GPS/Direction Overlay on Video?

doormat asks: "I've come up with a solution where I would need to overlay the current GPS location (Lat/Long) as well as the current direction onto a video stream. I've seen it on still cameras but not on video cameras. I've got the equipment for survey-grade GPS, I just need to put in onto the video frames, either in real-time or somehow in post-processing."

Controller?

[Murphy Murph]

What hardware are you using as a controller for the 5800?

Though the 5800 has NEMA output via it's serial ports, it can not do the processing on-board for RTD or RTK. (I assume RTD because of the base you linked to.)

Re:Get a mixing desk then

[hey!]

I'm guessing he wants to do it in the field. That way the footage is combind with the GPS location and time at the moment it's recorded. There's a lot of interesting applications for this, such as recording animal behavior for scientific studies etc.

I don't know anything about video, but I do know quite a bit about GPS. GPS's universally send NMEA strings, which are essentially comma delimited 1 record per line data, the first field containing the class of data being sent. They all send various kinds of status information, such as the current fix, last good fix, satellite strength etc. Some makes, such as Garmin, have their own proprietary protocols, but also support NMEA as well.

The NMEA standard interface is basically a very rudimentary subset of RS-232 that should interconnect with computing equipment. This stnadard facilitates doing things like hooking your GPS up to yoru fish finder (NMEA -- national marine electronics association).

Some cheap OEM devices designed for embedding in equipment don't even do that -- they simply send TTL level bits over the TX interface (0v = 0, 5v = 1, instead of -5 .. -15v = 0, +5 .. +15v = 1). This will work fine with some equipment but not others; for example laptops will generally receive the TTL level data as normal serial data, but PDAs usually don't.

So, my guess is the poster is requiring something whose overall structure looks like this:

GPS --> NMEA fix extraction --> Text Formatting --> Overlay text on live video --> record.

There are degrees of freedom in each step of this chain. For example, a laptop could take the RS-232 from an consumer handheld, use a Perl script to extract the NMEA strings and format them, take a live video feed over Firewire and use the built in facilities of some video capture software to overlay the text on the video and save the video to the laptop's hard drive in MPEG format.

That said, this particular solution probably doesn't meet his needs because he probably wants to be able to walk around with his compact camera.

Re:Get a mixing desk then

[lscotte]

I'm guessing he wants to do it in the field. That way the footage is combind with the GPS location and time at the moment it's recorded. There's a lot of interesting applications for this, such as recording animal behavior for scientific studies etc.

Sure, so you know the location of the GPS antenna, but still not the location of the animal...

GPS Overlay

[tadheckaman]

http://www.icircuits.com/prod_osd_main.html [icircuits.com]

They have all sorts of boards that can overlay GPS on a video signal.

Build it yourself

[kinema]

If you're interested in a self built solution I recommend you take a look at an article I saw in Circuit Cellar's January '04 issue, Remote Observation Station [circuitcellar.com](PDF [circuitcellar.com]. by by Richard Dreher.

Solution?

[Anonymous Coward]

doormat asks: "I've come up with a solution where I would need...."


I'd say it sounds like you've come up with a problem, not a solution.

BOB

[norkakn]

I think what you want is the BOB

http://www.decadenet.com/bob3/bob3.html

I've used the BOB 2 and it's user friendly and easy to set up, It has a simple interface language to do the overlay code, which is sent over a serial connection. The video is just passed through. The BOB 2 didn't allow colour in overlay mode, but some of the new models probably do. RS-232 is simple enough that you could build yourself an interface pretty easily, or you could run it through a computer or palm (they have a way to drive a serial connection i'd hope)

Re:BOB

[Telecommando]

McAfee Astrometrics has complete plans for building a time code inserter using the BOB3. It can also be configured to provide lattitude, longitude, altitude and date.

http://mysite.verizon.net/vze8uqf1/id4.html [verizon.net]

Subtitles

[nerd65536]

The simplest, easiest and cheapest method is to encode your GPS data in a text subtitle format. For example, srt looks like this: 1 00:00:06,070 --> 00:00:08,070 Hello. The subtitles can be added in post processing, or just accompting the video file.

Maybe this will work

[OAB_X]

Im not exactly sure if this is what you want, but if you have a Mac and Macromedia Director then you can go here [sunysb.edu]

That may not be of any help at all, but it might work. I have not use Director, nor do I know its limitations, so, it may not work. I dont even know if that little script can do what you want it to do.

Seems pretty damn simple

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Get a laptop and an ATIWonder PCMCIA card and a GPS unit. Hook camera and video recorder to card. Use GPS Software and camera software in 2 windows, overlaying the GPS software window so that you get the camera output with the GPS output beneath/beside it. Videotape screen output.

What is so hard about this that there are only 16 replies?

This kit uses a chip used in VCRs plus a PIC

[Locutus]

I found this over a year ago and haven't tried it but they have a unit all set for the kind of GPS overlay you mentioned. UK based so if you're in the US, the 60(GBP) is going to cost you 115.57(USD)

http://www.blackboxcamera.com/Stv5730a/STV5730A. ht m

There are others in the US for around the same price but this one looks very flexible in that you can program / configure alot of it or all of it since it's a flash based PIC running the show.

LoB

Re:This kit uses a chip used in VCRs plu( update )

[Locutus]

these people sell this from Canada at $99(USD)

http://www.hvwtech.com/pages/products1a.asp?CatI D= 5&SubCatID=23

They have some other cool "toys" too. :-)

LoB