Hyperlinking photographs, text, and video to locations where field data is collected in a GIS environment is becoming easier than ever. In an earlier blog column, I discussed a method of emailing photographs to myself from my smartphone and then uploading them to an online archive such as PicasaWeb, Flickr, or WindowsLive. Then I hyperlinked these images using maps created with ArcGIS Explorer Online (http://explorer.arcgis.com). This method eliminated the step of cabling the photographs from a camera to the computer and then transferring them to a designated folder on the computer’s hard disk, saving valuable instructional time by automating the process for everyone in class.

However, this method requires me to physically go to my computer and transfer the photographs I had emailed to myself to the online archive. Can the process be fully automated so that you can email your photographs directly to a website while you are in the field, and then once in the lab, link to that website inside ArcGIS Explorer Online? Absolutely!

First, choose a photo and video archiving service that allows you to email photographs directly into a folder that allows public access. Second, access your service and make your email “dropbox” folder public. Third, find a direct link to your photo that you can use for your hyperlink. In the example below, I used the feature available in most smart phones—the geotagged latitude-longitude coordinates—assigned to the photograph I took at Mt Kilimanjaro.

I accessed ArcGIS Explorer Online (http://explorer.arcgis.com), used the search tool to find the latitude and longitude, and added a pushpin and note at that point. I added a hyperlink to the photograph I had taken there, stored in my PicasaWeb dropbox.

I then saved my ArcGIS Explorer Online map so that I could access it from any computer, anytime, and shared it so that you can access it too! This entire process took only a few minutes.

This process can be automated even further by using a tool that automatically reads the latitude-longitude coordinates embedded in the header of your photographs and maps them at their correct locations on the map. The landscape of using imagery and video within online and desktop GIS is changing by the month—even by the week. The best way to keep up to date with the latest tools and methods in geotagging is to visit my colleague Tom Baker’s geotagging blog (http://edgis.org/geotag).

Choose methods that are most appropriate for your instructional goals and the technologies at your disposal. How might you be able to effectively use geotagging and GIS hyperlinking in your own instruction?

- Joseph Kerski, ESRI Education Manager