I’m using the Seek app for a community rewilding project. As a group of neighbors we are collaborating to rewild previously farmed lands. I have created a project to collect all the observations from members this month. The idea is to follow the development from year to year.
My problem is that locations on observations are not precise enough. Some appear on the land where pictures are actually taken. Others are placed across the road. Is there a way to edit locations?
Also I would like to collect observations from a quite specific area. Is it possible to precisely draw or define an area that a collection project should contain?
If you are relying on smart phones to gather the GPS info, then one thing you could try for improving accuracy is checking that any power saving options are turned off, as these can reduce the polling rate of the GPS data, and prevent it from updating at all when the device is inactive.
Encouraging people to take multiple images might also help in giving more time for the GPS lock to fine tune itself, so you might at least get a better reading in time for the final image which you could use as the location reference point, or paste it’s data to the other images with the below tool.
In the end you will still be limited by the device accuracy, but you can typically get it to be within ~ 5 metres or so.
I can highly recommend Geosetter for Windows which I have long relied upon for this: https://geosetter.de/en/
Note that the information on the webpage is outdated and the old v3 version mentioned there is no longer functional, but you can download the latest v4 beta from either the Help → Check for updates menu, or directly from here: https://geosetter.de/geosetter_beta.exe
One other broader suggestion would be to use the iNaturalist app (or website) as opposed to Seek for this. It gives many more options for managing data and projects than Seek. Seek is really intended for a more niche use case than iNat itself - based on the limited description of your intended use, there doesn’t seem to be a need to use Seek (unless maybe a lot of the contributors are <13 years old). Even then, you could look into an adult managed account.
Oh my goodness. Thank you SO MUCH for this comment. I’ve been wondering why my phone hasn’t been auto GPSing coordinates. I’ve gone so far as to download a GPS app that I open every time before I take any photo, so that GPS co-ordinates are recorded.
I never even considered it’s the fact I have power-saving on that would be affecting it. Will turn this off and check now. Here’s hoping!
Nothing worse than doing botanical surveys and finding that one forgot to open the GPS app and so there’s no co-ordinates attached!
you shouldn’t have to download a special app to accomplish this kind of workflow. getting your location from within your stock map application should have more or less the same effect, as long as you wait for the map app to fully register your location.
Yes, it is something I only learned the hard way myself through testing. I guess it can depend on the phone in question, but I hope it also helped in your case!
P.S. Another point that comes to mind is that, at least with my phone, I find that it can be very slow to acquire the GPS location initially when first turned on, or called upon, but is much quicker thereafter. So I find it helps a lot to ensure it is active and working correctly shortly before I anticipate actually needing it. And if I am going to be using it not too far from home, I will get it working first when also connected to my home wifi connection which can speed up the GPS assist via location services.
I usually check it is working by opening Organic Maps, since that uses offline maps, and therefore does not require any internet connection or data usage.
I tend not to use my phone GPS for these reasons (and because I know my usual spots well enough that manual selection when uploading is more accurate).
Google Maps takes ages to refresh my location, and tends to forcefully stick me to the nearest road, however far that may be. My old Garmin chews through batteries at such a rate that it’s not even an option.
I should really buy a paper map, compass and sextant at this point…
I don’t know which model you had, but I’m using a Garmin eTrex 22x and kept it on basically all day during my last road trip (turning it off at bedtime). The two AA batteries would last longer than a day of use. I set it to record a location every 6 seconds for my tracks.
