What is in a picture?

When people want to describe something, an outdoor asset for example, there are often a few key components they need in order to fully document that asset.

1. Where is it? A problem easily solved with GPS which is built into just about everything these days.
2. What does it look like? Take a photo! A smartphone camera usually does the trick, but sometimes people still need the optical zoom provided by a DSLR camera. A DSLR can be coupled with a standalone GPS. 
3. Other ancillary data - what is the condition? Does it have a unique ID? Who owns it? There could be 5 or 50 or more pieces of data that people need to describe the asset. 

Taking a picture and collecting data provides photographic evidence at a specific place and time. This is useful for an asset inventory, a site survey, basic field work, compliance documentation, or proof of performance. The output can be displayed a photo map, visually representing the data in a way that is easy for anyone to understand. It can also be imported into a GIS and used with other data layers for analysis or archived in a backend database. 

GeoJot+ allows you to get the most out of your existing hardware - the field data collection app runs on any Apple & Android smartphones or tablets, and handheld GPS units with Windows Mobile. Data can automatically be uploaded to the cloud and then pulled down to the final resting place of your choice. There processes the data through the accompanying GeoJot+ desktop app creating all the desired output. A picture is worth a thousand words, especially when it is a geotagged photo and contains other descriptive data in the EXIF header of the photo itself.

Problems with iOS 8.3

Just a quick note, GeoJot+ users, please DO NOT upgrade to iOS 8.3. We are experiencing a couple of issues with the camera roll because of an Apple bug in the new operating system. We are working with them now to get it resolved. In addition, we know that Bad Elf is has reported a GPS bug with iOS 8.3 and has also asked their customers not to upgrade as they work with Apple to get that bug resolved. Bottom line, don't upgrade your iOS operating system yet. Thanks for your patience.

Site Inspections - photographic evidence

Most recently we have had conversations with users about their site inspection workflows. As a software development company, we spend much of our time sitting in an office working at a computer. Even if I can’t go out in the field with a customer, it is enlightening to hear about their realities - what forms they are carrying into the field, what is a part of the daily process and what kind of surprises do they regularly handle on-site.

Before this customer started using GeoJot+ Core (GPS-Photo Link+), their organization’s process was tedious. Every time they conducted an inspection, they had to create a report. They require geotagged photos for many aspects of the reports and before they found our products, they had to manually grab and manipulate each photo captured in the field to include it in the site inspection reports. Some site inspections required 10 photos, some required 100 or more. The customer estimated that his time savings is exponential on a log scale dependent on the number of photos he has. When you get the settings getting photos ready for reports using GeoJot+ Core it takes a minutes instead of hours for each report. They have thousands of inspectors across the country.

Then we talked about the parts of the process where they still use pen and paper, and why that is the case. Sometimes it is because of fears that technology will fail, although there are also times when field books are lost or ruined. With a willing partner, we can investigate ways to streamline the process with safeguards against losing data. We were excited to hear that our desktop product was providing him exponential time savings, now we are trying to see if there is lesser known functionality of our product that could offer some additional savings. We are also looking to see how much more of the field data can be collected digitally using GeoJot+ app instead of being written in field books or field forms and then transcribed. We will let you know that goes …….