# Show Observations Which Share the Same Media **URL:** \ **Category:** Feature Requests\ **Created:** [August 18, 2024, 2:04pm UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/show-observations-which-share-the-same-media/54461 "2024-08-18T14:04:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![sunjiao](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.inaturalist.org/sunjiao/32/46301_2.png) [@sunjiao](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/sunjiao)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2024, 2:04pm UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/show-observations-which-share-the-same-media/54461/1 "2024-08-18T14:04:17Z")
**Platform(s)**, All: **URLs** (aka web addresses) of any pages, if relevant: [https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/236245670](https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/236245670) [https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/236284462](https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/236284462) [https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/234494612](https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/234494612) **Description of need** : It is relatively common for the same photo to contain multiple species. A user may see an observation of one species, but be more interested in the other. However, the process of finding another observation is complicated. Users need to navigate to the photos page to see the related observations, rather than seeing it directly on the observation page. **Feature request details** : I aim to automatically display observations that share at least one photo with the current observation on its observation page. This is similar to what I manually did in the provided links. Related observations already appear on the **photos page**. For instance, [this photo](https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/420177970) is linked to two observations: one for a plant and one for fungi. My goal is to find all related observations for each image, remove duplicates, and display them on the observations page. Consider the following observations: - ob1: photo1, photo2, photo3 - ob2: photo2, photo4 - ob3: photo2, photo3, photo5 - ob4: photo3, photo6 For ob1’s page, the first step is identifying related observations for each image: - photo1 is linked to ob1 only - photo2 is linked to ob1, ob2, and ob3 - photo3 is linked to ob1, ob3, and ob4 The combined related observations are: ob1, ob1, ob2, ob3, ob1, ob3, ob4. After removing the current observation (ob1) and duplicates, we get: ob2, ob3, ob4. Thus, observations ob2, ob3, and ob4, which share at least one photo with the current observation, should be listed in the “related observations” section. ---
**Author:** ![cthawley](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.inaturalist.org/cthawley/32/1445_2.png) [@cthawley](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/cthawley)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2024, 2:04pm UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/show-observations-which-share-the-same-media/54461/2 "2024-08-18T14:04:55Z")
I changed the title of the request to reference the key element. ---
**Author:** ![pisum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/91b2a8/32.png) [@pisum](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/pisum)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2024, 3:38pm UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/show-observations-which-share-the-same-media/54461/3 "2024-08-18T15:38:37Z")
this kind of request would likely be dependent on the implementation of another request: [https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/photo-detail-endpoint-for-api/40481](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/photo-detail-endpoint-for-api/40481). ---
**Author:** ![s-e](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.inaturalist.org/s-e/32/46099_2.png) [@s-e](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/s-e)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2024, 7:33am UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/show-observations-which-share-the-same-media/54461/4 "2024-08-19T07:33:22Z")
With a checksum value in the database for each uploaded image (this may already be implemented internally, but not available on iNat public platforms), then it would be easy to search for duplicate photos and related observations. ---
**Author:** ![DianaStuder](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.inaturalist.org/dianastuder/32/43358_2.png) [@DianaStuder](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/DianaStuder)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2024, 8:02am UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/show-observations-which-share-the-same-media/54461/5 "2024-08-19T08:02:16Z")
Waiting since 2019 [https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/duplicate-prevention-notify-observers-if-their-image-checksums-match-others-on-the-site/258](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/duplicate-prevention-notify-observers-if-their-image-checksums-match-others-on-the-site/258) Also 2019 [https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/notify-user-when-new-observation-matches-time-stamp-of-pre-existing-observation/253/13](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/notify-user-when-new-observation-matches-time-stamp-of-pre-existing-observation/253/13) ---
**Author:** ![environ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e79b87/32.png) [@environ](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/environ)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2024, 8:04am UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/show-observations-which-share-the-same-media/54461/6 "2024-08-19T08:04:27Z")
I’d love to see something like this. I’ve been adding notes that link related obs of mine which share an image - but it’s manually quite time consuming because you can’t do it as part of a batch submission (since you don’t have observation numbers yet), so you have to go back and edit each of them individually after they’ve been submitted. ---
**Author:** ![sunjiao](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.inaturalist.org/sunjiao/32/46301_2.png) [@sunjiao](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/sunjiao)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2024, 8:18am UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/show-observations-which-share-the-same-media/54461/7 "2024-08-19T08:18:20Z")
As far as I know, mostly, different observations use the exact same same image with the same image ID on the iNaturalist server, rather than uploading the same photo twice. So this feature does not require the checksum as a precursor. Of course, I totally agree that checksum is a much more important feature and would make the feature I proposed more usable. ---
**Author:** ![pisum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/91b2a8/32.png) [@pisum](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/pisum)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2024, 8:49am UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/show-observations-which-share-the-same-media/54461/8 "2024-08-19T08:49:26Z")
> [@s-e](#): > > checksum i could be wrong, but i don’t think checksums – even with a sufficiently large hash size – would work like you think on iNat images because iNat modifies images during upload (to resize and remove metadata, among other things). > [@sunjiao](#): > > different observations use the exact same same image with the same image ID on the iNaturalist server, rather than uploading the same photo twice. the ideal workflow for observations loaded or duplicated via the website should lead to a single photo record tied to multiple observation records, but the last time i checked, this is not usually the case when loading via the apps, which will result in each observation tied to its own photo record. however, this doesn’t negate the usefulness of your proposed functionality. ---
**Author:** ![environ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e79b87/32.png) [@environ](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/environ)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2024, 8:53am UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/show-observations-which-share-the-same-media/54461/9 "2024-08-19T08:53:09Z")
There’s also the possible case where two obs share the same photo but _not_ the same image (eg. one only has a zoomed in and cropped view of one or more of the images in the other observation). They are still the same photo, but not the same digital image and won’t share the same checksum (as would be the case if I uploaded a .jpg to one and .png to the other of the same original photo). So it would be nice to (also) have a way to manually indicate observations are linked together in time and space rather than only doing it indirectly by sharing a bit-exact image between them. ---
**Author:** ![cthawley](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.inaturalist.org/cthawley/32/1445_2.png) [@cthawley](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/cthawley)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2024, 11:28am UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/show-observations-which-share-the-same-media/54461/10 "2024-08-19T11:28:47Z")
This related feature request has posts on using observation fields to link observations: [https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/link-observations/1367](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/link-observations/1367) ---
**Author:** ![s-e](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.inaturalist.org/s-e/32/46099_2.png) [@s-e](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/s-e)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2024, 6:14pm UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/show-observations-which-share-the-same-media/54461/11 "2024-08-19T18:14:26Z")
> [@pisum](#): > > i could be wrong, but i don’t think checksums – even with a sufficiently large hash size – would work like you think on iNat images because iNat modifies images during upload (to resize and remove metadata, among other things). Still, removing metadata and compressing should produce the same file, if the exact “same media” (as per OP’s title) was uploaded… anyway it might be possible to calculate the checksum first, before these changes are made on the upload. TBH I usually don’t use same media for different observations, or only after reframing, resizing, I understand it might happen more often for those using the app, those who are uploading mostly without editing their images, but I felt this could be an opportunity to fill two needs with one deed, ie the requests about doublons mentioned by DianaStuder here! ---
**Author:** ![pisum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/91b2a8/32.png) [@pisum](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/pisum)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2024, 9:46pm UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/show-observations-which-share-the-same-media/54461/12 "2024-08-19T21:46:32Z")
> [@s-e](#): > > Still, removing metadata and compressing should produce the same file should it? if the filenames are different and the timestamps of the files are different are different, are those the same file? (if you convert A into B and then A into C, is B = C?) if you change the resizing codec or if you run it on a different hardware / software setup, do you end up with the same file? > [@s-e](#): > > it might be possible to calculate the checksum first, before these changes are made on the upload. what do you do for the images for the 200+ million existing observations? ---
**Author:** ![environ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e79b87/32.png) [@environ](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/environ)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2024, 9:51pm UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/show-observations-which-share-the-same-media/54461/13 "2024-08-19T21:51:37Z")
> [@cthawley](#): > > This related feature request has posts on using observation fields to link observations: > [https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/link-observations/1367](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/link-observations/1367) Thanks for the pointer to that. I have a different set of use cases that are covered by the discussion there :) We have a project doing long term tracking of individuals, using sightings by many observers … For my own obs I’ve been tagging them with the identifier for each individual, but I can’t add tags to other people’s observations so we’ve been noting that in comments as the Current Best/Only way to add an immutable ‘curated’ (as opposed to ‘anyone can edit for any reason’) tag. We’ve talked about creating a field for that, but there’s a bit more work to do behind the scenes with reconciling the identifications made by all identifiers to arrive at consensus for which individual an observation is of - and without an external reference record, fields have the ‘vulnerability’ of not being curated or having a change history so it’s a balance between the Feature of ‘anyone could add them’ and the Problem of ‘anyone could change them without that change being reviewed’. It would be nice to have something like ‘per-user’ fields that let each user create and curate their own personal annotations for observations - though for this case a ‘per-project’ field would be more ideal, where the field content would be curated by the project curators. > [@s-e](#): > > Still, removing metadata and compressing should produce the same file, if the exact “same media” (as per OP’s title) was uploaded That’s actually not quite true, at least over the long term. Image compression isn’t necessarily deterministic, even for lossless compression methods, and even when a newer compressor version hasn’t improved on the amount of compression it is able to achieve for a given quality setting - and many libraries will add metadata describing the version used to do the compression etc. So a matching checksum _could_ be a way to flag copies of the same image, but it shouldn’t be the only way and there needs to be a manual way to specify a true relationship (and possibly its nature). ---
**Author:** ![environ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e79b87/32.png) [@environ](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/environ)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2024, 10:02pm UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/show-observations-which-share-the-same-media/54461/14 "2024-08-19T22:02:46Z")
With my tech hat on (: > [@pisum](#): > > if the filenames are different and the timestamps of the files are different are different, are those the same file? If that’s the _only_ difference, those are just links to, or aliases of, the Same File. > [@pisum](#): > > (if you convert A into B and then A into C, is B = C?) The devil is in the detail of what operation “convert” actually is. Maybe yes, maybe no, maybe maybe :) > [@pisum](#): > > if you change the resizing codec or if you run it on a different hardware / software setup, do you end up with the same file? Change codec, no. Change hardware/software, see the devil above. > [@pisum](#): > > what do you do for the images for the 200+ million existing observations? The backend storage for all the images of these obs is almost certainly already doing this, even if its identifying hashes of those images aren’t available to the inat front end. Content addressable filesystems and deduplication isn’t something new. I’m not saying that’s the answer which works best for our problem, but retrofitting something like it is not an intractable problem. 200 million images isn’t a ‘large’ dataset in the space of Big Data anymore :) ---
**Author:** ![pisum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/91b2a8/32.png) [@pisum](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/pisum)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2024, 10:40pm UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/show-observations-which-share-the-same-media/54461/15 "2024-08-19T22:40:33Z")
> [@environ](#): > > The backend storage for all the images of these obs is almost certainly already doing this if it is, it would be doing it on the converted files, right? my earlier point here was that you likely couldn’t base your hash on the original (pre-conversion) files, as suggested by s-e. … regardless, i’m thinking this whole checksum tangent probably should stay in its own separate feature request. ---
**Author:** ![environ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e79b87/32.png) [@environ](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/environ)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2024, 11:56pm UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/show-observations-which-share-the-same-media/54461/16 "2024-08-19T23:56:51Z")
> [@pisum](#): > > if it is, it would be doing it on the converted files, right? Yes, on the content that is stored. > [@pisum](#): > > my earlier point here was that you likely couldn’t base your hash on the original (pre-conversion) files, Oh, I missed that distinction, sorry - there are so many reasons it would make no sense to base a ‘checksum’ or other deterministic identifier on some transient state that couldn’t be reproduced to later verify it that I missed you meant the impossibility of doing it to existing observations and not the amount of work needed to apply it to 200+ million of them.