Announcing MapMyPix.com (prerelease)

Universal Mind has been hard at work with MapQuest creating their Advantage API 5.1 for ActionScript. (You can learn more about our efforts here).

As an offshoot of this effort, MapQuest asked us to create a sample application that demonstrates this new technology used in conjunction with Adobe AIR. We collaborated to conceive and create MapMyPix.

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So, what is MapMyPix?
MapMyPix aims to easily add a "where" context to pictures. Eventually, we imagine most consumer cameras will contain an internal GPS so that pictures are automatically geotagged. In the meantime, there are few options to bridge that gap. For example:

• With Flickr, you can manually drag picture on a map to associate it with a location. This is nice, but certainly tedious and requires us to know/remember exactly where a picture was taken. (Imagine dozens of pictures across a 20 mile hike.)
• Sony offers an external GPS unit that is compatible with certain cameras.

MapMyPix allows us to utilize a GPX track (from a GPS unit) with a set of pictures that were taken during the same timespan of the track. The concept is pretty simple; A GPX track is a collection of points that contain latitude, longitude, a timestamp (and elevation) like this:

These points are usually recorded every 15 seconds or so. Almost all cameras store the time a picture was taken in the EXIF data. By comparing these two times, we can derive the location that a picture was taken (with <=15 seconds of accuracy).

To use MapMyPix, simply drag GXP files (uploaded from a GPS unit) and pictures (uploaded from a camera) into the application. The application parses these files, and displays the route and the pictures in the context of the route. Additionally, you can manually drag a picture to a location on the map and manually add waypoints (by providing an address, which we geocode via the MapQuest API). MapMyPix currently provides some rudimentary metrics, including an elevation profile.

Photosets can be saved to the local filesystem, or uploaded to a Flickr account (with photos properly geotagged, so they can be seen on Flickr's map as well). Once a photoset has been uploaded to Flickr, you receive a link (and embed code) to reference your photoset on a public web-accessible Flex application. The public Flex application actually uses the same core code as the AIR (desktop) app. Of course, this application retrieves the images via the Flickr API rather than from the desktop. Currently, there is no backend for the public Flex app (other than Flickr), so the route overlay (and other features that require route information) are not available.

We're still at work on MapMyPix. For the next release, we'll be rethinking lots of usability and design concepts. Down the road, we have a laundry list of features to add, and we're still setting priorities (and hoping to receive your feedback). We see a number of use cases where we can apply this technology, for example:

• A traveler could share pictures of a vacation, hike, etc.
• A realtor could show clients pictures of houses of interest.

Remember, this is a prerelease! Outside of usability and design improvements, we're still working though issues with our EXIF and GPX parsing, decluttering, performance, etc. Going forward, we hope to share more with you about the application and how it was created, and to use this as an outlet to tell you more about how to create applications using the MapQuest API.

For your first time through, it might make sense to use some sample files and to follow these suggestions:

• Download and unzip this file to your local filesystem. The zip contains a GPX file and some pictures. (The pics are pretty low res to keep your download small.)
• Export the zip to a folder. (We'll be dragging files from this folder later. You cannot currently drag assets directly from the zip.
• Download and install beta 2 of the Adobe AIR runtime if you have not already.
• Download and install the AIR application at MapMyPix.com.
• Start MyMyPix.
• Drag the GPX file into the appropriate "target" of the "What do you want to do?" screen. Hopefully, you'll see the route on the map.
• Drag the images (on at a time, or all, or the even the folder containing the images) anywhere on the app.
  note: If the UTC offset on your computer happens to be "6" (mountain time zone) you should see the pictures displayed on the route. Otherwise, you'll probably see the picture thumbnails in the "Non-Geotagged Pictures" pane. You'll need to click the "Sync Camera" button and change the "Camera UTC offset" to
• Once you do this, you should see the pictures properly displayed on the route/map. (We'll discuss in a future post some of the issues related to UTC offsets, EXIF, and GPX.)
• From there, have a look at the Travel Metrics feature. Look around... have some fun!

For those of you here at MAX in Chicago, please stop by our booth to see the application in action. We'll also be previewing some features of an upcoming release of the MapQuest Actionscript API.

note. MapMyPix requires beta 2 of Adobe AIR

Waypoints can be added by directly adding lat/lon or by entering an address and having MapQuest get the geocoded location for you. If a picture does not correlate to your GPS track, you can manually drag the picture to a waypoint (or anywhere on the map)

Pictures will upload to Flickr, geotagged with the appropriate lat/lon/elevation tags

Once you upload your pictures, you will get a link and embed code so you can share your geocoded pictures with friends using the public viewer.