WildINTEL Uploader — User Manual¶

WildINTEL Uploader is an application for camera-trap projects. It takes a set of images — copied off the camera's memory card —, checks them, organizes them in a local folder with their metadata (renamed, resized, tagged with authorship and license and sealed), and sends them to different camera-trap projects like Trapper. It runs on your own computer, nothing leaves it but what you send to the Trapper server you configure, and it comes in two faces that share the same settings, the same log and the same collections folder:

a web application, with a guided interface in your browser — the complete one;
a command line, for the quick jobs.

Table of Contents¶

Installation
General concepts: deployments, locations, revisions and collections
The folders and files it creates
Where to go next

1. Installation¶

Download the file for your system from the releases page.

LinuxWindowsmacOS

Download wildintel-uploader-X.Y.Z-linux-x86_64.AppImage, make it executable and run it:

$ chmod +x wildintel-uploader-X.Y.Z-linux-x86_64.AppImage
$ ./wildintel-uploader-X.Y.Z-linux-x86_64.AppImage

Download wildintel-uploader-X.Y.Z-windows-x64.exe and double-click it. If Windows SmartScreen warns that the publisher is unknown, choose More info → Run anyway.

Download wildintel-uploader-X.Y.Z-macos-arm64.dmg (Apple Silicon), open it and copy wildintel-uploader out of it to a folder of your own (for example Applications or your home folder).

The app isn't signed by an Apple developer

macOS blocks what it can't verify, so the first time it will refuse to open it ("Apple could not verify…"). Either:

Try to open it once, then go to System Settings › Privacy & Security, scroll down to the message about wildintel-uploader and press Open Anyway; or
remove the quarantine mark from a terminal, once, and run it:

$ xattr -d com.apple.quarantine ./wildintel-uploader
$ chmod +x ./wildintel-uploader
$ ./wildintel-uploader

Running it from the source code

To run the app from its source code — or to change it — see the developer manual.

One download gives you both the web application and the command line.

2. General concepts: deployments, locations, revisions and collections¶

Before explaining how the application works, it is necessary to clarify the following concepts.

A deployment is the set of images taken by one camera placed at a location — some GPS coordinates and a timezone — under specific configuration conditions (height, tilt, delay between triggers…), between the day it was set up and the day it was collected. A location is visited again and again, so each visit is a revision — the 1st, the 2nd, the 3rd one. All the deployments of a revision form a collection: collection and revision are synonyms. The app names everything after that:

	Example
Revision	`3`
Location id	`DONA_01`
Deployment id	`R0003-DONA_01`	`R` + the revision as four digits + `-` + the location id
Collection	`R0003`	the name of a revision: `R` + its number as four digits — all its deployments
Research project	`DONA`	the project they all belong to, by its acronym

The deployment id is never typed: you give the revision and the location, and the app builds it.

The location owns the timezone¶

A camera's clock has no timezone of its own: its images say "13:10", and the same camera, elsewhere, would say it too. So the timezone (and whether the cameras there ignore summer time) belongs to the location, never to a deployment. They are asked for when a location is added, and every deployment there is read in them. The deployment's details say it before you fill anything in. A location without a timezone is reported — the app doesn't guess one.

3. The folders and files it creates¶

As said before, the application runs locally and stores all the information it needs in a series of files and folders.

The collections folder¶

Imported deployments are kept in your collections folder until they are uploaded — by default Documents/wildintel-uploader/collections:

collections/
└── DONA/                                   ← research project
    ├── research_project.json
    ├── locations.json                      ← its locations, with timezone and coordinates
    └── R0003/                              ← collection (one revision)
        ├── collection.json
        ├── R0003_FileTimestampLog.csv      ← the start and end of each deployment
        └── R0003-DONA_01/                  ← deployment
            ├── R0003-DONA_01__20240904_1.JPEG …    the images
            ├── deployment.json             ← its details
            ├── images.json                 ← what is known of each image
            ├── preprocessing.json          ← what was done to each image
            ├── seal.json                   ← what was checked, tied to the content
            └── upload.json                 ← written once it has been uploaded

Your source folder is never touched: the images are copied, and the copy is what gets renamed, resized and tagged.

Copy the images off the camera's memory card first

Point the app at a folder on your computer, not at the memory card. The app only reads the source folder, but working from the card is slow and risks losing files if it is removed half-way.

The rest of the app's folders¶

What	Where
Settings	`settings.toml` in the app's config folder: `~/.config/wildintel-uploader/` (Linux), `%APPDATA%\wildintel-uploader\` (Windows), `~/Library/Application Support/wildintel-uploader/` (macOS). More configs in `configs/` there.
Log	`logs/wildintel-uploader.log` next to it.
Collections	`Documents/wildintel-uploader/collections/` (or Images folder of the settings).
Packages to upload	`Documents/wildintel-uploader/packages/`.
Unfinished runs	`Documents/wildintel-uploader/sessions/`.
Reports	`Documents/wildintel-uploader/reports/` — one JSON file each.

4. Where to go next¶

If you want to…	Read
Do everything — import, upload, repair, sync — with a guided interface	User manual — web app
Test the connection, change the settings, look up Trapper's ids or make a quick import from a terminal	User manual — command line
Know what the application does, in detail	Features