Geo-tagging with Carlson SurvCE

A guide to handling SurvCE or SurvPC images attached to points using Carlson Survey 2015 or higher

1. The points you measure should be measured with GPS equipment for attaching an Image to a point so we can plot it properly in Carlson Survey or Google Earth.

NOTE: you can NOT attach photos to Total Station shots and Export a Google Earth KMZ file from SurvCE.

In SurvCE under Equip / Configure in the General tab you can check the box for “Prompt for Height & Description” on Version 5.x and or “Attach Photographs to Points/Lines” on lesser versions and tap the Green Check to save your changes.

Configure

In Survey / Store Points you can hit ENTER to store a GPS point and it will show a “Camera” icon next to the description for allowing a picture to be taken and assigned to this point.

Store Point

Camera ProgramPhoto Gallery

2. After attaching Photos to GPS points in SurvCE 4.03 or higher you tap File / Import_Export / Export Ascii File and change it to “File Type: KML/KMZ File *.kml” then tap the Green Check to follow the prompts for creating a KMZ file in the data collector

3. Copy the *.KMZ file from the data collector to your office computer

4. Run Carlson Survey 2015 or higher and set a Coordinate file then click Settings / Drawing Setup and change it to a “Grid” Coordinate System with “Projection: UTM/WGS84 and the correct Zone the GPS points were created in then click OK

5. Now you can click File / Import / Google Earth File and check the “Attach Image to Points” box then click “Set” on the right and browse to the Folder where your KMZ file from #3 is stored and click OK

6. Click OK again and browse to the KMZ file from #3 and click “Open” and it should plot the points into your DWG drawing and add them to the CRD coordinate file

7. To view the attached images click GIS / Image_Document_Inspector and mouse over a point that has an image attached to see a preview of it in the top left of your screen.

You can test out the attached KMZ sample if you set your Settings / Drawing Setup to “System: Grid” and “Projection: UTM/WGS84” and “Zone: xxxx”