Audio samples in the "Compare" feature of ID'ing

Feature Requests
1

Platform(s): Website

URLs (aka web addresses) of any pages, if relevant: none needed

Description of need:
When we use the “Compare” feature of iNat, we can click on certain species brought up either by ourselves or by computer vision. Then, we get to look at a small sample of images of that organism to help with our ID process. My suggestion is that species with existing audio files on iNat have at least one (maybe three at max) of these audio recordings added to their little string of images.

Feature request details:
This would likely only be noticed within Computer Vision/Compare feature and could possibly be added to certain species’ Taxon Info pages as well. I do NOT expect this to be added as a feature of the actual code of Computer Vision, but it could still be helpful for people relying on the auto-generated examples for an audio file (provided they type something in initially).
Say I record a call I know is from a cicada, but I have no images of the insect and have no clue what species it could be. Computer Vision can already show me all the cicada species of my location, which is helpful, but doesn’t totally apply to me as I only have the sound to go off of. Including sound files in the pre-generated string could better help people to find that specific species.

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(imagine the audio files as just one more square to the right of the list of images already provided. Pretty helpful if you only have the song to go off of!)

I hope I was able to voice this well enough, and if there are technological reasons why this can’t be implemented, that’s totally fine. But I see no downside to this at the moment.

2

I approved this request, but IMO we would need to implement this before adding sounds to the compare screen.

3 Likes
3

I think “compare” would be better if we could also ask about some types of images. For example, if I’m looking at a picture of what I think is a hare’s track, showing me nice pictures of hares won’t help. Inat should show me (automatically if possible or on request) pictures of hare tracks. (Hope my post is not off topic).

2 Likes
4

Thank you! I’m glad we both agree this would be a valuable feature.

5

I agree! Comparison with account taken from annotations would be very helpful. I could see it working for tracks, scats, remains, or even growth stages - all of which are already a part of the current annotation system.

1 Like
6

It’s best to keep feature requests pretty on topic, so if there’s a need for continued discussion of this, it would be best in its own thread.

Also, it is possible to filter for observations with specific annotations currently in case that is useful:
Example of Hare tracks: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?taxon_id=43117&term_id=22&term_value_id=26&place_id=any

1 Like
7

I removed the “solution” on this topic. We only mark feature requests as solved if/once the feature has been implemented.

1 Like
8

There’s an existing request for this basic functionality: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/show-photos-by-life-stage-in-compare-identotron/13238

3 Likes
9

Understood, thank you.

1 Like
11

Google already has call samples when you search for a bird species. Not sure if this would make it easier to implement?