Geotagged photographs

[mahalakshme]

Need:

• RWB wants to track the progress of waterbody over time across locations and have other remote sensing tools for the same.
• TrackLocation enabled for many users but not useful since photo location can be different from encounter location when users upload photos sitting in their homes
• Export via CSV
• Validations based on distance between 2 points

Analysis:

Geo-tagged photographs: with and without location information

Location data for Geo-spatial analysis:

How it Works:

1. GPS (Global Positioning System): Most smartphones and GPS-enabled cameras can determine location using satellite signals without needing an internet connection.
2. EXIF Metadata: When a photo is taken, the device embeds location data (latitude, longitude, and sometimes altitude) in the EXIF metadata of the image.
3. Assisted GPS (A-GPS): If internet access is available, the device can use Wi-Fi, cellular towers, or other data sources to speed up and improve location accuracy. However, this is optional.

Approaches

1. Geo-tagged photos - But user might not have given location permission outside app, so can embed and upload from within the app
2. Store location info separately - location info not easily transferable to different system along with photos

To store geo-tag info in Avni:

• Store in different concept

• As part of approval - show location link and via ETL do the processing

• Store the coordinates as part of image concept itself - internally storing as different concept but for user displaying as Image concept itself is a good approach

• Image with Location - new concept:
  - App designer
  - Say that it is in beta message so that we can release sooner
  - Mobile app
  - update permission setting as needed, -> else show error when capturing/uploading image
  - show image
  - show location information also - showing open street map link
  - validations - if location info not there
  - exposing libraries - checking location information and given two points, client sync
  - single and multi-select - show for specific images
  - Sync
  - ETL - RQG table should also support this - columns in media table
  - In longitudinal export support
  - Data Entry App - input and show the google map link
  - Media Viewer - show google map link, download - location embedded images
  - Report in Metabase - Implementation team
  - Himesh - 17, Vivek -16, Joy - 18

Stories:

• Store location information in Avni also - impact on ETL, reports, everywhere.
  - multiselect media
  - different formats of image - different types of extraction - media ETL
  - store in separate concept
  - in same concept
  - model method - offline - usecase: registeration form, endline form - complications
  - map link

• Embed location data and upload - showing error

• View the location data in Media Viewer and DEA. - link to Map

• Configuration of 1 at form element level - for flexibility vs ease of configuration

• New concept type to capture location information in image avni-webapp#1428

• [Geotagging] Capture location in image concept uploaded from gallery #1598

Technical analysis:

• Since user might not have provided location permission to his camera, capture location information separately
• Edit EXIF metadata of the image to add the location info
• Upload it to S3 - Unlike whatsapp or Google drive, S3 retains the location information in the image.
• By extracting EXIF data, show the geo info wherever needed.

Out of scope:

• PDFs and videos need not be geo-tagged
• 
• Data Entry App - org in focus not using DEA

Questions:

• touching the image - bugs downstream
• performance - if the image size bigger
• soln: upload any image that doesn't have location data - then throw error -
• both settings in tandem - onsite plus location validation since later when we show error they will not be able to anymore take photo later.
• if org not fine, then not enforce
• barrier ? blocked - discuss with Hiral
• not switching off in between

Estimate:

5 days