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Software Development / Feed

This group is for anyone interested in applying software to conservation and wildlife research. Whether you're a developer eager to contribute to conservation or a newbie with valuable data and ideas but limited software experience, this group connects people with diverse expertise. It provides a space for asking questions, sharing resources, and staying informed about new technologies and best practices.

Group curators

discussion

Free online tool to analyze wildlife images

Eugene Galaxy

4 August 2025 8:01am

Hey everyone!We made a free online tool to find animals on single images.Link is here: https://www.animaldetect.com/wildlife-detectorIt works very simple: drop an image -> get...

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Alejandro Duque

8 August 2025 5:23pm

Hello Eugene, I just tried your service:


Was wondering how possible will it be to have the option to upload a second image and have a comparison running to let the user know if body patterns are: 'same' or 'different', helping to identify individuals. 

Thanks and kind regards from Colombia,
Alejo

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discussion

Anyone using InVEST?

Elsa Carla De Grandi

10 July 2025 1:31pm

InVEST 3.16.0 has been release! with a new Plugin feature. From the InVEST Workbench users can install a 3rd party InVEST-like model which can be...

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Elsa Carla De Grandi

5 August 2025 7:27pm

If you're curious about InVEST I just created a page in "The Inventory" (see link on this page) with some resources and just wanted to hlighlight some potentially interesting models that are worth having a look at!

  • Habitat Quality: this model uses habitat quality and rarity as proxies to represent the biodiversity of a landscape, estimating the extent of habitat and vegetation types across a landscape, and their state of degradation.
  • Habitat Risk Assessment: this model evaluates risks posed to coastal and marine habitats in terms of exposure to human activities and the habitat-specific consequence of that exposure for delivery of ecosystem services.

  • Crop Pollination: this model focuses on wild pollinators providing an ecosystem service. The model estimates insect pollinator nest sites, floral resources, and flight ranges to derive an index of pollinator abundance on each cell on a landscape. If desired, the model can creates an index of the value of these pollinators to agricultural production, and attributes this value back to source cells.

     

Liz Ferguson

8 August 2025 2:23pm

Hi Elsa, 

We have used InVEST for a pollinator project we supported (the crop pollination model - details here), and looking to using it more for marine and coastal applications so really appreciate the details you shared here! 

Cheers, 

Liz

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discussion

Issue with SongBeam recorder

Josept Revuelta-Acosta

17 July 2025 9:40pm

Hello everyone, I am currently working on a project to measure the impact of industrial noise on the biodiversity of a natural reserve in Veracruz, Mexico. I have been...

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Alex Rood

24 July 2025 9:19pm

Hi Josept! Thank you for sharing your experience! This types of feedback are important for the community to know about when choosing what tech to use for their work. Would you be interested in sharing a review of Songbeam and the Audiomoth on The Inventory, our wiki-style database of conservation tech tools, R&D projects, and organizations? You can learn more here about how to leave reviews!

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discussion

Tech for Impact Collaboration

Tian Xie

2 July 2025 3:41am

Do you know a nonprofit or organization that is looking to work with students passionate about the environment?  Code the Change Harvey Mudd College is a ...

2
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course

Drone Photogrammetry & GIS Advanced Course

Sean Hill and 1 more

24 June 2025 9:31am

Follow on from the GeoWing Academy Intermediate Course. It is important to have completed the Intermediate Course before doing the Advanced Course. This course will teach you how to automate the multi-step and complex...

1
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course

Drone Photogrammetry & GIS Intermediate Course

Sean Hill and 1 more

24 June 2025 9:31am

The Intermediate Course follows on from the GeoWing Academy Foundation Course and is the second instalment of the GeoWing Academy Keystone courses. Here we learn how to isolate plants, analyse plant health and use 3D...

0
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discussion

New Group Proposal: Systems Builders & PACIM Designers

Chad Richardson

18 June 2025 2:52pm

Co-Creating Collective Impact Across the Conservation Technology EcosystemDear WILDLABS Community,I am proposing the creation of a new WILDLABS group focused on...

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Frank van der Most

19 June 2025 9:08am

Hi Chad,

Thanks for the text. As I read it, PACIMs play a role in something else/bigger, but it doesn't explain what PACIMs are or what they look like. Now I've re-read your original post, I'm thinking, maybe I do understand, but then I feel the concept is too big (  an entire system can be part of a PACIM ? ) to get going within a WildLabs group. And you want to develop 10 PACIMS within a year through this group? Don't get me wrong, I am all for some systems change, but perhaps you're aiming too high. 

Chad Richardson

19 June 2025 12:19pm

Hello again sir - PACIMs really mean 'projects' is the way I see it. Each part of the acronym can be seen as a project (if you have an assignment to do, you have a project really).

 

As for your query on 10 projects in 'this' group - I should ask for clarification if you mean particularly acoustics or in any group (I see now this is the acoustics thread after I selected all the groups for this post). If you are asking on acoustics, you're right - I am unsure on 10 as I am not too keen on acoustics yet. If you are asking 10 projects as a whole like 10 projects in the funding and finance group - I believe 10 to be a very reasonable number. Our projects we have co-created are for the most part replicable, rapidly deployable, quickly scalable, fundable through blended finance and more. 

 

Thank you again for the feedback.

Frank van der Most

19 June 2025 1:43pm

Thank you for your reply, Chad

I meant 10 as a whole, indeed. Perhaps you see your post in one group, but since it is tagged for all groups, I assumed you meant 10 in total.

In your first post you explain PACIM stands for "Projects, Assignments, Campaigns, Initiatives, Movements, and Systems", so I understood it as more than just projects. Obviously, many things can be packed into a project or called a project, but then, what does it mean that 'Projects' is part of the list?

Well, if you think 10 projects is doable, then don't let me stop you.

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discussion

Smart Drone to Tag Whales Project

Leandro Buss Becker

8 June 2025 12:19pm

Hi all,Let me please introduce our project named Smart Drone to Tag Whales, awarded in WILDLABS AWARDS 2024.Our research team (@machadoams, @anakfleck, @...

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Frants Jensen

14 June 2025 12:19pm

I would love to hear updates on this if you have a mailing list or list of intersted parties!

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discussion

Prototype for exploring camera trap data

Jeremy

20 January 2025 10:23pm

Hi, I would like to start a discussion around a prototype that aims at improving consumption of camera trap data. How is it different (in theory) from existing tools? I...

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Jakub Bubnicki

7 May 2025 10:49am

@Jeremy_ For the Python implementation of basic occupancy models (as suggested by @ollie_wearn ), please refer to these two projects:

I second @martijnB suggestion to use spatially explicit occupancy models (as implemented in R, e.g., https://doserlab.com/files/spoccupancy-web/). However, this would need to be added to both of the aforementioned Python projects.

Ajay Bhandari

17 May 2025 10:53am

Lively and informative discussion, I would very much like to contribute if there is some active development work with regards to this. 
I have recent experience with using Model Context Protocol (MCP) to integrate various tools & data repositories with LLMs like Claude. I believe this could be a good idea/path whereby we can do the following:
1. use the images & labels along with any meta-data, chunk/index/store it in vector db
2. integrate with existing data sources available by exposing the data through MCP server

3. Use MCP friendly LLM clients (like Claude) to query, visualize and do other open-ended things leveraging the power of LLM and camera trap data from various sources. 
 

Regards,

Ajay

Sanne Govaert

13 June 2025 1:38pm

Hi Jeremy,

I am copying here a reply from Juliane Röder, who is not on the forum here:

 

The GFBio VAT tool seems to do all the desired analysing and visualising stuff - but it isn't specialized on camera trap data. Instead, it harvests GBIF, GFBio data centers, and environmental data that you can combine in any way you want: https://vat.gfbio.org/#/

6:01

Documentation with some example code and notebooks is here: https://docs.vat.gfbio.org

6:04

A standalone tool for camarea trap data and images is nice, but maybe joining forces and adding some functionality to the VAT tool to better handle camera trap data would be a more sustainable solution...?

The VAT tool can give you some simple statistics of the chosen data (e.g. occurences of wild cats in central Europe in winters 2000-2015), and some simple analyses (wild cat occurences and snow depth). It's focus is on geospatial analyses of occurrence data. They do not have any functionality specific for camera trap data - yet.

My point was, that if you want geospatial analyses and/or additional data to compare to camera trap data, you probably don't have to build a new tool.

I'm not involved with the development of the VAT tool, but I could help with the contact. I know the VAT team.

You can contact her on juliane.roeder@uni-marburg.de.

I did a quick exploration of the VAT tool. It is built quite differently, and my first impression is that it is less accessible; however, as you become more familiar with it, you discover a wide range of options to explore for DwcA occurrences.

I believe it is extremely valuable to also have a tool that works directly with the richest data (Camtrap DP), rather than relying on translated data (Darwin Core), where important details and data structure are lost.

I also think the goals of both tools are different: map-based analysis vs. exploration.

But still usefull to get to know about each other :-)


 

 

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discussion

WILDLABS AWARDS 2025 - Trapper Keeper - a scalable and energy-efficient open-source camera trap data infrastructure

Izabela Stachowicz

30 May 2025 12:05pm

With the support of the WILDLABS Awards and Arm, we are about to launch Trapper Keeper, an open-source, AI-powered infrastructure for next-generation camera trap...

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Russ Van Horn

2 June 2025 10:24pm

I'm excited to see this project begin; I think its focus on versatility and functionality for users in diverse environments will allow Trapper Keeper to have a broad impact, organically!
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discussion

AI/ML opportunities

Ritika Giridhar

14 April 2025 4:47am

Hello,I’ll be graduating with a masters in AI and machine learning in August, and I’m currently doing my industry project with Aurizn, where I’m segmenting high resolution...

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Soumya Bhattacharyya

19 April 2025 2:08am

Ritika, 

All the best! I hope someone provides a more substantive answer! 

I have also graduated with masters in AI and ML recently. Difference being I am at the end of my IT career. I am looking for a career switch to biodiversity, wildlife conservation, sustainability or climate change. 

I am trying to do my best to do modern job search. Just warming up to it. LinkedIn, posting relevant posts, being consistent. Virtual networking. In person networking. Being a soon to be fresh graduate, you have access to a huge student networking and academic circle. Keep hitting them consistently and I am sure you will find something. 

Share the good news when it happens. :)

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discussion

Field-Ready Bioacoustics System in Field Testing 

Travis Butler

2 April 2025 10:38am

Hi all — I’m Travis, an automation engineer and conservation tech builder currently testing a system I’ve developed called Orpheus: a fully integrated, field-...

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Travis Butler

3 April 2025 3:38pm

Hi Carly,

Thanks so much for your thoughtful message—and for introducing me to Freaklabs! BoomBox looks awesome, and it’s exciting to see how closely our goals align. There’s definitely potential for collaboration, and I’d be happy to chat more. Their system is super efficient and I think both of our systems have a place in this space. 

Affordability and reliability were key considerations when I started building Orpheus. I wanted to create something rugged enough to survive in the field year-round while still being accessible for conservationists with limited budgets. The full-featured unit is €1500, and the basic model is €800. That pricing reflects both the hardware and the considerable time I’ve spent writing and refining the system—it’s all about balancing performance, durability, and keeping it sustainable for the long term.

Even the base unit is more than just a playback device. It logs every playback event, duration, and species, with enough onboard storage for two years of data, and it automatically converts the logs to line protocol for easy integration into platforms like InfluxDB.

On top of that, Orpheus actively logs and graphs temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, and battery voltage. During deep sleep, it interpolates the environmental data to preserve meaningful trends without wasting energy. You can view any of these on it's 5" touch screen or view it in the cross-platform app that will support both Android and IOS once I'm done programming it.

As for audio specs:

  • Recording is supported up to 96kHz,
  • Playback is full 24-bit, both MP3 and WAV formats
  • The system currently supports recording audio clips, reviewing them, and even adding those clips directly to playlists on the device.

That said, for bat research, I know ultrasonic capability is essential. While the current hardware doesn’t capture over 100kHz, I’ve already done the research and identified alternative audio interfaces that would support that range. If that’s a need researchers are interested in, I’d be open to building out a dedicated version to meet those requirements.

Power-wise, it runs indefinitely on solar, even under partly cloudy conditions. It uses a LiFePO₄ battery, and depending on usage, it can operate for up to two weeks on battery alone. It also supports external power from 12V or 24V systems, and solar input from 12V to 70V, so it’s pretty adaptable to various field setups. it also can operate from -5 to 70C (still testing that), but the hardware should be capable according to specs. Your correct though in places like the rain forest that could be challenging and an alternative would need to be considered. 

The software is written modularly to allow for expansion based on user needs. For instance, I’ve already integrated support for a rain sensor that can pause playback if the user chooses that, and could easily include PIR, microwave, or other sensors for more specialized triggers.

Regarding durability, I’m currently testing mesh cable sheathing to deter rodents and other wildlife from chewing the wires—this was a concern raised by one of the teams using Orpheus, and I’m designing around it.

Also, Orpheus includes a seasonal scheduling engine—you can define your own seasons (like Migration, Breeding, etc.) and assign unique playback playlists to each. The device uses astronomical data (sunrise/sunset) based on your provided lat/lon and time zone, and automatically adjusts timing offsets like “1 hour before sunrise.” The goal is truly fire-and-forget deployment.

I'm open to adding any features or sensors that might be useful within reason.

I’m curious though, what specs would make a recording device for bats an indispensable tool? What features don’t already exist  on the market that should?


 

Warm regards,
Travis

Ryan Smith

5 April 2025 4:03pm

I love the look of the system! We almost called our new sensor Orpheus, but decided against it as there is already a microphone named that! I'd love to see a bit more about the technical implementation! Is this running off of a CM5 or something different? 

Travis Butler

6 April 2025 1:45pm

Hi Ryan, hmm, I had no idea there was a microphone named that. I thought about how it’s used to lure birds for netting, and I like Greek Mythology. I thought it was a perfect fit, but hmm, May have to change the name. I considered using a CM, but i wanted the system to be as efficient as possible. I am using a RPI Zero 2 W with emmc. To ensure the UI stays  responsive I used some backend tricks like thread pooling. It works well and resources stay in check. The challenging part is ensuring thread handling is done gracefully and carefully to prevent race conditions. What sort of sensor have you been developing?

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discussion

Software QA Topics

Matt Audette

9 January 2025 12:00pm

Hi everyone,What should we share or demo about Software Quality Assurance? Alex Saunders and I, the two Software QA people at Wildlife Protection Solutions (WPS) are going to...

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Bruce Holland

19 May 2025 5:30am

Hi everyone,

What should we share or demo about Software Quality Assurance? 

Alex Saunders and I, the two Software QA people at Wildlife Protection Solutions (WPS) are going to do a community call to knowledge share on software testing and test automation in the 3rd or 4th week of January.

We've listed a few QA topics that we could talk about in this 1-2 minute poll here basketball stars and would like your feedback on topic priority.

Thanks for your feedback and we look forward to connecting! We'll also post when we have an exact date and time pinned down.

Sounds like a great initiative—looking forward to it! I’d love to hear more about your real-world test automation setup, especially any tools or frameworks you’ve found effective at WPS. It’d also be helpful to see how QA fits into your dev workflow and any challenges you’ve faced specific to conservation tech. I just filled out the poll and can’t wait to see what topics get chosen. Thanks, Alex and team, for organizing this!

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discussion

The Boring Fund 2024 - MoveApps

Anne K Scharf

17 January 2025 12:54pm

 We are honored to be among the winners of The Boring Fund 2024! Thank you WILDLABS and Arm for selecting our project.MoveApps is a free no-code analysis platform for...

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Anne K Scharf

2 April 2025 12:15pm

We are pleased to inform you that we have now finalized point 2 and 3. Here some details of the update:

  • App browser improvements:
    • Improved overview and search: we have added a description of each category and
      the search and filtering options are improved.

    • Searching for Apps within a Workflow: we have added the option to include Apps
      that are not compatible with the IO type, making it easier to decide if a translator
      App is needed to include one of the incompatible Apps.

       

  • Public Workflows improvements:
    • Improved overview: the public Workflows are now organized by categories which
      can be also used for filtering.
    • More information: the details overview contains now the list of Apps included in
      each Workflow.
    • Sharing Workflows: when creating a public Workflow you will have to select one
      or more existing categories, but you can also always request a new category.

Go and check it out in MoveApps!

Anne K Scharf

16 May 2025 12:20pm

We are please to inform that we have implemented the point 1 and 4 and with this have finalized the project. The latest improvements:

  • Improvement in findability of help documentation: we have started to populate the platform with links (question mark icon) to the relevant
    sections of the user manual.
  • The log files of each App can now be downloaded and when an error occurs directly be sent to MoveApps support. Find more details here.

Again a great thank you for giving us the opportunity to implement these changes. We think they have greatly improved the user friendliness of MoveApps

 

 

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discussion

Prospective NSF INTERN 

Frank Short

11 February 2025 10:00am

Hello all,My name is Frank Short and I am a PhD Candidate at Boston University in Biological Anthropology. I am currently doing fieldwork in Indonesia using machine-learning...

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Dora Summers

8 May 2025 8:51am

My name is Frank Short and I am a PhD Candidate at Boston University in Biological Anthropology. I am currently doing fieldwork in Indonesia using machine-learning powered passive acoustic monitoring focusing on wild Bornean orangutans (and other primates). I am reaching out because as a student with a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, I am eligible to take advantage of the NSF INTERN program which supports students to engage in non-academic internships through covering a stipend and other expenses, with the only caveat being that the internship must be in-person and not remote. I was wondering if any organizations in conservation technology would be interested in a full-time intern that would be coming in with their own funding? 

In addition to experience with machine learning and acoustics through training a convolutional neural network for my research, I also have worked with GIS, remote sensing, and animal movement data through other projects. Further, I have experience in community outreach both in and outside of academic settings, as I previously worked for the Essex County Department of Parks and Recreation in New Jersey for 3 years where I created interpretive signs, exhibits, newsletters, brochures, and social media posts. Now while doing my fieldwork in Indonesia, I have led hands-on trainings in passive acoustic monitoring placement and analysis as well as given talks and presentations at local high schools and universities. 

I would love to be able to use this opportunity (while the funding still exists, which is uncertain moving forward due to the current political climate in the US) to exercise and develop my skills at a non-academic institution in the conservation technology sphere! If anyone has any suggestions or is part of an organization that would be interested in having me as an intern, please contact me here or via my email: fshort@bu.edu geometry dash. Thank you!

Hi Frank, your work sounds incredibly valuable and well-aligned with current needs in conservation tech. With your strong background in machine learning, acoustics, GIS, and outreach, you’d be an asset to many organizations. I’d recommend looking into groups like Rainforest Connection, Wildlife Acoustics, or the Conservation Tech Directory (by WILDLABS)—they often work on acoustic monitoring and might be open to in-person internships, especially with funding already in place. Best of luck finding the right match—your initiative is impressive!

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discussion

No-code custom AI for camera trap images!

Justin Chung Clark

25 April 2025 8:33pm

Thanks to our WILDLABS award, we're excited to announce that Zamba Cloud has expanded beyond video to now support camera trap images! This new functionality...

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Kim Hendrikse

28 April 2025 7:03am

When you process videos, do you not first break them down into a sequence of images and then process the images ? I'm confused as to the distinction between the processing videos versus images here.

Justin Chung Clark

28 April 2025 3:57pm

We do, but the way the models handle the images differs depending on whether they're coming from videos or static images. A quick example: videos provide movement information, which can a way of distinguishing between species. We use an implementation of SlowFast for one of our video models that attempts to extract temporal information at different frequencies. If the model has some concept of "these images are time sequenced" it can extract that movement information, whereas if it's a straight image model, that concept doesn't have a place to live. But a straight image model can use more of its capacity for learning e.g. fur patterns, so it can perform better on single images. We did some experimentation along these lines and did find that models trained specifically for images outperformed video models run on single images.

Hope that helps clear up the confusion. Happy to go on and on (and on)...

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