Qstarz Travel Recorder BT-Q1000 Platinum review
http://www.pocketgpsworld.com/qstarz-BT-Q1000-data [2008-7-1]
Tag : Clock Recorder
Introduction
The Qstarz BT-Q1000 Platinum is a GPS datalogger that records yourtravel as a series of datapoints. This datalog can then be loadedonto a computer and used to match positions to digital pictures toprovide location information on you images, a process known asgeotagging. These pictures can then be uploaded to an online photoalbum such as Flickr which is able to show the location the picturewas taken on a digital map.
Last year I reviewed the Qstarz GPS Travel Recorder BT-Q1000 ( click here for the article). Since then the company has released an updatedversion of the GPS Datalogger: the BT-Q1000 Platinum.
Looking at the specs for the two devices there seems to be littleto choose between them. In fact the only difference is that thedatalogger memory has been increased. It has been doubled from100,000 recorded points to 200,000 points. The price has remainedabout the same at £70 including tax from SuperETrader , whereas the original version has dropped to £64. Evenbetter deals can be found in the USA with the QstarzBT-Q1000Platinum coming in at $84 from BuyGPSNow.com .
As the hardware is essentially the same you have to ask why botherwith this device? Is and extra £6.00 worth the money for theextra datalogger memory? Well the answer is yes... and not just forthe memory. There has been a huge improvement in the functionalityand quality of the software.
The original version worked OK, but had a bit of a cumbersomeworkflow to get georeferenced images. This is OK for hobbyists, butnot really ideal for a mass market product. Times have moved on,software integration has improved, and fortunately so has theQstarz Travel Recorder software.
I will not describe the hardware and features here as they areessentially the same as in the original Qstarz BT-Q1000 review . The main features are 32 hours battery life, 200,000 recordedpoints, either Bluetooth for navigation or just logging function,and a big red button to record a POI.
The supplied accessories include a mains and car adapter and aprotective case. In my view the case is not as good as theoriginal, but it does let you operate the button and switcheswithout removing it. You do have to remove it to recharge thedatalogger though.
During my testing I have tried to put the device to some severetests, including seeing if I could fill the memory up. This wasdifficult, I had to travel around the world to achieve that.
The Qstarz BT-Q1000 Platinum in action
As my more recent reviews have been about geotagging pictures forpersonal memories I thought it would be good to try and put theQstarz system to a more practical use. I decided to use it as atool to help log and identify speed cameras.
One of the things we have problems with on our speed cameradatabase is the positioning and typing of the cameras. The mainattributes of our data collection are :
1 - Position
2 - Direction
3 - Speed
4 - Type
Now I have been collecting this data for the last 7 or so years,and even now I still have problems. The main problem is memory :D(that is an admission that I am getting old) but with 50 or solocations that I verify in each trip it is really difficult toremember exactly what was at each probable location. Taking apicture helps, but then you end up with 50+ photos that meanlittle...
This is where the geo-tagging is indispensable. It is not perfect,but is an order of magnitude better than my memory. Using theQstarz BT-Q1000 Platinum datalogger made an almost impossible taskquite simple. The process is still not perfect, but it helpsimmensely.
Ideally the collection of Speed Camera data would be driving at thecorrect speed and taking a picture and dropping a waypoint at theexact location. This is an absolute requirement for motorways whereyou cannot stop. The data recorded would then include the position,direction, speed, timestamp and the picture would confirm thecamera type. Obviously this is a 2 person job, with one persondriving and the other recording the camera data.
The most crucial part of this process is time synchronisationbetween the GPS and the time on the camera. If you are traveling at60 MPH you will be moving at about 30m per second. If the timedifference is just 10 seconds your position can be out by about300m.
Despite my attempts to synch camera time and the GPS the time isalways out a bit. Fortunately the Qstarz Travel Recorder softwarehas a time adjust action to shift the time the photo was taken andallow you to synchronise your images perfectly. To do this I drivepast a feature that is easily recognised in Google Earth and mydata collector takes a picture. The quality of the image is notimportant, just the timestamp, in fact the faster you are travelingwhen you take the reference picture, the more accurate thecalibration will be. When I come to process the images I locate thereference location on the map, drop a marker, and then find thetrack point nearest the marker. With the timestamp of the markerand the time the image was taken I can work out the time differenceand then apply it to all the photos in the batch.
So we are out on the road, passing the speed cameras. As we drawalongside the camera pole the POI button is pressed recording theposition, then a picture is taken. On some of the quieter roads Iwas able to park up and we got out of the car to take the pictures.
Having collected the pictures, POIs and tracklogs I head back tothe office to process them.
Getting the data onto the PC (sorry no Mac support) is a simplematter of connecting the GPS Datalogger and starting the QstarzTravel Recorder utility application. A click on the Read GPS Logicon will download the data into the computer. You must have theGPS in the Navigation setting.
The Travel Recorder utility organises tracks in projects. I like tokeep all my activity from one surveying session in an individualproject. Thus I will typically have "2008-05-25 VerifyCams" so that I can quickly identify my activities for theday.
Once the data log has been loaded I copy my photos into a separatedirectory. Strangely I label it something like "MyPictures/2008-05-25 Verify Cams". That way the project and theimages match up quite well. I am not known for being thatorganised, but sometimes it helps...
With all my source information safely stored on the computer I thenstart to match the images. This is a simple matter of using themenu option Photos->Add Photos...->Add Photos from Folder...then selecting the imported folder from above. This then importsthe images into the project and attempts to do a match between thetimestamp on the datalog and the recorded time of the picture. Thiswill be a rough approximation until the calibration image has beenprocessed. When the matching is complete a place marker is droppedon the map for each successfully geo-tagged image.
If you select the photo view you can now navigate through thepictures with the map being updated to a zoomed in view of thelocation. What I now do is locate my calibration landmark on themap and drop a marker on it. I then switch from the Google Map viewto the Track Editor. I now find my calibration marker in thetracklog and the note the timestamp. Then I find my calibrationimage and a quick sum gives me the adjustment I need to make tobring all the images to the correct positions. The adjustment isapplied by selecting the clock icon "Shift Photo Time"and entering the calculated adjustment time. The pictures markerswill suddenly shift and all will come into alignment. It isdifficult trying to explain this process without seeing it.
Now I have my data correctly set up all I need to do is to reviewthe information matching the POIs I recorded to the pictures takenand a review of the location in Google Earth. Once I am happy withmy results I can enter the data into the PocketGPSWorld.comwebsite, or (as I am an administrator) I can go directly into theSpeed Camera Database Maintenance application and make directadjustments. Having a picture with the camera is so helpful notjust to identify the camera, but also to remind me about thelocation and the circumstances I observed the camera.
The main Qstarz Travel Recorder software window
The time adjust dialog
The interface buttons
The speed view panel
The Photo List panel.
The Qstarz Travel Recorder Software.
The software has an integrated interface to Flickr, a SocialNetworking an Online Photo Album site. The interface makes it easyto organise, annotate and upload your treasured images. Rather thandescribe the software we have created a short(ish) video that takesyou through the software workflow so you can see for yourself howeasy it is.
Click here for a quicktime movie or here for a windows media version .
Issues and Problems
During my testing I found a few issues with the software. None ofthem were terminal, or destructive, but were a little irritating.The main problems were:
- Application crashing when opening a project and the image filescannot be found.
- Not able to connect to the Datalogger if the the cable has beenattached for a long time.
- Some occasional scripting errors on the Google map interface.
- Unable to edit comments on the Google image pop-up.
Conclusions
There has been a gigantic leap in ease of use and functionalitybetween the original Qstarz BT-Q1000 and the new Platinum version.Although there are a few minor bugs in the software I have beenimpressed in the usefulness of it. I would recommend this to anyonewho wants to tag photos, or collect verifiable points of interest.
Introduction
The Qstarz BT-Q1000 Platinum is a GPS datalogger that records yourtravel as a series of datapoints. This datalog can then be loadedonto a computer and used to match positions to digital pictures toprovide location information on you images, a process known asgeotagging. These pictures can then be uploaded to an online photoalbum such as Flickr which is able to show the location the picturewas taken on a digital map.
Last year I reviewed the Qstarz GPS Travel Recorder BT-Q1000 ( click here for the article). Since then the company has released an updatedversion of the GPS Datalogger: the BT-Q1000 Platinum.
Looking at the specs for the two devices there seems to be littleto choose between them. In fact the only difference is that thedatalogger memory has been increased. It has been doubled from100,000 recorded points to 200,000 points. The price has remainedabout the same at £70 including tax from SuperETrader , whereas the original version has dropped to £64. Evenbetter deals can be found in the USA with the QstarzBT-Q1000Platinum coming in at $84 from BuyGPSNow.com .
As the hardware is essentially the same you have to ask why botherwith this device? Is and extra £6.00 worth the money for theextra datalogger memory? Well the answer is yes... and not just forthe memory. There has been a huge improvement in the functionalityand quality of the software.
The original version worked OK, but had a bit of a cumbersomeworkflow to get georeferenced images. This is OK for hobbyists, butnot really ideal for a mass market product. Times have moved on,software integration has improved, and fortunately so has theQstarz Travel Recorder software.
I will not describe the hardware and features here as they areessentially the same as in the original Qstarz BT-Q1000 review . The main features are 32 hours battery life, 200,000 recordedpoints, either Bluetooth for navigation or just logging function,and a big red button to record a POI.
The supplied accessories include a mains and car adapter and aprotective case. In my view the case is not as good as theoriginal, but it does let you operate the button and switcheswithout removing it. You do have to remove it to recharge thedatalogger though.
During my testing I have tried to put the device to some severetests, including seeing if I could fill the memory up. This wasdifficult, I had to travel around the world to achieve that.
The Qstarz BT-Q1000 Platinum in action
As my more recent reviews have been about geotagging pictures forpersonal memories I thought it would be good to try and put theQstarz system to a more practical use. I decided to use it as atool to help log and identify speed cameras.
One of the things we have problems with on our speed cameradatabase is the positioning and typing of the cameras. The mainattributes of our data collection are :
1 - Position
2 - Direction
3 - Speed
4 - Type
Now I have been collecting this data for the last 7 or so years,and even now I still have problems. The main problem is memory :D(that is an admission that I am getting old) but with 50 or solocations that I verify in each trip it is really difficult toremember exactly what was at each probable location. Taking apicture helps, but then you end up with 50+ photos that meanlittle...
This is where the geo-tagging is indispensable. It is not perfect,but is an order of magnitude better than my memory. Using theQstarz BT-Q1000 Platinum datalogger made an almost impossible taskquite simple. The process is still not perfect, but it helpsimmensely.
Ideally the collection of Speed Camera data would be driving at thecorrect speed and taking a picture and dropping a waypoint at theexact location. This is an absolute requirement for motorways whereyou cannot stop. The data recorded would then include the position,direction, speed, timestamp and the picture would confirm thecamera type. Obviously this is a 2 person job, with one persondriving and the other recording the camera data.
The most crucial part of this process is time synchronisationbetween the GPS and the time on the camera. If you are traveling at60 MPH you will be moving at about 30m per second. If the timedifference is just 10 seconds your position can be out by about300m.
Despite my attempts to synch camera time and the GPS the time isalways out a bit. Fortunately the Qstarz Travel Recorder softwarehas a time adjust action to shift the time the photo was taken andallow you to synchronise your images perfectly. To do this I drivepast a feature that is easily recognised in Google Earth and mydata collector takes a picture. The quality of the image is notimportant, just the timestamp, in fact the faster you are travelingwhen you take the reference picture, the more accurate thecalibration will be. When I come to process the images I locate thereference location on the map, drop a marker, and then find thetrack point nearest the marker. With the timestamp of the markerand the time the image was taken I can work out the time differenceand then apply it to all the photos in the batch.
So we are out on the road, passing the speed cameras. As we drawalongside the camera pole the POI button is pressed recording theposition, then a picture is taken. On some of the quieter roads Iwas able to park up and we got out of the car to take the pictures.
Having collected the pictures, POIs and tracklogs I head back tothe office to process them.
Getting the data onto the PC (sorry no Mac support) is a simplematter of connecting the GPS Datalogger and starting the QstarzTravel Recorder utility application. A click on the Read GPS Logicon will download the data into the computer. You must have theGPS in the Navigation setting.
The Travel Recorder utility organises tracks in projects. I like tokeep all my activity from one surveying session in an individualproject. Thus I will typically have "2008-05-25 VerifyCams" so that I can quickly identify my activities for theday.
Once the data log has been loaded I copy my photos into a separatedirectory. Strangely I label it something like "MyPictures/2008-05-25 Verify Cams". That way the project and theimages match up quite well. I am not known for being thatorganised, but sometimes it helps...
With all my source information safely stored on the computer I thenstart to match the images. This is a simple matter of using themenu option Photos->Add Photos...->Add Photos from Folder...then selecting the imported folder from above. This then importsthe images into the project and attempts to do a match between thetimestamp on the datalog and the recorded time of the picture. Thiswill be a rough approximation until the calibration image has beenprocessed. When the matching is complete a place marker is droppedon the map for each successfully geo-tagged image.
If you select the photo view you can now navigate through thepictures with the map being updated to a zoomed in view of thelocation. What I now do is locate my calibration landmark on themap and drop a marker on it. I then switch from the Google Map viewto the Track Editor. I now find my calibration marker in thetracklog and the note the timestamp. Then I find my calibrationimage and a quick sum gives me the adjustment I need to make tobring all the images to the correct positions. The adjustment isapplied by selecting the clock icon "Shift Photo Time"and entering the calculated adjustment time. The pictures markerswill suddenly shift and all will come into alignment. It isdifficult trying to explain this process without seeing it.
Now I have my data correctly set up all I need to do is to reviewthe information matching the POIs I recorded to the pictures takenand a review of the location in Google Earth. Once I am happy withmy results I can enter the data into the PocketGPSWorld.comwebsite, or (as I am an administrator) I can go directly into theSpeed Camera Database Maintenance application and make directadjustments. Having a picture with the camera is so helpful notjust to identify the camera, but also to remind me about thelocation and the circumstances I observed the camera.
The main Qstarz Travel Recorder software window
The time adjust dialog
The interface buttons
The speed view panel
The Photo List panel.
The Qstarz Travel Recorder Software.
The software has an integrated interface to Flickr, a SocialNetworking an Online Photo Album site. The interface makes it easyto organise, annotate and upload your treasured images. Rather thandescribe the software we have created a short(ish) video that takesyou through the software workflow so you can see for yourself howeasy it is.
Click here for a quicktime movie or here for a windows media version .
Issues and Problems
During my testing I found a few issues with the software. None ofthem were terminal, or destructive, but were a little irritating.The main problems were:
- Application crashing when opening a project and the image filescannot be found.
- Not able to connect to the Datalogger if the the cable has beenattached for a long time.
- Some occasional scripting errors on the Google map interface.
- Unable to edit comments on the Google image pop-up.
Conclusions
There has been a gigantic leap in ease of use and functionalitybetween the original Qstarz BT-Q1000 and the new Platinum version.Although there are a few minor bugs in the software I have beenimpressed in the usefulness of it. I would recommend this to anyonewho wants to tag photos, or collect verifiable points of interest.
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