Change Mapping of Obscured Observations to Improve Data Visibility and Reduce Confusion

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@jason_miller

my one concern with the rectangles is that they might eventually give away a location

@jason_miller

Create two obscured observations from the same location and you get two rectangles and two circles. The rectangles will partially overlap, as they must fall on the actual location. Repeat the process many many times and eventually you will have a point where all the rectangles overlap - the true location.

@keirmorse

I’ve always assumed the obscured location would be a random point within a fixed rectangle and that these rectangles do not and can never overlap.

@keirmorse

Thus, using the rectangle would in no way give away a location.

as kiermorse noted, the boxes in the obscuration grid are fixed. so there’s not a risk of overlapping boxes revealing any obscured locations. however, visualizing obscured locations in the context of their 0.2 deg long x 0.2 deg lat obscuration boxes can in various ways reveal clues to the true locations of the observations, as noted in https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/option-to-display-obscuration-rectangles-grid-on-explore-map/7646.

@keirmorse

Clicking on the obscured locations as you see them on this map to get more information would just be silly as there are so many and because their location within the rectangle is meaningless.

i think “silly” is debatable. there are pros and cons with each approach, and they vary depending on the situation.

also, although the obscured location within the obscuration box is somewhat meaningless, the obscured locations themselves are not meaningless when viewed without the context of the boxes, as you can think of those locations as being accurate within roughly 20km in most cases.