ports: (1) USB 2.0
- RAM: 8GB Minimum
- Operating System: Windows 7 or later
- Hard Drive: 500 GB Minimum (or more depending on recording length. Video files can take considerable space. Therefore it is important to have ample storage available).
- Video Card: minimum of 2 GB of memory
Recommended
- Processor: Intel Core i7 or better
- Ports: (2) USB 3.0
- RAM: 16 GB Minimum
- Operating System: Windows 7 (64 Bit or better)
- Hard Drive: 1 TB Minimum (or more depending on recording length. Video files can take considerable space. Therefore it is important to have ample storage available).
- Video Card: minimum of 4 GB of memory
2.2.Installing Video Geotagger
Downloading the Software
Download and installation procedures are the same for all versions of Video GeoTagger.
The download link for the software is within the email sent to the email address entered in the request form. Click the link to be directed to the version of the software that you requested and/or purchased.
NOTE: Some web browsers may not recognize Video GeoTagger and often flag it as dangerous.
Do not worry, Video GeoTagger is safe! It has even been awarded Softpedia’s prestigious “100% Clean Download” status (see here).
Select Accept, Allow, or Continue.
Installing the Software
1. Double-click the setup.exe file in the extracted (unzipped) Video GeoTagger folder.
IMPORTANT! If you are running Windows 8 and 10, you may encounter a security warning. Select Run or More Info > Run Anyway… to continue.
2. Select Next once the Video GeoTagger installation wizard launches.
3. Read the License Agreement and click I Agree to accept the terms of the License Agreement.
4. Click Next. We recommend you keep the default Installation Folder. You also have the option of allowing just yourself or anyone using the PC to access Video GeoTagger.
5. Click Next to confirm the installation.
6. The software will start the installation on your PC.
NOTE: You may be prompted to allows this application to make changes. Select Yes.
7. Software Installation of Video GeoTagger is now complete. Check the box to launch the Remote GeoSystems Codec installer. Then click Close.
HOW-TO VIDEO: Checkout the Video GeoTagger installation video below. For Adobe PDF users, click here
2.3.Registering the Software
NOTE: You need to have an active Internet connection to complete your one-time registration.
1. When you launch Video GeoTagger for the first time, the software prompts you to enter your software license key. To obtain a new license key for FREE edition, click the Register Now button. A free license key will be emailed to you
2. Enter the license code you received via email into License Code box. Select I Accept then click Continue to agree to the End User License.
PRO TRIAL USERS: If you are doing a 7-day trial of Video GeoTagger PRO edition, be aware this screen will open each time you launch the software. Simply click Continue to keep using the software during your trial period.
3. In a few seconds, you should receive confirmation that your software has been successfully registered.
3.Interface Overview
NOTE: This manual covers the FREE & PRO editions of Video GeoTagger. Features only available in PRO will be tagged (Pro only). You may also refer to the feature comparison.
Once you launch the software, the application appears by default with the Video Viewer, Youtube Player, and LiveStream Viewer in the top-left corner, the Media Browser, Layer Control (Pro only), Map Navigation, GeoTagger in the bottom-left corner, and the Map Viewer on the right side. There is also a Menu Bar across the top.
Video Viewer Panel
The Video Viewer panel allows you to play and control the video with and without a synchronized GPS data.
- The arrows advance the video forward or backward. How far or little depends on the time entered in the Set Video Skip Forward/Back Time.
- While the video plays, the GPS information shows the spatial track
- Speed is measured in knots.
Media Browser Panel
The Media Browser panel shows loaded videos as items, and by right-clicking on the items you are provided a context-menu for additional options.
Layer Control Panel (PRO only)
The Layer Control panel provides options for adding additional map data layers to your geoProject. Even if you are not traditionally an Esri ArcGIS Pro or ArcMap user, you can leverage background maps, raster imagery and stream online and map server data produced by GIS experts in your organization. To hide and show layers click the checkbox to the desired setting.
Map Navigation Panel
The Map Navigation panel gives you the option to enter Latitude/Longitude coordinates to “jump” to a specific location in the Map Viewer.
GeoTagger Panel
The GeoTagger panel offers the controls for geotagging videos.
3.1.Video and Photo Viewing
Video Viewer Tab
The Video Viewer allows you to play and control videos–with or without synchronized GPS data..
- The arrows advance the video forward or backward. How far or little depends on the time entered in the Set Video Skip Forward/Back Time
- While the video plays, the GPS information shows the spatial track
- Speed is measured in knots
Photo Viewer Tab (Pro only)
The Photo Viewer provides options to view and edit photos. A collection of icons, located on the Photo Viewer window, provide shortcuts to commonly used commands.
Note: The Photo Viewer window will not appear as an option till an image has been loaded to Video GeoTagger PRO
YouTube Player Tab
The YouTube Player provides access to common YouTube functionality (play, volume, video scrubbing, closed captioning, settings) and includes the option to play a video directly from the Video GeoTagger interface or from YouTube itself. Videos available for YouTube playback need to be configured using options provided under the Online menu.
3.3.Media Browser
Right-clicking in the media browser will give you a contextual menu with additional options to manipulate and work with videos.
NOTE: Menu items inside blue rectangles only show up in Video GeoTagger PRO edition.
Zoom to…:
Use the Zoom to… function when you are trying to find the Map Viewer location that corresponds to the video and/or GPS track.
Fit All Media in Map:
This function places brings all the files in the Media Browser on the same map extent.
Jump to Time:
Use the Jump to Time function when you are trying to find a section of the video that corresponds to some other data type, such as data from a gas leak detection alert. In these cases, the geoDVR and leak detection system may be logging the same GPS data stream. After you have selected Jump to Time, a screen pops up to allow you to input the Hour, Minutes and Seconds and click the Jump to Time button to go to this same time in the corresponding video.
Remove Item:
This will remove the item you have right-clicked on.
NOTE: There will be no confirmation for the removal.
Save Track as RGPS (FREE Edition) or GPX (PRO Edition) File:
If you want to use only the GPS data, this will export a RGPS or GPX file, depending on your version of Video GeoTagger. After you have selected Extract Waypoints as RGPS or GPX File, a File Explorer window will open asking where you would like to save the RGPS or GPX File.
NOTE: This option only appears if there are continuous GPS points in the file.
NOTE: A .RGPS file (Remote Geo GPS) is Remote GeoSystems’ encrypted GPS format that is available in Video GeoTagger FREE. If you need to output a non-encrypted standard .GPX format, please upgrade to Video GeoTagger PRO.
View Info:
Shows the information about the video or photo.
Do Not Show on Map:
Does not show the selected item on the map.
Delete from YouTube Downloads
Removes the video from being associated with your account so that it no longer downloads.
3.6.GeoTagger Panel
The GeoTagger Panel is the starting point for automatic and manual geotagging and its functionality will be covered in the automatic and manual video geotagging sections below.
4.Getting Started
Video GeoTagger serves two primary purposes; as a revolutionary new tool to automatically or manually geotag video, and a simple but powerful geospatial video viewer for videos already synchronized with GPS tracks (which you can also create with Video GeoTagger)
If you wish to use Video GeoTagger to automatically geotag video (usually the easiest and more consistent method if you have an associated GPS log file, such as a .GPX file), then you will want to be sure you turn on your GPS logging before you start your video camera and you stop your GPS log file after you stop your video camera. If you do that it should be easy to geotag any digital video.
If you wish to use Video GeoTagger to manually geotag video, then load a video and start right-clicking on the map to add you GPS points associated with video frames!
5.Opening and Viewing Video that has Already Been Geotagged
In addition to providing an easy way to geotag videos, Video GeoTagger also offers map-based playback and of previously geotagged video files. This could be videos previously geotagged with Video GeoTagger, or from a video camera with GPS like a GoPro or DJI drone camera or specialized professional geospatial DVRs like our geoDVR.
Supported companion file types include:
File > Open Single Video
6.Automatically Geotag Video Files Synchronizing with GPS Logs
Video GeoTagger provides the ability to automatically geotag video that has some kind of GPS data log file available to reference. The GPS data does not have to be from the same time period the video was collected, or technically even the same place, nor the same length in time as the video.
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 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 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, but Video GeoTagger also supports all of the following GPS log file formats.
- GPX
- CSV
- KML
- XML
- SRT (some DJI UAV models)
- DJI Drone Flight Logs (encrypted text file)
To automatically tag your video:
1. Launch Video GeoTagger 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
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.
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.
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 (as in these screenshot examples). However it you can associate any frame in the video with its corresponding place on the GPS track, and Video 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.)
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.
7. Now there will be a portion of the GPS track highlighted in orange 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.
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.
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)
7.Manually Geotag Videos
Video GeoTagger allows you to manually geotag videos that do not have any GPS file logs to reference. With manual geotagging a user can click any number of points on a map to provide location points at any number of intervals that correspond to location content in a video frame.
To manually geotag a video:
1. Launch Video GeoTagger 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 on the Browse button for video. Once the video is loaded to click the Load for Geotagging.
3. When no GPS content is detected, a message box appears notifying the user they are entering manual geotagging mode and some basic instruction on how to do so.
4. OPTIONAL STEP (PRO only) While not necessary, if using Video GeoTagger PRO the Layer Control panel lets you add more map data layers to give more details on the map for referencing video frame(s) locations to places on the maps. In this example we will add aerial/satellite imagery so that we can better identify the individual windmills on the map.
5. We zoom into the map, and in this case, use the aerial/satellite imagery to find and set a GPS start point to correspond to the location of the image for the first frame of video in our example. Once you have identified the your video’s start point in the Map Viewer, right-click on that starting point and Select Manually Add Start Point.
NOTE: You now have the option of either 1) adding points throughout your video until you get to the end, or 2) select your end point and then add points in between the start and end points to fill out your manual GPS track. In the example here, we will be using option 1), adding points throughout the video until we get to the end of our video.
NOTE: If you need to move to the end of your video to identify the last frame end location, simply move the video scrubber to the end of the video.
6. User will typically then let the video play for an amount of time, pause the video, right-click a point corresponding to the location of the current frame of video in view and then select Manually Add Point Here at 00:00:00.
NOTE: Please be aware that where 00:00:00 shows, the time changes as you move through the video.
7. Repeat the process in step 6 above to add additional GPS points that correspond with the location of the current frame of video in view.
8. Once we have added all the point swe want an get to the end of our video, now we select Manually Add End Point.
9. Now select Geotag Video and the GPS points on the map turn red.
IMPORTANT! A message indicating the GPS data was saved appears with a path to where your video and new GPX companion file are located. In the folder with your video, you now have a GPX file that contains the GPS data. DO NOT throw this file away or you have to re-tag your video.
HOW-TO VIDEO: Manually Geotagging Videos
Check out how to manually geotag video below. For Adobe PDF users, click here.
8.Image Editor
The fully-featured image editor allows you to make many changes to captured images, without having to rely on third party software.
The following options are available:
Resize
Resize the photo, reducing the file size of it.
Canvas
Resize the drawing area of the photo
Rotate 90°
Rotates the photo 90 degrees clockwise.
Rotate 180°
Rotates the photo 180 degrees clockwise.
Rotate 270°
Rotates the photo 270 degrees clockwise.
Round Corners
Applies a rounded corner effect to the image.
Flip Horizontal
Flips the image upside-down
Flip Vertical
Flips the image rightside-left
Crop
Crops an area of the image and removes the area not selected.
Draw Text
Adds customizable text to the image
Draw
Draw lines on top of the image.
Shape
Add a shape to the image.
Hue Shift
Shifts the hue of the image, changing the colors.
Saturation
Shifts the saturation of the image, to make it more or less vibrant
Contrast
Shifts the contrast of the image, changing the contrast ratio.
Invert Colors
Invert the colors of the image to their opposites.
Sharpen
Sharpens the image. Sharpening too much can create artifacts.
Blur
Blurs the image.
9.DJI Drones Support
There are three ways to geotag video recorded from DJI drones. The methods available vary with the different drone models, and also between FREE and PRO edition.
1. SRT Files (FREE and PRO)
Based on internal research and customer feedback the following DJI models should support recording video with the .SRT file:
- Mavic Pro
- Inspire 1 & 2
- Phantom 3 Pro
- Phantom 4 Standard (but not Phantom 4 Pro)
As long as the .SRT file is in the same directory as the video, it should prompt you to load it automatically.
2. Flight Record (FREE and PRO)
DJI Flight Record data can be pulled from the phone/tablet
3. Closed Caption (PRO only)
For certain DJI models that embeds GPS data into the video file itself as closed captioning tracks, such as the Phantom Pro 4.