Doug McCune (the Flex Master) teamed up with the folks over at Universal Mind to develop an interesting and useful system for displaying photos on a map. Their MapMyPix AIR application allows real estate professionals (and everyone else) to display series of photographs in their correctly geocoded position on a MapQuest map.

How it Works

MapMyPix is refereshingly easy to use. To map a route and display pictures in the correct locations, simply add the .gpx file from your GPS and your route will be displayed. Then, add the photos you wish from your digital camera and MapMyPix will display them accurately along your route. The way this works is by comparing the time stamps from your camera’s EXIF data and the lat, long, time, and elevation from your GPS device to display the pictures accurately on the map. (This application uses the MapQuest AS3 API to display the route and associated photos.)

While this application was designed for those who have GPS devices, even those without one can use MapMyPix to display their photos on a route. And, because it is a desktop application, you are able to drag and drop entire folders of pictures into the box and arrange them in the correct locations.

Once you are happy with your product, you get a stable URL and can publish it on a Flickr account or just grab the code and embed it anywhere: your website, the property’s website, your blog, your MySpace page, etc.

How is this Useful to Real Estate Professionals?

This application has numerous potential uses for real estate professionals. For example:

Say you are a real estate agent with a particular property in a great location. Now, you could describe it in words: “Conveniently located near shopping centers, restaurants, and nightlife in the historic Georgetown neighborhood.” That’s good, but it doesn’t compare to actually showing your clients how desirable the location is. By mapping out photos of the surrounding area, you can demonstrate exactly how close the property is to main street, how beautiful the neighborhood is, and how scenic the neighborhood parks are.

Maybe you are a homebuilder or developer who wants to showcase a new development. You could tastefully display various model homes and hope that they are enough to peak the interest of potential buyers. Or, you could give the housing shoppers a complete idea as to the design and layout of the development. You can show how all the homes share certain qualities, but maintain an architectural diversity that is a far cry from a cookie-cutter development… you can demonstrate how you have designed the development around a scenic lake or maybe how you have managed to leave the mature vegetation standing.

And for those architects out there. Do you ever travel to different areas of the country and gain inspiration from local architectural elements? Well, if you take pictures on your journeys, you can display various photos on a map for easy references to regional architectural styles. Then, the next time you want to work in the feel of a New York City brownstone or a Miami beach house or a New England cottage, you simply go to your map and all the photos will be conveniently displayed.

Or, real estate agents can display all of the available properties their client might be interested in, like in this example of Denver real estate:

Anyway you cut it, whatever your role is in real estate, you can benefit from having detailed, geocoded photos. What words cannot accomplish, pictures can and the more information you can give clients and shoppers about a particular listing or general development, the better.

For more information

Check out the MapMyPix homepage where you can download the desktop application. (Note: if you haven’t already, you must download Adobe Integrated Runtime {AIR} first.)

Read the developers’ blog entries about the product: Doug McCune and Tom Link.