Toolkit available

by alexdunkel

I finally found the time to publish the tools I used for processing and visualizing Flickr photo data (e.g. visualizations on maps.alexanderdunkel.com). Primarily, this step is intended to supply updated software versions to Workshop participants (University of Waterloo, University of Toronto, University of Technology Dresden). All parts of the toolkit are Creative Commons CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (this is a non-commercial license, in accordance with Flickr’s terms of use). Please note: for the time being, I can not provide any support. Also, please note that the Data itself is not included here (because it would be a against Flickr’s terms of use).

I developed this toolset as a software that assists in filtering, mapping, and visualizing photo location data from Flickr for application to the fields of landscape and urban planning. It consists of 3 tools:

2017-04-18 Important – All tools are now available as Open Source on Github: 1) Clipgeo 2) Access Photo Database Interface 3) PHOTO GEOTAG TOOLS Toolbox

GetGeo v0.9.2

(Windows 7/8)

Software for retrieving and filtering photo location data with basic visualization functionality. The output can be a map that is directly generated from data, or a number of text files that can be imported to GIS Software for advanced processing and analysis. A readme file is provided in the .zip file, please read first.

Main features:
– retrieving photo data for a specific area from Flickr API
(currently, this function is set to private)
– managing a local photo location database
– filtering photos based on photo timestamps, area/shapefiles or specific search strings for titles and/or tags

Link: GetGeo_0.9.2.zip

Photo Database Interface v4.0

(MS Access 2007/2013)

This interface for Microsoft Access helps in filtering data and seeking for advanced patterns in data (tag occurrences, user occurrences, time-stamp distribution). Works with free Microsoft Access 2013 Runtime (64bit).

Main features:
– importing clipped data files from GetGeo
– cleaning up tag data
– exporting an ArcGIS compatible database (*.mdb)
– time analysis (month, daytime, year)
– preparing taglist (*.dbf) for clustering tag data

Link: importdata_templ.accdb

ArcGIS Photo Processing Toolbox v2.0

(ESRI ArcGIS 10.1/2)

This toolbox contains a number of tools developed for aggregating photo location data in ESRI ArcGIS. The newest version is compatible with ArcGIS 10.2. This version also contains a bugfix that solves an issue with the iteration stopping after first item during tag clustering.

Main features:
– clustering tag data based on list
– aggregating multiple photo locations to a smaller number
– weighting tag data

Link: PhotoGeotagTools.tbx

Workshop Files

For a step-by-step guidance on how to use these tools to create final visualizations, have a look at the following pdf’s (42 pages). These were created for the UW and UT Workshops:

The following zip-File contains layout .mxd and sample data that is used in the Workshop to create a map for Highpark in Toronto.