It's certainly possible to develop on a Windows machine, in fact, my first application was exclusively developed on the old Dell Precision I had at the time :)
There are three routes;
- Install OSx86 (aka iATKOS / Kalyway) on a second partition/disk and dual boot.
- Run Mac OS X Server under VMWare (Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion) onwards, read the update below).
- Use Delphi XE4 and the macincloud service. This is a commercial toolset, but the component and lib support is growing.
The first route requires modifying (or using a pre-modified) image of Leopard that can be installed on a regular PC. This is not as hard as you would think, although your success/effort ratio will depend upon how closely the hardware in your PC matches that in Mac hardware - e.g. if you're running a Core 2 Duo on an Intel Motherboard, with an NVidia graphics card you are laughing. If you're running an AMD machine or something without SSE3 it gets a little more involved.
If you purchase (or already own) a version of Leopard then this is a gray area since the Leopard EULA states you may only run it on an "Apple Labeled" machine. As many point out if you stick an Apple sticker on your PC you're probably covered.
The second option is more costly. The EULA for the workstation version of Leopard prevents it from being run under emulation and as a result, there's no support in VMWare for this. Leopard server, however, CAN be run under emulation and can be used for desktop purposes. Leopard server and VMWare are expensive, however.
If you're interested in option 1) I would suggest starting at Insanelymac and reading the OSx86 sections.
I do think you should consider whether the time you will invest is going to be worth the money you will save though. It was for me because I enjoy tinkering with this type of stuff and I started during the early iPhone betas, months before their App Store became available.
Alternatively, you could pick up a low-spec Mac Mini from eBay. You don't need much horsepower to run the SDK and you can always sell it on later if you decide to stop development or buy a better Mac.
Update: You cannot create a Mac OS X Client virtual machine for OS X 10.6 and earlier. Apple does not allow these Client OSes to be virtualized. With Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion) onwards, Apple has changed its licensing agreement in regards to virtualization. Source: VMWare KnowledgeBase
Have you took a look at this exif iPhone library?
http://code.google.com/p/iphone-exif/
Gonna try it on my side. I'd like to get the GPS (geotags) coordinates from the picture that has been taken with the UIImagePickerController :/
After a deeper look, this library seems to take NSData info as an input and the UIImagePickerController returns a UIImage after taking a snapshot. In theory, if we use the selected from the UIkit category for UIImage
NSData * UIImageJPEGRepresentation (
UIImage *image,
CGFloat compressionQuality
);
Then we can convert the UIImage into a NSData instance and then use it with the iPhone exif library.
UPDATE:
I gave a test to the library mentioned above and it seems to work. However because of my limited knwoledge about the EXIF format and the lack of high level API in the library, I don't manage to get the values for the EXIF tags.
Here's my code in case any of you can go further :
#import "EXFJpeg.h"
- (void)imagePickerController:(UIImagePickerController *)picker didFinishPickingImage:(UIImage *)image editingInfo:(NSDictionary *)editingInfo {
NSLog(@"image picked %@ with info %@", image, editingInfo);
NSData* jpegData = UIImageJPEGRepresentation (image,0.5);
EXFJpeg* jpegScanner = [[EXFJpeg alloc] init];
[jpegScanner scanImageData: jpegData];
EXFMetaData* exifData = jpegScanner.exifMetaData;
EXFJFIF* jfif = jpegScanner.jfif;
EXFTag* tagDefinition = [exifData tagDefinition: [NSNumber numberWithInt:EXIF_DateTime]];
//EXFTag* latitudeDef = [exifData tagDefinition: [NSNumber numberWithInt:EXIF_GPSLatitude]];
//EXFTag* longitudeDef = [exifData tagDefinition: [NSNumber numberWithInt:EXIF_GPSLongitude]];
id latitudeValue = [exifData tagValue:[NSNumber numberWithInt:EXIF_GPSLatitude]];
id longitudeValue = [exifData tagValue:[NSNumber numberWithInt:EXIF_GPSLongitude]];
id datetime = [exifData tagValue:[NSNumber numberWithInt:EXIF_DateTime]];
id t = [exifData tagValue:[NSNumber numberWithInt:EXIF_Model]];
....
....
The retrieving of tags definition is OK, but all tag values returns nil :(
In case you want to give a try to the library, you need to define a global variable to get it running (as explained in the doc but hum.. :/)
BOOL gLogging = FALSE;
UPDATE 2
Answer here : iPhone - access location information from a photo
A UIImage does not encapsulate the meta information, so we're stuck : for sure, no EXIF info will be given through this interface.
FINAL UPDATE
Ok I managed to get it working, at least to geotag properly pictures returned by the picker.
Before triggering the UIImagePickerController, it's up to you to use the CLLocationManager to retrieve the current CLocation
Once you have it, you can use this method that uses exif-iPhone library to geotag the UIImage from the CLLocation :
-(NSData*) geotagImage:(UIImage*)image withLocation:(CLLocation*)imageLocation {
NSData* jpegData = UIImageJPEGRepresentation(image, 0.8);
EXFJpeg* jpegScanner = [[EXFJpeg alloc] init];
[jpegScanner scanImageData: jpegData];
EXFMetaData* exifMetaData = jpegScanner.exifMetaData;
// end of helper methods
// adding GPS data to the Exif object
NSMutableArray* locArray = [self createLocArray:imageLocation.coordinate.latitude];
EXFGPSLoc* gpsLoc = [[EXFGPSLoc alloc] init];
[self populateGPS: gpsLoc :locArray];
[exifMetaData addTagValue:gpsLoc forKey:[NSNumber numberWithInt:EXIF_GPSLatitude] ];
[gpsLoc release];
[locArray release];
locArray = [self createLocArray:imageLocation.coordinate.longitude];
gpsLoc = [[EXFGPSLoc alloc] init];
[self populateGPS: gpsLoc :locArray];
[exifMetaData addTagValue:gpsLoc forKey:[NSNumber numberWithInt:EXIF_GPSLongitude] ];
[gpsLoc release];
[locArray release];
NSString* ref;
if (imageLocation.coordinate.latitude <0.0)
ref = @"S";
else
ref =@"N";
[exifMetaData addTagValue: ref forKey:[NSNumber numberWithInt:EXIF_GPSLatitudeRef] ];
if (imageLocation.coordinate.longitude <0.0)
ref = @"W";
else
ref =@"E";
[exifMetaData addTagValue: ref forKey:[NSNumber numberWithInt:EXIF_GPSLongitudeRef] ];
NSMutableData* taggedJpegData = [[NSMutableData alloc] init];
[jpegScanner populateImageData:taggedJpegData];
[jpegScanner release];
return [taggedJpegData autorelease];
}
// Helper methods for location conversion
-(NSMutableArray*) createLocArray:(double) val{
val = fabs(val);
NSMutableArray* array = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init];
double deg = (int)val;
[array addObject:[NSNumber numberWithDouble:deg]];
val = val - deg;
val = val*60;
double minutes = (int) val;
[array addObject:[NSNumber numberWithDouble:minutes]];
val = val - minutes;
val = val*60;
double seconds = val;
[array addObject:[NSNumber numberWithDouble:seconds]];
return array;
}
-(void) populateGPS:(EXFGPSLoc* ) gpsLoc :(NSArray*) locArray{
long numDenumArray[2];
long* arrPtr = numDenumArray;
[EXFUtils convertRationalToFraction:&arrPtr :[locArray objectAtIndex:0]];
EXFraction* fract = [[EXFraction alloc] initWith:numDenumArray[0]:numDenumArray[1]];
gpsLoc.degrees = fract;
[fract release];
[EXFUtils convertRationalToFraction:&arrPtr :[locArray objectAtIndex:1]];
fract = [[EXFraction alloc] initWith:numDenumArray[0] :numDenumArray[1]];
gpsLoc.minutes = fract;
[fract release];
[EXFUtils convertRationalToFraction:&arrPtr :[locArray objectAtIndex:2]];
fract = [[EXFraction alloc] initWith:numDenumArray[0] :numDenumArray[1]];
gpsLoc.seconds = fract;
[fract release];
}
Best Answer
OpenCV makes image overlays remarkably simple, and it's been ported to the iPhone. With OpenCV you can choose to take screenshots as you considered or do image processing on a live stream, one frame at a time. Take a look at some of its tutorial programs, they're really helpful.