One user told me “move this to bug reports,” but I’m not at all sure this is a bug. So please pardon me if it is not.
I’ve run into an issue that I don’t understand and am not sure how to fix it. On my smartphone running Android 10, when I add an observation via the iNat app (1.21.10) by choosing previously snapped photos from my phone gallery, the GPS coords are added to the observation but the accuracy us not. If instead, I start in the iNat app and take photos, the GPS accuracy is recorded. Is this expected behavior?
I’m using the default Samsung camera app, version 10.5.03.14. I have verified using exif that the accuracy is in the photo metadata. And I’ve also tried several other camera apps from the app store.
Thoughts? If this is a bug, consider this a report.
When I said to move it I meant to edit the post and change what category it was in, not create a new post. I don’t really know how to explain the process, if it’s too complicated you can just delete the other post and keep this one.
In my similar case, in iNaturalist, when prompted to choose photos, I select Photo Gallery to choose pics, and proceed as directed by the website. The photos load, but the metadata does not, despite displaying the message ‘loading metadata’.
Thanks. If you start in the iNaturalist app, tap on the Plus button and select “Choose Image” you can import photos that way. If you use that method, is GPS accuracy included?
Can confirm that this is still an issue. None of my observations have accuracy data- I typically upload my photos via the app, but those I upload through the website also lack accuracy data.
And you’re certain the photos have accuracy data? Are you able to share some of these photos via Dropbox, Google Drive, or something similar that we can take a look at?
Well, I’m certain that I can’t find accuracy data associated with my photos, but there’s always a chance that the cause is user error. Happy to share photos to either Drop Box or Google Drive.
Oops, sorry! I work for a Natural Heritage Program and we’re beginning to use iNat observations to bolster our datasets for tracked species (sometimes opportunistically, but we also have volunteers who submit data to us through our iNat project). Observations with low or missing accuracy won’t be utilized because it affects our ability to re-find and survey the populations properly. Attempting to survey for a rare plant that may or may not actually occur near the given coordinates just isn’t worth our time since our resources are so limited.
Personally, I also occasionally photograph a species that I didn’t realize was tracked by our state (I use a gps when I’m knowingly collecting population data). It would be ideal to have location accuracy for any coordinates my phone records so I can enter that into our database; I currently have to estimate my location accuracy based on eyeballing satellite imagery.
Yes, I consider my own observations worth the effort to relocate- that’s why I want my location accuracy to be documented and available on iNat in the first place! If I’m working, I use a gps to collect spatial data on the rare plants I encounter (because I’m a botanist and I know which species are tracked). However, I also try to document inverts and fungi when I can but I know little about how to identify these groups, and I don’t know which species are tracked (our program is also still trying to figure that out which inverts and fungi should be tracked). It’s faster to document these unfamiliar taxa with my phone, and I want my phone’s location accuracy to be documented and uploaded specifically because some of my observations have been worth relocating.
if you’re not seeing an EXIF tag like GPSHPositioningError actually stored in your image file on your own device (or in your personal online storage), the only way accuracy will get onto your observation is if you have the iNat Android app determne the location for you (as opposed to reading it from your image file), or if you manually input a location including an accuracy value.
just looking at a few of your observaitons, it looks like you’re using a PIxel 3a, which will not capture any sort of accuracy or error field in the image files using its stock camera app, and just looking at a few of your photos (ex. https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/436362421), there’s no metadata loaded from your image files to the photo record that looks like an accuracy or error tag.
even though jsuplick claims that there is an accuracy tag on the image file, i can’t find evidence of this in the metadata loaded to the photo records from back in the day (ex. https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/117301458), and i’m guessing they may be confusing an altitude tag for an accuracy tag.
as noted above, if accuracy / error is not recorded in the image file itself, the only way accuracy gets onto the observation is if the user manually inputs it or uses the iNat Android app to determine the location.
when you “start in the iNat app and take photos”, that is one of the workflows that uses the iNat Android app – as opposed to your camera app – to determine the location, and that’s why that will add accuracy to your observation (but not the photo itself).
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it looks like @teelbee’s iOS issue was resolved in another thread, and nobody else in this thread provided any other examples to look at in this thread. so i suspect that people here just don’t understand what their own Android phones record as locations by default and what other options are available to record accuracy when their phones don’t do it by default. in other words, i bet there’s no actual bug here. it’s probably just a lack of education on this topic, and this thread probably needs to be closed at this point.
