Connection to a action camera - street level

Reach Module / M+ / M2 RTK / PPK configuration
1

Hi guys,

This is my first post on this community, as I did not find an answer or a similar topic, here goes my question:

I am currently using both sony and garmin cameras for capturing street level imagery, the included gps accuracies are ok for a generic use but I would like to increase the location accuracy of my photos to around 10 to 30 cm.

Does anyone knows if Emily supports this functionality, that is, geotagging the photos on those cameras?

As most of the action cameras don’t have a hotshoe, can the tagging be done directly via a usb cable? What about post processing, where the cameras would time synchronized with the EMLID unit?

Thanks in advance,

Regards

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Depends on camera but might be able to get a trigger out of USB with some offset. You could also sync or replace your camera time with GNSS time. Then post-process against your Emlid track log.

3

Thanks, I currently have a couple of Garmin VIRB cameras. Could you elaborate or guide me to some documentation on the USB possibility?

I understand how to sync the time but how can replace the camera time with GNSS time, is there any software to do it?

Last but not least and regarding the post processing step with the EMLID track record, which software could you suggest and how does it work?

Thank you very much for your time,

Regards

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I am pretty sure Gps/gnss time is “UTC”, so “0” Greenwich mean time, London England.

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Hi PF, thanks for your answer, it seems quite obvious now.

As for the other parts of my query, any thought_

Thanks

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@joaourbano You could plug in a Reach to a RasPi. Then replace RasPi time with GNSS time from Emlid with combination of NTPD and GPSD similar to this workflow: https://www.lammertbies.nl/comm/info/gps-time.

You could then use gphoto2 to replace your cameras time with the connected RasPi time as well as control camera actions…

Now you will / might find difficult to get a timestamp out of USB over hotshoe. All cameras are different. However, you will probably find the replacement of the camera time synced with RasPi might just give you the accuracy you need and even better if you can calculate a consisstent offset, if any.

Hope that helps.

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Hi @joaourbano,

Welcome to our community forum!

I’d like to thank @RTK_Hunter and @PotatoFarmer for their input.

I just wanted to add that we had not tested such a setup, but it might be important to note what is required from the side of Reach receivers to register a time stamp.

Time mark pin is an open drain, e.g. the event is registered every time the Time Mark pin and GND pins in the C1 port of M+/M2 are short-circuited. The voltage on these pins should not exceed 3.3V.

Also, here is the pinout of the connectors for reference.

Regarding the post-processing and geotagging of the photos, we have a set of guides on that:

Please, check them out.

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