I’m adding spectrograms of sound recording to my observations. It would be nice if I could simply do a capture of the screen region of my spectrogram and paste it to the observation, but I can’t see how to do this. Is it possible? As is, I have to do the capture, save it to a file, then drag the file to the observation. This is not efficient.
controversial…
there’s an feature request to allow adding images from the clipboard: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/upload-photos-from-clipboard-into-inat-web-uploader-and-existing-observation/51866.
i personally wouldn’t add a bunch of spectrograms to observations, but if i were to do something like that, i would:
- setup my screen in four quadrants:
a. top left = my sound files
b. top right = my audio program (ex. Audacity)
c. bottom left = spectrogram images
d. bottom right = iNaturalist website - use a program (ex. OBS) that allows me to capture screenshots from a pre-defined section of the screen (using a keyboard shortcut)
- for each sound file:
a. drag over to audio program to get spectrogram visualization
b. capture screenshot of the spectrogram
c. drag spectrogram image file over to iNat observation or iNat upload page
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Unless it’s for ultrasonic, like bat echolocation, I wouldn’t recommend making a habit of going out of your way to include spectrograms. I think they are iffy for fitting iNat guidelines on evidence and they go into the image gallery. People who use spectrograms can generally generate their own with the specs optimal for them and the particular sound.
If there’s something specific to point out on a spectrogram, I imbed an image in notes or comment(<img src="…), rather than make it media evidence. I do the same to include habitat images that lack evidence of the observed organism.
I regularly identify audio observations, but prefer to not have an ID on an ob that includes habitat-only images or spectrogram images as evidence. If media is added as evidence after others have IDed, please leave a comment, so they know what their ID is on. Please do not take this personally. I am not comfortable with media being added without my knowledge after I have placed an ID, regardless of how I feel about it meeting guidelines.
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Do you mean you would identify an audio-only observation with no images at all, but you would skip an audio observation that also includes spectrogram/habitat images?
Or do you mean you’d only identify an audio observation if it also includes an image of the organism?
No image is fine with me. For me personally, there’s a lot, maybe most species, where my skills with images are poor, but I’m confident with sound. If there is an image, it’s nice if it’s identifiable, but if the observer can point to a blob with confidence that it is the organism making the sound, my nit-picking fixation is satisfied.
Yes, I’d suggest reading previous threads on spectrograms which include links to staff discouraging/asking users not to upload spectrograms. Examples:
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/bat-observations-including-sound-and-spectrograms/39573
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/bird-observations-with-only-merlin-screenshots/51185
But there are lots of others as well. They also discuss why many spectrograms aren’t particularly useful and encourage users to upload the actual audio files.
With regards to spectrograms, you may be interested in this feature request:
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/automatically-add-a-spectrogram-view-to-observations-with-sounds/3579
Some type of iNat-based process that generates spectrograms from audio via a standardized process which be much more useful than ad hoc posting of spectrograms.
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this tampermonkey script can auto generate spectrogram for audio observations:
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I installed this script, but I don’t see any histograms. I’m using chrome. Any idea what’s going wrong?
