Google Maps and digiKam

#1

I have been using Google Maps via digiKam and have geolocated thousands of photos.
To speed things up, I have made numerous geolocation “carrier” jpegs from which I can copy the coordinates and paste them to photos that are from the same geographical location.
It has worked out that, for the last few months, for everything I have had need to geolocate, I have already had a “carrier” from which to copy the coordinates.
Today, I read a post in an Adobe Elements forum and they were lamenting the fact that Google Maps no longer worked with Adobe programs; I thought “No problem, I use digiKam” – more fool me…
Out of curiosity, I opened the Google Maps geolocater in digiKam and was greeted first with a big notification that said something to the effect of “this web-page cannot properly access Google Maps”
And, emblazoned across the map, very closely spaced, was the line “For Development Purposes Only”
All of my many hundreds of map bookmarks were still there.
When I tried to zoom in closer, it would zoom in and then immediately return to the zoomed out aspect that I had to start with.

On EDIT: >>> I have just made some practice images and drag-dropped them onto pin-point locations on the map; other that the annoying watermarks all over the place, and moving the map being quite sluggish, I was able to accurately drag/drop each of the images onto the correct location and the resulting metadata displayed the correct coordinates with pinpoint accuracy; so…, all is not completely lost.
Oh yeah, I also managed to get the map to zoom up close and stay there; whereas, at first, it would bounce back to a non-zoomed view.
Is there a fix for this situation ?
Thanks for reading and all help is appreciated.

#2

I guess Google has changed the API again…

(Morgan Hardwood) #3

Usage of the Google Maps API is no longer free:


One solution for open-source programs which rely on maps, such as digiKam, could be Leaflet:

(Mica) #4

Another solution is embedding open street maps.

#5

Thanks for the info.

It is my understanding that, rather than pay for Google Maps, newer Adobe programs now use Mapbox.

I never even before heard of Mapbox and those in the Adobe forums are lamenting the fact that Mapbox sort of generalizes locations, using local police departments, of all things, as locating points.
The way I understand it is whatever location you are geotagging, it gets marked with the geolocation of the nearest police station.
That is from the few posts that I have read and not from my own experience with Mapbox (which is none whatsoever)

#6

I was nosing around in my digiKam folder and noticed something new that I had no idea what it was = ShowFoto

I opened ShowFoto to check it out and see if I could figure out what it was; during this investigation, I loaded a few jpegs and checked out the Edit Geolocation feature.

Much to my amazement, when I tried Google Satellite view, I got a clean, very responsive Google map that was not plastered all over with “For Development Purposes Only”

This got me curious, so I investigated the geolocation editor in digiKam and it was clean and responsive as well.

For a while there, I was afraid that the future of my geolocating was doomed forever; or, is this just the calm before the end ?

#7

I hope not. I use the geolocator a lot too. You can also try Reverse Geocodding (google it) which will create location tags based on GPS coordinates.