GEB reader Michael Lee is sharing a free tool he created for importing geotagged photos into Google Earth. It is only available for Windows. It comes in two versions, a standalone version and one with an installer
It is very easy to use. Rather than opening the program directly, you drag and drop a photo, or a folder containing multiple photos onto the program icon or a shortcut to the program. It then creates a KML and opens it in Google Earth. The KML shows camera icons where your photos are. To see a photo when you click on an icon, you first need to save the KML file into the folder where your photos are and reopen it in Google Earth. Note that you cannot drag and drop multiple photos at once, but rather put them into a folder which you can drag and drop.
Note that the installer can create an icon on the desktop which you can drag and drop photos onto, but it does not create a start menu item as the program is not designed to be run by clicking directly on its icon. The installer also adds an entry in the ‘Send to’ section of the right-click menu so you can simply right-click on a photo or folder and select Send to->GEPix.
We created a similar tool using JavaScript which you can find here. Our version creates photo overlays rather than icons with photos in the popup.
Michael Lee is the creator of GPStamper, a tool which takes geolocation information and writes it into an image as text.
About Timothy Whitehead
Timothy has been using Google Earth since 2004 when it was still called Keyhole before it was renamed Google Earth in 2005 and has been a huge fan ever since. He is a programmer working for Red Wing Aerobatx and lives in Cape Town, South Africa.
I have been looking for a tool like this for ages. However, unfortunately, when I drag my geotagged .jpg pictures to the desktop icon, it creates a location pin with a not-working link to the picture. When I click on the picture icon in Google Earth, it shows me a big, blank white page where my picture is supposed to be. Is there a fix for this?
It would be simply awesome if Google Earth were to somehow link with Google Photos. That would be my dream come true.
As mentioned in the post, you need to save your KML file into the folder where the pictures are, then open it again from there.
Thanks for your reply. Now it works indeed. Nice!
Just thinking out loud now. I see my pictures are 4160 by 3120 pixels. Therefore, when I open them in Google Earth, they are way too big. It would be great if you could add this as input parameter in the software to say, for example, 1000 by 750 pixels on the screen. That would make them more viewable.
I see that the location pins basically link to the location of each photo. I have read sometime that google earth also allows location pins to link to the location of photos on the web, via an internet url. Do you know if there is anyway to have these location pins link to pictures stored in your personal Google Photos library.
What I’m really looking for is a way to plot all my pictures on Google Photos on Google Earth. It would be an amazing way to present your travels and adventures to friends and family.
Thanks for the tool! Same humble request, can we have the pictures resized because as it is now, I can only see very little of it… Cheers!
Florence
Hi Timothy,
Thanks so much for this functionality.
I’ve followed the steps but unfortunately I’m unable to see the pictures in Google Earth. A big blank window pops up when I select an image.
I’ve made sure that I’ve saved the kmz/kml file within the same folder than the pictures. The placemarks are loaded onto Google Earth but as mentioned, I’m unable to see the pictures. I tried restarting Google Earth with no success.
I’m using Google Earth Pro 7.1.7.2606.
I’d appreciate if you could help me troubleshoot this issue.
Thanks in advance.
Regards
I’m having the same problem Rafael notes. I have moved the KML to the same folder as my photos, but the photos are not being displayed.
We’re trying to use this tool to share aerial survey photos of the damage done by Hurricane Matthew in Haiti so organizations can see what areas are not yet receiving much aid and target their work accordingly. If this tool were fixed, it would be a huge help to us!
Sounds like an awesome tool. It appears to be running correctly, but I’m getting an error when opening the generated kml. “Open of file […] failed: Parse error at line 1, column 0: syntax error”. Anyone else having a similar issue?