Geotaggng for photographers and archaeologists: archaeological technology.

FLAAR is an institute dedicated to bringing knowledge of technology to scholars and students in anthropology, archaeology, architectural history, botany, zoology, geology and related kinds of projects that involve field work. We do most of our own work in Mesoamerica but the technology we evaluate can of course be used on any field trip anywhere in the world.

By coincidence there were two geotagging digital photography GPS products exhibited at PMA trade show: foolography and Geotate. I would be surprised if there was more than one or two other archaeologists at the entire three-day show (I would also not be surprised if there were zero).

But this is precisely the job of FLAAR: we go out and visit the technology events and then bring the results to this www.FLAAR.org web site so our readers can access this information without the $1,000+ cost of flying to a trade show, hotel, meals; not to mention the three days at the show plus day getting there and another day getting back.

Geotate photoGPS geo-imaging from JOBO.

This project is slightly different than the direct geotagging product of foolography. Like any other technology, there are pros and cons of any system. The designers of each system have their personal experiences, their personal preferences, and the results are a unique technology for each company. Since FLAAR is independent we will evaluate both products (if they are available). It costs us an average of $7200 or more to evaluate a product and then maintain that evaluation on the web site for two years (it takes a staff of 12 to handle all the products we evaluate and of these about four full-time staff keep the entire FLAAR website network up and running 12 months out of the year.

So unless we have the product, we have no way of knowing whether it holds up under constant use. When a PR writer claims to produce a “review” based on borrowing a project for a few days or a week, usually this is simply a sham review or pseudo-review (put bluntly it is not much more than commercial PR).

FLAAR sets itself apart by actually using a product in the real world.

Foolography GPS geotagging.

Photokina is such a huge show that even though I was there for three days  did not notice foolography.  I came to PMA 2009 in Las Vegas to look for the Geotate device (having received an invitation from their London PR firm). Since I did not find any Geotate booth, and since I had not jotted down what distributors booth I should look for, by accident I stumbled across the foolography booth.

It turned out that the foolography booth was directly across the aisle from the JOBO booth where the photoGPS Geo Imaging equipment was being distributed by JOBO.

GIS: which are the best wide-format inkjet printers for printing geographical info.

While on the subject of geotagging, if you university or field project is doing GIS or needs to print any kind of map of satellite images, FLAAR is a world leader in evaluating wide-format inkjet printers for GIS. Just go to www.wide-format-printers.org for the reviews of almost every printer brand you can imagine.

Geotagging for Wildlife management, biodiversity and landscape ecology.

Geotagging technology could provide a powerful tool to study mammal movements across landscapes and population studies of big cats. Film camera traps methods have been used to study mammals, the use of digital cameras linked to geotagging technology could provide relevant information for researchers to study populations size or species accounts. Species location could be recorded simultaneously across big landscapes.

Landscape ecological studies rely on aerial photography to study vegetation cover types; geottaged ground photographs could enable a more precise description and classification of land cover classes.

Use of geotagged information and photographs for botanical specimens can be used to locate and study plants over large periods of time, genetic information could be linked directly to identified individuals.

One potential testing ground would be to use geottagging for FLAAR´s cacao research projects. We would be able to use GPS locations for cacao plants in a tropical landscape test for quality, after chemical analysis plants can be selected for cross-breeding and crop improvement. Local communities can benefit from yields of cacao production in the future.

The possibilities are wide but until we actually have a device we wouldn’t be able to know if post processing methods for geotagged information are accurate and can realistically be used.

First posted March 9, 2009.

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