Interesting use of a dog and a photo tagger (to me, anyway).

[Dave Kendrick]

Hi Guys,
I wrote the bit below and then discovered that the forum would not accept my .BMP images of the two maps so I can't do what I intended - please therefore read the following bearing in mind that there are no maps to be seen - sorry.
I'm just about to disappear on my hols, complete with camera bag etc. and I got to thinking how many pics I've got where, after the holiday I'm not absolutely sure of where the pic was taken. So I've just invested in a photo tagger off eBay. To ensure that I knew how it functioned and that it had survived the journey OK I took it out with me when I gave the dog (see below) a little walk and then looked at what I'd logged when we got back - in short, very easy to use and very impressive result. I attach a screen shot of what I got after my walk. (Oh no I don't )
The tagger itself is about the size of a chunky remote for a car, which got me thinking. ATM we are temporarily homing our son's 2 year old Springer Spaniel so I constructed a harness for the dog, to which I attached the data logger and set it up on our next walk. The point of this was just to see how much further the dog travelled than I did as he's just a bundle of energy and runs everywhere at max revs with his nose about an inc from the floor and views all hedges as just a minor obstacle in his way. He also loves to chase down a thrown ball and bring it back to be thrown again.
PLEASE IGNORE THIS BIT: If I've done an Eric Morecambe and pressed all the right keys in the right order there should be attached to this a screen shot of my route, together with an indication of distance travelled and at what speed, together with another one showing the same information for the dog on the identical route, (note the big differences), together with a couple of pics of the dog, complete with home made harness.
Hope it's of interest to someone despite the lack of maps.

 

[Hamish Gill]

Send me the bmp files and I'll convert them for you...

 

[Dave Kendrick]

Send me the bmp files and I'll convert them for you...

Hi Hamish,
Sent by e-mail - should be with you now - many thanks for your as-usual help.
Dave.

 

[Dave Kendrick]

Herewith the Maps

Hi Guys,
I couldn't find a way of adding these to the original post so, with thanks to Hamish, here are the missing maps and data: -

Cheers,
Dave.

 

[Hamish Gill]

Being a dog owner I do find this quite funny!
I'd love to see how far our whippets go!
We take them to a park that is basically a hill, and they just run round and round in circles!
So what is this gadget then? Linky linky

 

[Mark Grant]

A whole new meaning to the term 'Tracker Dog'

Is it easy to upload the data onto a map with that gadget ?

I do something similar with Google 'My Tracks' on my mobile phone. ( a free google App)

http://mytracks.appspot.com/

I would not want to strap my phone to the back of a dog though..

A google 'my tracks' example of a walk in the countryside near our house.
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=e...74200894741572.00048ee1fd8fa5c484fab&t=h&z=14


And a long walk from West Coastguard Lodge holiday cottage at Ross Farm, Northumberland ( A beautiful place) http://www.rosscottages.co.uk/west-coastguard-cottage-northumberland.cfm

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=e...5437,-1.787682&spn=0.072072,0.154324&t=h&z=13

Its fairly accurate as if you zoom in you can see the track end point is exactly on the house where I ended the track and uploaded while making a cup of tea for my wife .....

( Start point was just through the gate near some trees)


Edit:
I tried adding the maps tag, but that does not show the route on the embedded maps.

 

[Dave Kendrick]

Being a dog owner I do find this quite funny!!
So what is this gadget then? Linky linky

Hi Hamish,
See here: -

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=230586513307&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT

No probs with purchase, arrived promptly, well packed and no Customs involvement. It comes with a little software disc which loaded fine on XP and integrates with Google Earth seemlessly.
Any questions, PM me and I'll do my best to answer, but the gadget is fine. If you look at the 'My Walk' map you'll see a few red dots on the track. This is where I pressed the Log Data button, which is what you are supposed to do when you take a photo. It logs the geographic position of that photo, anywhere on Earth, in units you can specify, time of day and height above sea level etc. Whilst you're travelling it logs speed (max and average) and there are 3 settings for car, bike or foot travel, all with variable data logging intervals (distance or time etc.). The built in memory will hold 100,000 records and you can choose to overwrite the oldest records or shut down when the memory is full. It connects to PC by bog standard USB A to mini USB lead which serves both to download the data and charge the battery.
All in all a useful thingummybob I think .
Cheers,
Dave.

 

[Chris Dodkin]

Those tracks are brilliant - clearly the dog is doing way more work Dave!

 

[Dave Kendrick]

Hi Guys,
Herewith the second and last Dog Walk log post - we extended it a bit - we now do this twice a day and we're both ready for a rest when we get home - Nemo heads straight for the garden hose stop tap and drinks for England when I've turned it on for him. I shall be ready for a holiday by the time he goes on to our son's GF in a few days time.
I've also added a better picture of Nemo, without GPS harness, on one of these walks - the rope dangling from his mouth has a hard rubber ball attached to it (it's in his mouth) and this gets thrown away and fetched back again at regular intervals - my arm gets tired a long time before his legs .
Dave.