Camera traps have been a key part of the conservation toolkit for decades. Remotely triggered video or still cameras allow researchers and managers to monitor cryptic species, survey populations, and support enforcement responses by documenting illegal activities. Increasingly, machine learning is being implemented to automate the processing of data generated by camera traps.
A recent study published showed that, despite being well-established and widely used tools in conservation, progress in the development of camera traps has plateaued since the emergence of the modern model in the mid-2000s, leaving users struggling with many of the same issues they faced a decade ago. That manufacturer ratings have not improved over time, despite technological advancements, demonstrates the need for a new generation of innovative conservation camera traps. Join this group and explore existing efforts, established needs, and what next-generation camera traps might look like - including the integration of AI for data processing through initiatives like Wildlife Insights and Wild Me.
Group Highlights:
Our past Tech Tutors seasons featured multiple episodes for experienced and new camera trappers. How Do I Repair My Camera Traps? featured WILDLABS members Laure Joanny, Alistair Stewart, and Rob Appleby and featured many troubleshooting and DIY resources for common issues.
For camera trap users looking to incorporate machine learning into the data analysis process, Sara Beery's How do I get started using machine learning for my camera traps? is an incredible resource discussing the user-friendly tool MegaDetector.
And for those who are new to camera trapping, Marcella Kelly's How do I choose the right camera trap(s) based on interests, goals, and species? will help you make important decisions based on factors like species, environment, power, durability, and more.
Finally, for an in-depth conversation on camera trap hardware and software, check out the Camera Traps Virtual Meetup featuring Sara Beery, Roland Kays, and Sam Seccombe.
And while you're here, be sure to stop by the camera trap community's collaborative troubleshooting data bank, where we're compiling common problems with the goal of creating a consistent place to exchange tips and tricks!
Header photo: ACEAA-Conservacion Amazonica
April 2024
event
October 2024
December 2023
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Description | Activity | Replies | Groups | Updated |
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@bluevalhalla, thank you for the opportunity to discuss and demonstrate the TRAPPER ecosystem. Our internal meeting brought valuable insights, and I believe it's beneficial to... |
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Camera Traps | 2 hours 35 minutes ago | |
Hello everyone, I'm interested in gathering insights on how the behavior of different species impacts the development and efficacy of... |
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Biologging, Acoustics, Camera Traps, eDNA & Genomics, Emerging Tech, Marine Conservation | 6 days 10 hours ago | |
Hi @lucianofoglia Thanks for sharing your thoughts with the community. What you've touched on resonates with a number of users and developers (looking at you @Rob_Appleby)... |
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Emerging Tech, Camera Traps, Conservation Tech Training and Education | 1 week ago | |
Hi Andrew! Great to hear your friend, Scott working in Indonesia! I bet he is working on east region with lot of cool monitor lizards!I use Mavic 2 as well for my crocodile... |
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Camera Traps | 1 month ago | |
This is great, thank you so much @zhongqimiao ! I will check it out and looking forward for the upcoming tutorial! |
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AI for Conservation, Camera Traps, Open Source Solutions | 1 month ago | |
Ah yes. I didn’t notice that. Indeed it’s “near infrared”, 850nm lighting. |
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Camera Traps, Marine Conservation | 1 month ago | |
I've used AA rechargeable almost exclusively for many years now. I try to get rechargeables sourced from Japan (Panasonic Eneloop and Fujitsu), but have also used Eveready ... |
+18
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Camera Traps | 1 month ago | |
Thanks for the link, Amanda. The price of $900 is a bit too steep for me, but at least I now know a bit better what you meant with a power analyser.I can't remember either what I... |
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Camera Traps | 1 month 1 week ago | |
Perfect thanks! I am still a novice using Python but my wife can help me! |
+6
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AI for Conservation, Camera Traps, Human-Wildlife Conflict | 1 month 1 week ago | |
This is a great starting point - thanks for the help |
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Camera Traps | 1 month 2 weeks ago | |
Hi Amit,The most important thing is that the livestock owners contact you as soon as possible after finding the carcass. We commonly do two things if they contact us on the same... |
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Camera Traps, AI for Conservation, Conservation Tech Training and Education, Early Career, Human-Wildlife Conflict, Protected Area Management Tools | 1 month 3 weeks ago | |
Hi Danilo. you seem very passionate about this initiative which is a good start.It is an interesting coincidence that I am starting another project for the coral reefs in the... |
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Acoustics, AI for Conservation, Biologging, Camera Traps, Citizen Science, Climate Change, Community Base, Connectivity, Drones, Emerging Tech, Human-Wildlife Conflict, Open Source Solutions, Sensors, Software and Mobile Apps, Wildlife Crime | 1 month 3 weeks ago |
Integrating AI models with camera trap management applications
25 March 2024 7:47pm
28 March 2024 10:41pm
Thank you, Dan, for explaining this so well! You have captured exactly what I wanted to communicate!
29 March 2024 8:01am
@bluevalhalla, thank you for the opportunity to discuss and demonstrate the TRAPPER ecosystem. Our internal meeting brought valuable insights, and I believe it's beneficial to share this information with the wider community.
TRAPPER is an open-source data management platform that can be installed manually on your local machine, VPS, or in the cloud (via Kubernetes). The data model layer is based on the Camtrap DP standard. Data can be hosted on SSD or in the block/object storage. TRAPPER allows you to upload up to 10k samples as a single deployment via web interface or "unlimited ZIP" package via FTP(S).
The platform integrates with deep learning models through the TrapperAI component. TRAPPER workflow supports GDPR/RODO and your internal Terms of Service (if you have).
With TRAPPER, you can organize, internally share via "Teams", and explore camera trap data in a dynamic table format or in the map interface (geographic context). Additionally, you can classify (annotate, review, approve) samples as either a citizen or an expert, depending on your role. The classification interface, tailored for Citizen Science, offers several features that expedite the classification process, such as multi-object classification and sequence classification mode.
Moreover, as a user, you can explore detection, confirm human/vehicle anonymization, and review classification results handled by AI models. TRAPPER is designed to share the MegaDetector v5a and TrapperAI Species Classification model with customized thresholds. It's worth mentioning that the TrapperAI orchestration allows you to easily incorporate DeepFaune or any other AI models based on PyTorch or TensorFlow via Docker. Consequently, as an admin user, you can set up which AI models will be executed for detection and classification in your TRAPPER pipeline, allowing you to test various configurations if needed.
TRAPPER and TrapperAI share a REST API, enabling you to use the data and AI models in your Jupyter Notebook, QGIS or in your custom pipelines. TrapperAI can also be used independently of TRAPPER if you do not require a data management workflow.
While TRAPPER allows you to annotate both images and videos, the Citizen Science UI currently supports only image annotation. We are diligently seeking funding and resources to extend video annotation on the web. Some initial results can be found on our YouTube @TrapperTrapperAI.
Please note, TrapperAI and the Trapper Citizen Science UI have not been released yet. You can expect the TRAPPER ecosystem to be updated in the public repository by the end of April 2024.
Applying Open-Source AI to Camera Trap Imagery
27 March 2024 4:34pm
How does behavior influence the use of technology for animal detection ?
22 March 2024 7:49pm
The Variety Hour: 2024 Lineup
22 March 2024 4:30pm
Blind Spots in Conservation Tech Management in Remote Landscapes: Seeking Your Input
20 March 2024 10:51am
22 March 2024 9:48am
Hi @lucianofoglia
Thanks for sharing your thoughts with the community. What you've touched on resonates with a number of users and developers (looking at you @Rob_Appleby) who share similar concerns and are keen to address these issues.
As a beliver in open sourcing conservation technologies, to mitigate issues you've noted (maintenance of technologies / solutions, repairability, technical assistance to name but a few), really the only way to achieve this in my eyes is through the promotion of openness to enable a wide range of both technical and non-technical users to form the pool of skills needed to react to what you have stated. If they can repair a device, or modify it easily, we can solve the waste issue and promote reusability, but first they need access to achieve this and commerical companies typically shy away from releasing designs to protect against their IP that they keep in house to sell devices / solutions.
I would think for an organisation to achieve the same the community would need to help manufacturers and developers open and share hardware designs, software, repairability guides etc, but the reality today is as you have described.
One interesting conversation is around a kitemark, i.e a stamp of approval similar to the Open Source Hardware Association's OSHWA Certification), but as it's not always hardware related, the kitemark could cover repairability (making enclosure designs open access, or levels of openness to start to address the issue). Have a look at https://certification.oshwa.org/ for more info. I spent some time discussing an Open IoT Kitemark with http://www.designswarm.com/ back in 2020 with similar values as you have described - https://iot.london/openiot/
You may want to talk more about this at the upcoming Conservation Optimism Summit too.
Happy to join you on your journey :)
Alasdair (Arribada)
2 Postdoctoral Conservation Ecologist Positions at Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute (SNZCBI)
14 March 2024 7:18pm
Using citizen science image analysis to measure seabird phenology
13 March 2024 9:32pm
Our new paper uses data from the citizen science project, Seabird Watch (hosted on the Zooniverse platform; seabirdwatch.org), to measure seabird phenology. Volunteers marked birds in time-lapse images to investigate arrival and departure to/from the breeding grounds.
Free AI Camera Trap Model for European Fauna!
12 March 2024 12:33pm
EcoAssist has now incorporated the Deepfaune v1.1 species identification model for camera trap images, capable of recognizing 26 European species. The model is developed by Deepfaune initiative. More information is available at: https://www.deepfaune.cnrs.fr/.
Here's what you missed at World Wildlife Day 2024
7 March 2024 9:02pm
15 March 2024 2:42pm
EcoAssist - Free African species identification model for 30 species!
5 March 2024 5:10pm
Canopy Camera Trap for Indonesian Lizards
27 February 2024 9:20pm
28 February 2024 1:18pm
Hi Andrew! Great to hear your friend, Scott working in Indonesia! I bet he is working on east region with lot of cool monitor lizards!
I use Mavic 2 as well for my crocodile research in place with dense canopy and yes it was tricky! I would suggest to try DJI Avata may be better to do this task. Or maybe try equip propeller guard on the Mavic?
Would be it possible for the drone setting up the rope and after that the camera lift up using rope and slap to your desire place? just an idea, but in OZ they use drone carrying long rope to caught the crocodile, when it caught, the drone will release the rope and shift to people to work.
Pytorch-Wildlife: A Collaborative Deep Learning Framework for Conservation (v1.0)
21 February 2024 10:30pm
25 February 2024 2:15am
Thanks Dan! I did actually, after giving up using PyTorch and it was amazing!
26 February 2024 7:38pm
Hello @hjayanto , You are precisely the kind of collaborator we are looking to work with closely to enhance the user-friendliness of Pytorch-Wildlife in our upcoming updates. Please feel free to send us any feedbacks either through the Github issue or here! We aim to make Pytorch-Wildlife more accessible to individuals with limited to no engineering experience. Currently, we have a Huggingface demo UI (https://huggingface.co/spaces/AndresHdzC/pytorch-wildlife) to showcase the existing functionalities in Pytorch-Wildlife. Please let us know if you encounter any issues while using the demo. We are also in the process of preparing a tutorial for those interested in Pytorch-Wildlife. We will keep you updated on this!
26 February 2024 11:58pm
This is great, thank you so much @zhongqimiao ! I will check it out and looking forward for the upcoming tutorial!
Timelapse Infrared Camera Suggestions
14 February 2024 1:54am
24 February 2024 6:18am
I doubt there is an off the shelf solution. Likely you will have to build one. Again I think the FLIR leptons could be of value here.
@krasi_georgiev you have worked with Leptons before ? Is this something you are able to advise on ?
25 February 2024 1:11pm
Ah yes. I didn’t notice that. Indeed it’s “near infrared”, 850nm lighting.
Camera Traps batteries waste
11 December 2023 5:49am
16 February 2024 2:47am
Thanks for the update @Frank_van_der_Most . I have been curious about the AA Li-Ion/Li-Po batteries and how they perform. The sudden drop in reported voltage will likely be from the internal voltage regulator switching off when the internal cell gets to the low voltage threshold (usually around 3V) to avoid damage to the cell. Looking now at a discharge curve they show a constant 1.5V, then a step down to 1.1V before dropping to zero. I don't know how you can possibly test these externally to know how much energy they have left until you hit the 1.1V step.
18 February 2024 8:28pm
Hi Alistair @alsnothome , see the comments of @Amanda_Matthes at the post here. Basically, it is not easy
23 February 2024 11:11pm
I've used AA rechargeable almost exclusively for many years now. I try to get rechargeables sourced from Japan (Panasonic Eneloop and Fujitsu), but have also used Eveready and EBL. I've used them in Reconyx, Scoutguard, Loreda and other low end cameras. One option you could try if it's in your budget is the solar powered camera traps. You need one set of rechargeables when you first deploy them but don't need to change the batteries afterwards. I'm trialling the Gardepro model that a local supplier sells. I intend to deploy them high up in trees to monitor nest boxes and tree hollows, so regular access to change batteries and SD cards was going to be difficult.
Li-ion rechargeable batteries suddenly drain
2 February 2024 6:13pm
15 February 2024 9:26am
Hi Frank,
Yes, I agree. There is a halfway-house solution if you take a look at the Energizer Ultimate Lithium range of batteries. They have superior life to alkaline batteries (3.5Ah in a single AA cell), though they are of course still one-time use. They would also work a little better with your battery monitor since they have a graceful degradation between 1.8V down to 1.5V, but then they fall off a cliff ;-)
16 February 2024 1:00pm
A multi meter would probably not be enough, unless you have a very fancy one. To get the energy use, you need to be able to integrate the current drawn over time. Something like this: Otii Arc Pro
I don't know how much you paid for these, but Amazon Basics has a line of rechargeable AA batteries, including a high capacity version which can store 2400 mAh which is a little more than the ones you're using. (I've seen even more capacity with other manufacturers.)
You might also want to consider avoiding batteries with USB ports in the future. It seems to me like just an additional thing that can break, especially if moisture could be an issue.
18 February 2024 8:20pm
Thanks for the link, Amanda. The price of $900 is a bit too steep for me, but at least I now know a bit better what you meant with a power analyser.
I can't remember either what I paid for the batteries, but I try to avoid buying stuff from mr. Bezos, because he is rich enough as far as I am concerned.
The moisture issue slipped my mind when I was in Europe. As far as I remember, I liked the usb ports because I bought the batteries as a test and I didn't want to buy a separate charger, as I thought one needed one designed for Li-ion batteries. The usb ports made that possible.
Tools for automating image augmentation
26 January 2024 2:33pm
16 February 2024 7:42am
Hi @arky !
Thanks for your reply.
I am running into pytorch/torchvision incompatibility issues when trying to run your script.
Which versions are you using?
Best regards,
Lars
18 February 2024 11:05am
@Lars_Holst_Hansen Here is the information you requested. Also run Yolov8 in multiple remote environments without any issues. Perhaps you'll need to use a virtual environment (venv et al) or conda to remedy incompatibility issues.
$ yolo checks
Ultralytics YOLOv8.1.4 🚀 Python-3.10.12 torch-1.13.1+cu117 CUDA:0 (Quadro T2000, 3904MiB)
Setup complete ✅ (16 CPUs, 62.5 GB RAM, 465.0/467.9 GB disk)
OS Linux-6.5.0-17-generic-x86_64-with-glibc2.35
Environment Linux
Python 3.10.12
Install pip
RAM 62.54 GB
CPU Intel Core(TM) i7-10875H 2.30GHz
CUDA 11.7
matplotlib ✅ 3.5.1>=3.3.0
numpy ✅ 1.26.3>=1.22.2
opencv-python ✅ 4.7.0.72>=4.6.0
pillow ✅ 10.2.0>=7.1.2
pyyaml ✅ 6.0.1>=5.3.1
requests ✅ 2.31.0>=2.23.0
scipy ✅ 1.11.4>=1.4.1
torch ✅ 1.13.1>=1.8.0
torchvision ✅ 0.14.1>=0.9.0
tqdm ✅ 4.66.1>=4.64.0
psutil ✅ 5.9.8
py-cpuinfo ✅ 9.0.0
thop ✅ 0.1.1-2209072238>=0.1.1
pandas ✅ 1.5.3>=1.1.4
seaborn ✅ 0.12.2>=0.11.0
18 February 2024 11:18am
Perfect thanks! I am still a novice using Python but my wife can help me!
Post-doc possition - Field spanning movement ecology, ecology of fear, bio-logging science, behavioral ecology, and ecological statistics
10 February 2024 7:20am
Funding for Camera Trap Projects
24 January 2024 5:23pm
9 February 2024 6:42pm
I'm in Paraguay!
I'm looking for any starting points - databases, specific orgs i can apply to etc.
I have found a nonprofit I've been working with and have found several grants to apply through my partnership with them but am obviously looking for more.
9 February 2024 6:42pm
I'm in Paraguay!
I'm looking for any starting points - databases, specific orgs i can apply to etc.
I have found a nonprofit I've been working with and have found several grants to apply through my partnership with them but am obviously looking for more.
9 February 2024 6:45pm
This is a great starting point - thanks for the help
Improving camera traps for monitoring mustelids
8 February 2024 7:35pm
Camera traps often monitor larger animals, so passive infrared sensor tends to miss small and fast species like mustelids. Researchers tested the Mostela against a tree-mounted camera trap to compare performance and make recommendations for future development and testing.
Southern African Wildlife Management Association Conference 2024
6 February 2024 12:20pm
Conservation Technology for Human-Wildlife Conflict in Non-Protected Areas: Advice on Generating Evidence
22 January 2024 11:36pm
23 January 2024 1:54pm
This is an area where my system would do very well in:
Also, as you mention areas dominated by humans, there is a high likelyhood that there will be enough power there to support this system, which provides very high performance and flexibility but it comes with a power and somewhat a cost cost.
Additionally, it's life blood comes with generating alerts and making security and evidence gathering practical and manageable, with it's flexible state management system.
Ping me offline if you would like to have a look at the system.
4 February 2024 8:16am
Hi Amit,
The most important thing is that the livestock owners contact you as soon as possible after finding the carcass. We commonly do two things if they contact us on the same day or just after the livestock was killed:
- Use CyberTracker (or similar software) on an Android smart phone to record all tracks, bite marks, feeding pattern and any other relevant signs of the reason for the loss with pictures and GPS coordinates. [BTW, Compensation is a big issue -- What do you do if the livestock was stolen? What do you do if a domestic animal killed the livestock? What if it died from disease or natural causes and was scavenged upon by carnivores afterwards?]
- In the case of most cats, they would hide the prey (or just mark it by covering it with grass or branches and urinating in the area). In this case you can put up a camera trap on the carcass to capture the animal when it returns to its kill (Reconyx is good if you can afford it - we use mostly Cuddeback with white flash). This will normally only work if the carcass is fresh (so other predators would not be able to smell it and not know where it is yet), so the camera only has to be up for 3-5 days max.
This is not really high-tech, but can be very useful to not only establish which predator was responsible (or if a predator was responsible), but also to record all the evidence for that.
Passionate engineer offering funding and tech solutions pro-bono.
23 January 2024 12:06pm
26 January 2024 3:18pm
Hi Krasi! Greetings from Brazil!
That's a cool journey you've started! Congratulations. And I felt like theSearchLife resonates with the work I'm involved round here. In a nutshell, I live at the heart of the largest remaining of Atlantic forest in the planet - one of the most biodiverse biomes that exist. The subregion where I live is named after and bathed by the "Rio Sagrado" (Sacred River), a magnificent water body with a very rich cultural significance to the region (it has served as a safe zone for fleeing slaves). Well, the river and the entire bioregion is currently under the threat of a truly devastating railroad project which, to say the least is planned to cut through over 100 water springs!
In face of that the local community (myself included) has been mobilizing to raise awareness of the issue and hopefully stop this madness (fueled by strong international forces). One of the ways we've been fighting this is through the seeking of the recognition of the sacred river as an entity of legal rights, who can manifest itself in court, against such threats. And to illustrate what this would look like, I've been developing this AI (LLM) powered avatar for the river, which could maybe serve as its human-relatable voice. An existing prototype of such avatar is available here. It has been fine-tuned with over 20 scientific papers on the Sacred River watershed.
And right now myself and other are mobilizing to manifest the conditions/resources to develop a next version of the avatar, which would include remote sensing capacities so the avatar is directly connected to the river and can possibly write full scientific reports on its physical properties (i.e. water quality) and the surrounding biodiversity. In fact, myself and 3 other members of the WildLabs community have just applied to the WildLabs Grant program in order to accomplish that. Hopefully the results are positive.
Finally, it's worth mentioning that our mobilization around providing an expression medium for the river has been multimodal, including the creation of a shortfilm based on theatrical mobilizations we did during a fest dedicated to the river and its surrounding more-than-human communities. You can check that out here:
Let's chat if any of that catches your interest!
Cheers!
2 February 2024 1:22pm
Hi Danilo. you seem very passionate about this initiative which is a good start.
It is an interesting coincidence that I am starting another project for the coral reefs in the Philipines which also requires water analytics so I can probably work on both projects at the same time.
Let's that have a call and discuss, will send you a pm with my contact details
There is a tech glitch and I don't get email notifications from here.
Underwater camera trap - call for early users
13 December 2023 11:44pm
23 January 2024 1:21pm
Many thanks for your contribution to the survey! We are now summarizing the list of early users and making our best to propose a newtcam to all in due time.
All the best!
Xavier
30 January 2024 10:20pm
Is there still time to apply?
31 January 2024 12:12pm
Hi Danilo, yes just in time ;-)
Jupyter Notebook: Aquatic Computer Vision
25 January 2024 5:50am
26 January 2024 1:46pm
This is quite interesting. Would love to see if we could improve this code using custom models and alternative ways of processing the video stream.
27 January 2024 4:07am
This definitely seems like the community to do it. I was looking at the thread about wolf detection and it seems like people here are no strangers to image classification. A little overwhelming to be quite honest 😂
While it would be incredible to have a powerful model that was capable of auto-classifying everything right away and storing all the detected creatures & correlated sensor data straight into a database - I wonder if in remote cases where power (and therefore cpu bandwidth), data storage, and network connectivity is at a premium if it would be more valuable to just be able to highlight moments of interest for lab analysis later? OR if you do you have cellular connection, you could download just those moments of interest and not hours and hours of footage?
27 January 2024 6:11am
Am working on similar AI challenge at the moment. Hoping to translate my workflow to wolves in future if needed.
We all are little overstretched but it there is no pressing deadlines, it should be possible to explore building efficient model for object detection and looking at suitable hardware for running these model on the edge.
Replacement screen for Bushnell cameratrap
17 January 2024 9:01pm
20 January 2024 11:58pm
Hey Lucy!
You should be able to pick up a small piece of infrared emitting plastic online for super cheap that would allow for the IR lights to pass through, but block UV from coming in. Anything should be able to be glued and sealed using expoy, which shouldn't damage any electronic components, but will ensure weatherproofing.
Goodluck!
Best,
Travis
21 January 2024 12:42am
Hi Travis,
Thanks for the advice. I will give it a go.
Lucy
26 January 2024 2:20pm
I have fixed Bushnell TrophyCam IR windows with plastic cut from the bottom of a supermarket fruit package. Any thin, clear plastic will be OK. I stuck it in with silicone, but make sure you get the neutral cure type that does not emit acetic acid as it sets.
Using drones and camtraps to find sloths in the canopy
18 July 2023 7:39pm
23 January 2024 5:14pm
Think you for your addition, Kim!
26 January 2024 3:46am
I was under then impression that "Infrared Imaging" meant shining an infrared light source on to the subject and capturing primarily the reflected light. As opposed to "Thermal Imaging" which meant capturing the infrared signatures generated by the subjects themselves? That said, I'm sure some others are much better informed on this subject than me.
26 January 2024 8:58am
I took delivery of the DJI Mavic Enterprise 3 Thermal the other day. The short hand nomenclature used on the controller for the thermal imagery is "IR" (short for infrared) so it is used even for cases where no IR lighting is in play.
Need advice - image management and tagging
12 January 2024 7:55pm
15 January 2024 8:47pm
Interesting, Iʻll give it a shot. Looks like this could save me some time.
Thanks for the explanation @wade!
24 January 2024 5:16pm
I have no familiarity with Lightroom, but the problem you describe seems like a pretty typical data storage and look up issue. This is the kind of problem that many software engineers deal with on a daily bases. In almost every circumstance this class of problem is solved using a database.
In fact, a potentially useful analysis is that the Lightroom database is not providing the feature set you need.
It seems likely that you are not looking for a software development project, and setting up you own DB would certainly require some effort, but if this is a serious issue for your work, you hope to scale your work up, or bring many other participants into your project, it might make sense to have an information system that better fits your needs.
There are many different databases out there optimized for different sorts of things. For this I might suggest taking a look at MongoDB with GridFS for a couple of reasons.
- It looks like you meta data is in JSON format. Many DBs are JSON compatible, but Mongo is JSON native. It is especially good at storing and retrieving JSON data. Its JSON search capabilities are excellent and easy to use. It looks like you could export your data directly from Lightroom into Mongo, so it might be pretty easy actually.
- Mongo with the GridFS package is an excellent repository for arbitrarily large image files.
- It is straightforward to make a Mongo database accessible via a website.
- They are open source (in a manner of speaking) and you can run it for free.
Disclaimer: I used to work for MongoDB. I don't anymore and I have no vested interest at all, but they make a great product that would really crush this whole class of problem.
25 January 2024 8:32am
Hi!
I would take a look at
Although developed for camera trap imagery, it is by no means restricted to such.
Cheers,
Lars
Recycled & DIY Remote Monitoring Buoy
15 January 2024 1:14am
15 January 2024 9:17pm
Hello fellow Brett. Cool project. You mentioned a waterseal testing process. Is there documentation on that?
18 January 2024 10:25am
I dont have anything written up but I can tell what parts we used and how we tested.
Its pretty straightforward, we used this M10 Enclosure Vent from Blue Robotics:
Along with this nipple adapter:
Then you can use any cheap hand held break pump to connect to your enclosure. You can pump a small vacuum in and make sure the pressure holds.
Here's a tutorial video from blue robotics:
Let me know if you have any questions or if I can help out.
Cheap camera traps with "Timelapse+" mode?
20 July 2023 3:09pm
7 August 2023 2:57pm
Thank you @mguins and @NickGardner for your praise and addition. I had not thought of the backup possibility, but it sure is a good point, Michelle. I find it amazing how often one reads about and experiences camtrap malfunction. Even the relatively cheap ones are still quite a lot of money for what is, at the end of the day, a relatively simple piece of electronics and a plastic container.
12 August 2023 6:41am
Frank's idea of using 2 camera traps is inspired!
I've fiddled with cheap camera traps a bit, and some (most?) of them use a low power, inaccurate timer for the time lapse function instead of the accurate real time clock. This is ok for Michelle's purpose, but not for Nick's as he needs to specify the exact time of day to trigger.
I made this interface to allow a camera trap to be triggered by an external device. To it you could attach, say, a timer programmed to fire at the desired times, to cause a capture. A $4 DS3231 RTC module could do the job, after the alarm times have been programmed into it with , for example, an Arduino.
17 January 2024 5:56pm
Hi Nick,
Any update from your project? did you find good price value Camera Traps?
We in Indonesia don't have local suppliers for any research grade Camera Traps like Bushnell, Browning or Reconyx. So we need to import them and the price inflated a lot even without the distributor. So, me and my team recently use the China model like GardePro or Meidase one ($40-60). Though we bought it in the US in small quantity if some of our friends travel back to Indonesia. They have more feature than typical Bushnell with same price range. The images are AI upscale, but doesn't really bother us. So I am curious if you found any good Camera Traps to recommend? Thanks!
Cheers,
Dhanu
28 March 2024 8:12pm
It DOES. Thank you!