Recently, I added an observation for a ladybug, and the AI suggested Hesperomyces. That seemed fungus-related by the ending of the name, but I decided to accept it anyway and then research the name. Searching the name indeed brings up many ladybug observations here or on the web in general. Most of …

The AI definitely learns the background as well as the organism in some cases. I see it sometimes suggest anoles (lizards often perched on bark) when it is just the side of a tree. Of course, as a lizard researcher, I’m occasionally fooled by “bark lizards” as well, so I can’t complain too much! I…

I’ve found that the vast majority of Acer glabrum observations contain evidence of Maple Erineum Mite, and consequently most pictures of acer glabrum could be ID’d either way and the AI apparently learns they are interchangeable. As a result the AI suggests all Acer glabrum observations are Maple E…

It’s reasonably common for gall observations to be created when by duplicating a plant observation, so in those cases the photos end up being literally the same for both taxa. Not that surprising that the CV learns to assign the both names to similar pics.

Computer vision is intended to work on actual photos from non-scientists. But I often tweak the taxon photos - there I don’t want to see a nice picture of your dog, with an incidental plant off to the left somewhere. If the specialist describes field marks - I try to make sure that those are captur…

I realize computer vision is intended to work on actual photos from non-scientists. I also think it’s reasonably to provide a cropping tool or a pointer tool for them to use to indicate their observation. I think that would greatly improve the CV results. Here’s a simple suggestion that requires on…

I think, last time we asked for cropping, the iNat response was - freely available in photo software. I do crop my photos before uploading - but others have a different workflow.

It’s possible to crop in our Android app, but not our iOS app. You can see this annoucement for the future of the iNat mobile app. I can’t promise a cropping tool in it, but I’d be surprised if there wasn’t one - for photos taken within the app it especially makes a lot of sense. I think it’d be gre…

Out of curiosity, what size images is the CV trained/run on? Is it the full upload resolution or something less?

Although it may not be possible to crop in the iOS iNaturalist app, it is very simple to crop in Photos on iOS and then make the observation from that cropped version. That’s what I do when my observation comes from my iPhone.

I’m not the best person to ask, but I know we were using 300 pixel images for some time. @alex would be the person who knows for sure.

The AI algorithm - confusing pathogen/host or subject/background

General

alex December 5, 2021, 8:22pm 12

Images are resized & cropped to 299x299 before training.

Could CV be learning hand/fingerprints?

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The AI algorithm - confusing pathogen/host or subject/background

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