NavPix is the proprietary name applied by
Navman
Established by Sir Peter Maire in 1986 as New Zealand-based Talon Technology, Navman (as the company became known in the 1990s) is a GPS systems company providing stand-alone GPS units, OEM GPS modules, GPS software for Palm handhelds and Pocke ...
to its technology that combines an image with geographical data.
The "NavPix" name is used for both the software and the geo-referenced image that results from that software.
NavPix software
The NavPix technology enables users to take a
JPEG
JPEG ( ) is a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital images, particularly for those images produced by digital photography. The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and imag ...
image using the integrated digital camera on the N Series ("N" for NavPix), iCN 720 or iCN 750 portable Navman GPS navigation devices.
The Navman's GPS (
Global Positioning System
The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of the global navigation satellite sy ...
) receiver determines the latitude and longitude of where that image was taken. That information is then written into the image's Exif (
Exchangeable image file format
Exchangeable image file format (officially Exif, according to JEIDA/JEITA/CIPA specifications) is a standard that specifies formats for images, sound, and ancillary tags used by digital cameras (including smartphones), scanners and other syste ...
) meta data by the NavPix software. The NavPix, therefore, effectively provides a
Georeference Georeferencing means that the internal coordinate system of a map or aerial photo image can be related to a geographic coordinate system. The relevant coordinate transforms are typically stored within the image file ( GeoPDF and GeoTIFF are exam ...
of the location where the image was taken, which is not necessarily the same georeference as the object being "NavPix-ed".
The NavPix image can then be used to define a destination or
point of interest
A point of interest (POI) is a specific point location that someone may find useful or interesting. An example is a point on the Earth representing the location of the Eiffel Tower, or a point on Mars representing the location of its highest m ...
on compatible Navman devices.
NavPix sources
Furthermore, as the geographical information is written to the meta data, the image itself can be shared between compatible devices or uploaded to Navman's NavPix Library which offers a wide range of NavPix images that have been taken by both Navman users and sourced from professional photo providers, including
Lonely Planet
Lonely Planet is a travel guide book publisher. Founded in Australia in 1973, the company has printed over 150 million books.
History Early years
Lonely Planet was founded by married couple Maureen and Tony Wheeler. In 1972, they embarked ...
.
The NavPix Library also enables people to upload non-NavPix images (including other formats such as
GIF
The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF; or , see pronunciation) is a bitmap image format that was developed by a team at the online services provider CompuServe led by American computer scientist Steve Wilhite and released on 15 June 1987. ...
) and convert them to NavPix images by using entering either the latitude and longitude they want to associate with the image or by entering the address and using the Library's software to generate the latitude and longitude values based on a
Postal code
A postal code (also known locally in various English-speaking countries throughout the world as a postcode, post code, PIN or ZIP Code) is a series of letters or digits or both, sometimes including spaces or punctuation, included in a postal a ...
look-up.
Unlike some geo-referencing applications, the NavPix Library writes the georeference values to the image itself via the
Exif
Exchangeable image file format (officially Exif, according to JEIDA/JEITA/CIPA specifications) is a standard that specifies formats for images, sound, and ancillary tags used by digital cameras (including smartphones), scanners and other system ...
meta data.
Common Misconceptions
The photo taking abilities do not help navigation.
See also
*
GPS eXchange Format (
XML schema
An XML schema is a description of a type of Extensible Markup Language, XML document, typically expressed in terms of constraints on the structure and content of documents of that type, above and beyond the basic syntactical constraints imposed ...
for interchange of waypoints)
External links
NavPix Library
GIS file formats
Global Positioning System
Navigation
Navigational equipment
Geographical technology