This tool analyzes Camera Trap images for animals and organizes them in a meaningful way for analyses and reporting.

We have created a Quick Start Tutorial, designed to get up and running as quickly as possible.  We also have in-depth guides for projects, locations, and other aspects of this tool.

What problem does this tool solve?

Wildlife camera traps in the field capture thousands of images, but not all contain animals.  Many images only have branches blowing in the wind, and other false negatives.  This tool is designed to analyze images for animal occurrences and discard those images that do not contain animals, saving the biologist lots of time.  The tool collects and organizes the images by project and location, and provides an important wildlife knowledge repository for the future.  Reports can be generated and data can be exported from this tool which can be used in other types of analysis and studies.

Who is the tool designed for?

This tool is designed for project managers and biologists who are managing camera traps in the field, and need a tool to analyze and organize all of the images for them (by project and location).

What does the tool do?

The tool's list of features is ever increasing, but here are some of the important ones:

• Analyzes images for animal presence.  The operator has the ability to make fine adjustments to the tool, such as the confidence settings, based on a project location.
• Manage camera trap projects by setting up location records in which to associate images.  Summarize results across the project, location, or by batch of images.
• Extracts any Exif data stored in the photos and pulls some of the key information into the observation record.
• Tag images with additional attributes, including animal species, gender, age, and behavior.
• Upload key project resources that can be shared between the project members.

How does this tool work?

Currently, AIT is using Microsoft's MegaDetector v5 to analyze images, and using this method we can confidently determine whether or not there is an animal in the photograph.  It currently DOES NOT determine the animal species, and this activity is left for the user to tag the photo with the appropriate species.  Here is a link to the help page for Tagging photographs.

The system uses Exif data from the photos to set the date time attribute, and it uploads additional data from the Exif both into the observation (such as the Camera Model) as well as the AIT Upload Images record.

What type of exports or reports are there?

Our goals is to make it as easy as possible to upload data to the tool AND export data from the tool.  Data should flow in both directions with ease.  This said, we have reports which provide links to export observations, locations, and projects.  We have several summary reports, and most reports have a button to export those data.