[Digikam-devel] [Bug 192442] Allow tags to be used to geolocate images

[DGardner]

https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=192442





--- Comment #2 from DGardner <dkde gardnersworld org>  2009-05-12 22:22:57 ---
I'm not sure that I understand what you mean by "specialized" in this
context. I'm just suggesting a feature to associate co-ordinates with
any arbitrary tag that a user defines to represent a place. Do you mean
that having tags that represent places is an unusual quirk of mine?
I thought it would be a very general thing.

I added bug #192447 that is a further generalisation of this request:
allowing tags to have different associated meanings or attributes.
Maybe that will provide more context.

Perhaps a simpler approach would be to allow tags to have co-ordinates,
but not to set co-ordinates in the image based on the tag. If an image
has no co-ordinates, but has a tag with co-ordinates then the tag's
co-ordinates could be used for geolocation. If the image has
co-ordinates the tag will be ignored and the image's co-ordinates will
be used.

> Theoretically this could be done with Batch Queue Manager [...]

The problem with the batch approach is that it is not as simple as selecting
images and clicking on a tag. I generally tag hundreds of images at a time,
applying several tags to each, so messing about with dialog boxes and batch
queues for some tags and not others would be horribly slow and awkward. It
may work, but it is no improvement over the status quo of using the Edit
Co-Ordinates dialog and would probably be worse.

> You can easily mass-geolocalize your photos by selecting as many as you
> wish, use geolocalization choose location and all of them will be marked
> with this location.

My point is that I already chose the location over the past few years using
my "Places/..." tags and have 13,000 images that have a tag identifying the
location, just not one that can be used for a geolocation. It would be a
whole lot easier to geolocate the tags than all of the images. I can do
this for existing images as you say,  but I also have to repeat the tagging
and geolocating steps each time I add new images instead of just geolocating
the tag for once and for all and then just tagging new images as before.

Once I've geolocated my tags I only do this:

 1. Select images.
 2. Check the box for my "Places/*" tag.

Instead, I have to do this each time I geolocate new images:

 1. Select images.
 2. Select "Image->Geolocation->Edit Coordinates" from the main menu.
 3. Wait 5-10 seconds for the Geolocation dialog to be ready.
 4. Click in the Search field.
 5. Type in the location.
 6. Click the Search button (the results come back quickly).
 7. Pick a search result and see if it is OK.
 8. Probably refine the search or give up and pan around the map manually.
 9. Zoom in and pan around the map to find the exact location.
 10. Place the marker for the location.
 11. Click the OK button.

Maybe you think I'm making it sound harder than it is, but the trial and
error is exactly what I experienced for about 90% of the locations that
I tried to set yesterday. I would still have to do most of the second
process to geolocate each tag, but I add "Places" tags far less often than
I add new images.

You can think of the whole things as a way to associate a name with some
co-ordinates. Even that on its own would be more convenient. The Edit
Coordinates dialog could allow me to save the position to a list of
named positions (just like saving searches in the search panel) and then
I could pick an existing position quickly instead of messing about on
the map. For example, I could have a "Home" position, as I take lots of
photos at home. However, I already have a "Places/.../Home" tag and all
I would be doing is applying the "Places/.../Home" tag and also applying
the "Home" position (or "place") again in another dialog. Combining the
two together makes sense.

I know that this is something of a departure for the tagging system as
it stands. However, as I describe in bug #192447, the tagging system
should evolve along with the rest of digiKam. It is very good now and
is the compelling feature that drew me to digiKam and keeps me there,
but it could be really great.

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