Trimble Business Center

Is there a way to bring in pictures with geolocations and assign them to points via proximity?

I know you can assign media data which is pretty cool but this is a manual association. I am looking for something that is slightly more automated by being able to associate via proximity because the only "quick" way of assigning these media files is to compare the time of the recorded point for the test pit to the record time of the photo.Unless I wrote the test pit name on the ground and took a picture of that, which I just though of but this seems a little unnecessary with the metadata options we have available. 

Use Case:

Last week I was out on site digging test pits. I recorded the shots with Siteworks obtaining horizontal location, surface elevation, depth to material and quality. I took pictures of the test pits with my iPhone. I would like to be able to bring these photos into TBC and associate these with the test pits for a couple of reasons:

1. One I could organize these pictures for my estimators and make folders so they can see which picture go with which test pit
2. Then I can assign this media to the test pits (very cool ability by the way)

It would also be nice to be able to export out these media files in containers associated with the point they are linked to. i.e. folder: test pit points and sub-folders of the points with the media data. There may be a way of doing this, I am just not familiar. 

I see this being very useful with the roll out of SiteVision.

Thanks!

You can record pictures directly using the Controller for those types of points and they are automatically associated with the point on import - is there a reason why you used the Iphone and not the controller to take the pictures? The setup to be able to take photos with a point is in the FXL File - were you aware of that but just did not have it set up?

I have a custom Report that can report the Points and their Media Files into Tables if that would be helpful - it is on my other PC so will post it here shortly

I don't know of a way to cross connect Photos and Points automatically - however using the controller and a good FXL file is the way to go for this - that is he workflow that we have designed at least.

Alan

1. Quality
   1. Picture quality is a lot better on my iPhone XR than our TSC3s and some of the other data collectors
   2. phone is more compact
   3. Crews that typically don't have data collectors, such as superintendents, could take pictures with their phones and and then these be could be imported into a project. Useful for punch list and as-builts
2. Spontaneity
   1. Honestly just thought of this idea this weekend/when I was digging test pits
   2. Bidding a job when a rover might not be available or be warranted, this would get you close to objects
3. Feature Definition Manager
   1. Something I have dabbled with but have not fully implemented.
   2. It can be a pain if you don't have things pre-setup, your cannot create feature codes on the fly and truthfully this is when I think of what I need. 
   3. I am also having issues with the Feature Definition tool right now. Thanks for forwarding
   4. Once I iron out the bugs I think this is is a good option to get most pictures.

The quality question is what is good enough - the camera in a TSC3 is good

enough to take a photo of a small area like a Test pit to convey the

information - ok it isn't an iphone multi-megapixel image but the memory

store of large quantities of images also has to be considered here and also

the project size when you add dozens of images - size is important as well

as quality (especially when synching over the web.

Agree that if a user doesnt have SCS / SIteworks / Access that they need to

take photos and having a way to show Geotagged Images on a plan in TBC

would be helpful - I have never tried this and will see if anything is

possible

Alan

On Mon, Aug 12, 2019 at 9:32 AM plheureux@severinotrucking.com <

Just have one Feature Code - a Catch all that allows input of Notes,

Attributes (User Defined Field 1, 2 , 3 etc and capture Image and Make a

Voice Note etc - you do not have to record them all - just what you want

and then you always have one feature (a multimedia point) that can capture

these types of things when you have an idea on site.

Alan

On Mon, Aug 12, 2019 at 9:32 AM plheureux@severinotrucking.com <

Here is another example. I was out on site flying stockpiles. I did not need a rover because I was using aeropoints for ground control. If I could bring in a picture with meta data to TBC, I could have run around with my phone and a tape measure to each pile, taken a picture and zipped in the information to TBC for future use and backup. The accuracy would have been more than sufficient to get me close to each of the piles I would need to delineate.

Sidenote:

Siteworks needs a lite version for cell phones. With as much power as our cell phones have, I am kind of surprised they don't. This would be a great asset to supervisors/pms.

Wants:

• Simple measurements
• Linework
• Geotagging of photos
• Cut and fill maps
• Feature codes for to do type task or recording oddities
• Maybe the ability to throw on a Catalyst for more accurate measurements

You could probably use Trimble Connect/SiteVision for this but that is a whole new program to teach and implement.

Thanks!