discussion / Camera Traps  / 1 November 2016

Resource: Camelot - new camera trap software

Camelot is an open-source, web-based tool to help wildlife conservationists with camera trapping.
Camera Trapping software for Species Identification & Reports.
By Christopher Mann of BitPattern.
Developed in consultation with Fauna & Flora International.

The latest version of Camelot is: 1.0.0
Camelot:

Makes classifying camera trap photos quick and easy
Keeps track of camera trap, camera and species data
Gives you a head start on data analysis
Plays nicely with other software, such as CamtrapR.
Lets multiple people use it at the same time
Runs on Windows, OSX and Linux
Is easy to start using

The Camelot application, source code and documentation are available from https://gitlab.com/camelot-project/camelot

The Camelot community for questions, support and discussion is located at the Google Group https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/camelot-project

Chris and I will be monitoring the Google Group for questions, concerns, comments.

I'd like to thank Chris Mann for his tireless volunteer dedication to this software project. The software as-is will be a huge benefit to conservation scientists. I'd like to thank Dr Benjamin Rawson formerly of FFI-Vietnam (and now of WWF - Greater Mekong) who trusted me with all his images.

And a huge thank you to the FFI Camelot Beta Testers from the Myanmar, Indonesia and Vietnam programs. Your feedback has been invaluable.




Hi Heidi,

Just taken a look and this looks really impressive and useful - great work.

One possible limitation is the need to manually enter details of cameras and camera trap stations - a bulk import options (e.g. from csv) would be really useful. Is that something you guys are considering?

Also, can Camelot handle videos?

Would be interested to hear feedback from users on here, and how it compares to other options out there (e.g. TRAPPER, Aardwolf etc.).

Cheers,

Ollie

Hi Ollie,

Developer of Camelot here.

Good questions and insights on features. Bulk import is something we hope to build in to Camelot in the near future.  One possibility being considered is also aiding creation of the initial CSV.  For example, by scanning a set of folders, which might include photo metadata, folder structure, and path names, and from this generate a CSV which could be reviewed and updated before being imported.

I'd be interested to know whether you'd find this useful, or whether you'd tend to have all of the data you'd expect to import readily available in CSV format?

Regarding video, it's is not something that's supported yet. However if there's one or two particular video formats you find to be the most common across different makes & models of cameras, that would be useful to know.

Thanks,

Chris

The main problem with video is that it's difficult to take advantage of the metadata, as the "standards" are not standards, unfortunately.
That being said, video is on our to-do list, so if you have any ideas, come join us in our Google Group.
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/camelot-project

Hi,

Been having a play around to test out the software for our camera trap projects in Cambodia. Great stuff, really nice interface!  Just left a message in Google Groups re. capability for managing video (.AVI) in Camelot.  To follow from Ollie's comment, what is the outlook for using video and is there potential to overcome the metadata issues?

Cheers,

Marianne