So, I'm on vacation, and, as is my habit, I'm spending a fair chunk of time climbing up high things (Cathedrals, Eiffel Towers), that sort if thing.

It happens I'm traveling alone, but even if I weren't it's generally not practical to leave a person on the ground to take pictures of you in top of these sorts of things.

On the other hand, at most sites, there's hundreds of people standing around the base, snapping pictures.

So the idea is a search engine. You pick a point on Google maps, and enter a time stamp (which can generally be pulled from the pictures you took looking down). The app crawls picture sites (Flickr, Picassa, whatever) for time stamps (plus or minus a few minutes) and geotags that match your location. This allows you to find that perfect picture of you spitting off of the leaning tower of Pisa.

The advanced version does image analysis to limit it to pictures pointed at the correct area, and maybe adds facial recognition.
-- MechE, Oct 24 2014

You, in somebody else's vacation photos http://web.archive....20vacation_20photos
From the wayback machine. [tatterdemalion, Oct 24 2014]

Photospotting Photospotting
An extant variant. [tatterdemalion, Oct 24 2014]

Big_20Buddy [not_morrison_rm, Oct 26 2014]

Virtual Observer http://www.virtualobserver.com.au/
Their system tracks time and GPS data in videos for retrospective examination. [AusCan531, Oct 27 2014]

It's called the NSA, and it's Baked.

Big Brother Is Watching YOU …
-- 8th of 7, Oct 24 2014


Hmm, I agree the archive version is similar in intent, but the general conversion to digital, with the corresponding exif data, including geographic location in many casess, increases the practicallity by several orders of magnitude.
-- MechE, Oct 24 2014


This sounds like it should work. Do the metadata normally stay with the images when they're uploaded?
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Oct 26 2014


Typically yes, unless the user makes a specific effort to clear it. Sometimes it will go away with a format change, but not always. I know flickr, specifically, allows you to designate regions where they won't show the geographic information. This is to allow you to post home and family photos without giving to much away.

Of course the best quality photos are less likely to have the geographical information (since the majority of actual cameras, as opposed to phones) don't have a GPS unit, but even there, most photo sharing sights include added tags that might contain that information.
-- MechE, Oct 26 2014


//facial recognition.

T-shirt with very big QR code on the front and back , then you can just trawl the net for pics....
-- not_morrison_rm, Oct 26 2014


//Your own FB url ... on a shirt

I do have a QR code for "my" facebook page. Natural modesty prevents me from putting a link to it on here.
-- not_morrison_rm, Oct 27 2014


See "Virtual Observer" [link]
-- AusCan531, Oct 27 2014



random, halfbakery