Sites and cameras

AddaxAI Connect organises your images by place. A camera is the physical device, identified by its device id. A site is a place where a camera stands, with a name you choose. Every photo carries the GPS the camera recorded. The app uses it to build sites, to place cameras on them, and to notice when a camera moves. You do not manage any of this by hand. The app decides, reports what it did in the camera updates panel, and gives you a few buttons to correct a wrong guess.

Behind the scenes the app also keeps a record of every continuous placement of a camera at a site. These records are fully automatic and there is nothing to do with them.

How sites are made

One distance is the cutoff, set to 250 metres. GPS readings within it are the same place. Readings beyond it mean the camera moved. Each photo is compared with the position of its own camera, so two cameras close together never get mixed up.

The cutoff is 250 metres because GPS is noisy. The noise was measured on 7257 photos from 25 cameras that never moved. Almost every reading lands within a few metres of the true spot. But GPS sometimes drifts much further on its own. The worst single photo was 215 metres off, with the camera standing still. A cutoff of 250 metres stays clear of that, so normal noise is not read as a move.

Distance of each photo's GPS from the camera's true spot, for 25 cameras that never moved. Almost all readings fall within a few metres. The worst was 215 metres, and the 250 metre cutoff stays past all of it.

When a camera sends its first photo, the app looks for a site within 250 metres. If one exists, the camera is placed on it. If not, a new site is made and named after its coordinates, for example "Site at 53.2460, 5.2620". That name is a placeholder. You give it a real name manually in the app.

When a later photo arrives from more than 250 metres away, the camera has probably moved. One odd reading is not enough. A move must be confirmed by a second reading near the new spot, otherwise the reading is treated as noise and nothing happens. After a confirmed move the camera is placed on the nearest site at the new spot, or a new site is made there.

A camera's position is not taken from a single photo. The app keeps averaging the GPS of all photos from the same placement, so the position gets more precise the longer the camera stands there.

The camera updates panel

Open the Cameras page and click Updates. The button shows how many entries still need review, and the Cameras item in the menu shows the same count from any page. Only project admins can review, so viewers do not see the count.

The Updates button on the Cameras page. The count shows how many entries still need review.

Every automatic decision becomes one entry. Entries show as one-line sentences, so the list reads like a short report. The sentence tells you if something is wanted from you. A placeholder name in the title means the site waits for a real name. A real name means there is nothing to do.

Each entry is one sentence. Two sites here still carry placeholder names, so they wait for a real one.

Click an entry to see more: the camera id, a few photos from that spot, where the camera was placed and why, and the action buttons. Each button explains itself with one line.

An expanded entry. This camera was placed on an existing site 30 metres away, so it can also be split off to its own site.

The app already acted, so nothing here blocks anything. A human only reviews. Every entry has one state, shared by the whole project:

• Needs review. Nobody has looked at it yet. These entries sit in the first tab and count on the badge.
• Reviewed. A project admin has ticked it or corrected it. It moves to the Reviewed tab for everyone, with who reviewed it and when.

There is no personal read state. Opening and closing the panel changes nothing, for you or for anyone else. When twenty cameras move on a field day, everyone sees twenty entries until someone reviews them. One admin working through the list clears the count for the whole team.

A reviewed entry. It keeps what happened and records who reviewed it and when.

The Reviewed tab groups entries by time range. The panel loads the newest hundred entries; a button at the bottom of Reviewed loads older ones.

The already seen section, grouped by time range. These six sites were named earlier, so their entries read calm.

The actions

Which buttons an entry shows depends on the situation. Only project admins can use them; viewers see the entries without buttons.

• Show location opens the camera's spot in Google Maps. It changes nothing. Use it when you want to check the spot on a map before you decide anything.
• Name this site gives a site with a placeholder name a real one. It only shows while the name is still a placeholder. Use it when a camera arrived at a spot the app did not know yet. Later renames happen on the Sites page.
• Different site moves the camera to another existing site nearby. It only shows when there is one within 250 metres. Use it when several sites sit close together and the app picked the wrong one.
• New site splits the camera off to its own new site at its exact spot. It only shows when the camera was placed on a site that already existed. Use it when two cameras stand close together but should count as separate places, like both ends of a wildlife bridge.
• It did not move undoes a move that was GPS noise. The camera and its images go back to the previous site, as if the move never happened. Use it when the entry shows a move but you know the camera hangs where it always was. This is the one action here that cannot be undone: the placement at the new spot is merged away, so be sure before you confirm.
• The tick on the right of every entry that needs review means nothing to change. Use it when the placement is right. The entry is reviewed for everyone, without opening it.
• Mark all as reviewed at the top of the Needs review tab ticks every entry at once, after one confirmation. Use it after a field day when the placements are right. Sites keep their names, so an unnamed site stays marked on the Sites page.

Every correction also counts as a review, for that entry only. When several cameras share one site, naming it from one entry does not review the others. Their sentences pick up the new name, and each still gets its own look, because one of them may belong on its own site.

Common situations

A new camera starts sending

An entry appears: "A camera started sending images from Site at 53.2460, 5.2620." Give the site a real name with the name button, done. If the camera was placed on an existing named site, the entry needs nothing.

A camera moves to a new spot

An entry appears with the old site, the new site, and the distance. Check that it makes sense, name the new site if it is new, done. Use Show location if you want to see the spot on a map first.

A camera moved 399 metres. The new site waits for a name, and the move can be undone if it was not real.

A move that was GPS noise

A single bad reading never makes an entry, the app filters it silently. When bad GPS produces two readings and a false move gets through, the entry shows a move you know did not happen. Click "It did not move". The camera and its images go back, and the wrongly made site is removed by itself.

The confirmation before a move is undone.

Several cameras at one place

Cameras within 250 metres of each other share one site by default. That is often right, for example when a new camera replaces a broken one at the same spot. When you want them apart, for example two cameras on one wildlife bridge, use "New site" on each camera's entry and give each its own name, like "bridge north" and "bridge south". This is a one-time setup. After that, each camera keeps its own site, and the statistics count them apart.

Moving many cameras at once

Field days work without extra steps. Move twenty cameras, and twenty entries appear, one per camera. Cameras that arrive at a new spot get new sites to name. Cameras that return to a known site snap onto it by name, even when the devices got shuffled and a different camera ends up at each spot. A rotation project, where cameras move between fixed stations every few weeks, only costs you one naming pass on the first day. Every rotation after that needs no work at all.

A site that still has no name

The "Unnamed" marker on a feed entry also shows next to the site on the Sites page, so a site that needs a name stays visible after its entry has moved down the list. Rename it there.

Fixing something later

The feed is for corrections at the moment they happen. For everything later, use the normal pages. Rename, merge, or delete a site on the Sites page. Move a placement to another site from the camera's detail panel, under Placements. Merging is for when GPS noise split one real place into two sites: merge the stray site into the real one, and its placements and images move along.