Blood Trance Fusion Posted January 25, 2011 (edited) I've decided to make a website for people to post pictures of ethnobotanicals and natives that they want identified as to de-clutter all of the ethnobotanical forums out there while at the same time building a comprehensive collection of positively-identified plant photographs. Development is coming along quickly but it would be nice if I could get some identifications to test and populate the site's database and features. >>> Photographs Here <<< Any thoughts on the concept? This isn't just an elaborate scheme and story to get some plants quickly-identified for myself. Every identified plant goes into the gallery to help future identifications and proliferation of said species. If anyone could confidently identify any of these photographs, please tell me. Also, anyone interested in helping me out by joining an alpha/beta programme to test and suggest features would have my gratitude. For any webmasters of ethnobotanical websites interested; once functional, I'd be more than happy to integrate it into your sites. Trusted/active-identifiers/advertisers will also be able to list things they want to sell, related to each plant for example: Acacia longifolia GalleryImage99.jpg, Image100.jpg, Image101.jpg"Blood Trance Fusion has 100 Acacia longifolia Seeds for Sale/Trade - Contact Now" For the security-conscious, don't worry: I am too. I'm already finalising a system that wipes all geo-tagging (GPS/lat./lon.) data from images upon uploading so no crook can simply check the EXIF data and find out where your wonderful garden is. Would be great to get any feedback on the concept as I've presented it even though I understand there's not much to show yet! Registration, encryption, image uploading and EXIF-scrubbing are the only working features but I'm well motivated as this has all been done in the last 2 days between work and sleep and I have a free code-crunching day tomorrow and more time over the weekend so a closed alpha might be ready by/on sunday. Addendum: The concept came from seeing all of the "Yet Another Acacia ID Request" topics started by members both new and old which, after identification, inevitably sink to the bottom of the forum to wither or be pruned when they could be cumulatively improving an resource database that could get large enough that people don't even need to post their pictures asa equest, having such a quantity of examples before them to cross-check. I would like all images to be uploaded under the GNU General Public Licence so their usefulnes can go beyond this proposed site. Edited January 25, 2011 by Blood Trance Fusion Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
DarkSpark Posted February 28, 2011 dude its just displaying the file contents... are you making it an uploadable site ?? like... where is the index.php .htaccess etc etc... i dont understad what the site is actually meant for ?? like... you need to slap together some html a few php create scripts and an upload form... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
monnsta Posted February 28, 2011 Prsonally, I really think that it's down to the execution. Apart from an existing (in the first place) and intuitive front end, you really need to spend the time defining the metadata which would be key before any request for identification could be made. For example, for a halfway reliable identification of an Acacia, you'd need to get information such as: Phylloid Length / Width, seed pod length / width, shape of Phylloid, approximate geographic location found (if wild). Flower configuration (when appropriate) and a reference "shape" for the tree would also be pretty useful. The following web page gives an ideaof how specific you can get to narrow down an ID: http://plantnet.rbgs...eWeb/phyll.html In a perfect world, you would require all requests for ID to contain a minimum amount of this information, along with photographic evidence. As well as giving a reasonable chance of a successful ID, it would also provide easily referencable data for searching to ensure that the same tree is not entered twice (with the help of god and a few good mods :-). Good luck with the project - this would be a fantastically powerful tool if built correctly and contributed to by the community. However, if not properly planned I think it'd become a white elephant pretty quickly. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
monnsta Posted February 28, 2011 And now I look at the date of the first post and realize that this topic is prolly a dead one..... LOL Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
DarkSpark Posted February 28, 2011 (edited) heh yeah i noticed that too after having replied... Never the less my opinion was still valid. I have been working on a similar project and hoping to include close up macro shots of each part of each plant neccesary for ids including a scale. This i find is the hardest part of identifying trying to look at hundreds of sites that have mislabeled plants on them :S If there could be a page for each with a picture and description for each of the following overall photo of tree photo of bark including descriptions of distinctions from other Acacia Phyllodes - whole phyllode and close up of veins including scale for measurements as well as text pointing out variations such as if it is glabrous or hairy, average vein, glands numbers etc, angles of the apex etc etc similar to what is on offer at http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au except the RBG doesnt offer as much detail in its pictures. flower arrangement, color, shape and size including pictures of immature, mature and pollenated flowers. Seed pods, shape, color etc seeds shape color etc. as well as all the other information such as what time of year it flowers, how to germinate, if it takes from cuttings etc. Because what really hinders people from being able to ID plants is that they dont know what half of the terms mean. If they have pictures explaining it exactly there is no excuse ! to build something like this would be quite easy from a web development point of view. however as stated above would need some top notch mods to help with maintenance. I might kick my old project in the guts and get it going again. I have the database and interactivity setup all i really need it so add a skin to it and add some content. Might start with the major Acacia and consider moving onto other ethnos and so forth down the track Edited February 28, 2011 by DarkSpark Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Blood Trance Fusion Posted March 2, 2011 The idea wasn't really a plant information database but a growing gallery of photographs with authoritatively-varying identifications. To describe it simply it's like one of those "Hot or Not" sites where people type/select a species instead of judging people's appearances. Though once a good number are identified, an information page could easily display all confidently-identified photographs accompanied by "wiki"-like content additions. How far along is your project, DarkSpark? I lost the will after going for a walk and seeing bark-stripped trees; the only time I'd knowingly come across obtusifolia in the wild, they were massacred so I'm not sure that this is an ethical service thus I've side-lined it. It will invariably become a "Can I kill these tree to get high?"-resource. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
DarkSpark Posted March 2, 2011 You make a good point blood trance fusion. My project is ready to run with the database setup and ready for image uploads just needs content really. Maybe setting it up as a private site would be a good idea ;) even just the image galleries would be good and once it has been positively ID'd a mod could then input the plant name like set it up so that all users can upload images with their thoughts on what it could be. but only ones of a certain rank can actually name the plants for sure i.e. set it up with a users table consisting of Username Password Rank and a images table consisting of Image PlausibleName ConfirmedName Description Editor this is primitive but would work easily Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
