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Use Cases

jbraiuka edited this page Nov 25, 2015 · 17 revisions

Use Cases

This document outlines the different ways you should configure the input CSV in order to produce the desired output. For what each csv setting is, please see CSV Parameters

General Settings

These are the general settings which apply to every form of time streaming you can do.

Input, Output, and Archive Directories

The input directory is denoted as SOURCE in the csv file. This will be the directory where we will look for images.

The output directory is denoted as DESTINATION in the csv file. This is where we will output our time streams to. It is best to think of the output as four parts. The output directory, then the time stream format, then the year / month / day folders, then finally the file name itself. With the exception of the year / month / day folders, each of these is fully customizable.

The Archive directory is denoted as ARCHIVE_DEST in the csv file. If the Archive mode is selected, then this will store all of the unprocessed images. This will be done before any resizing, or rotating.

Filter by Date and/or Time

These fields are useful if you only wish to look at images between specific dates, or times. All images which fall outside of EXPT_START and EXPT_END date range, will not be processed at all. The same can be said for times entered in SUNRISE and SUNSET.

Therefore, if we had the follwing values:

  • Sunrise: 11:01
  • Sunset: 11:03
  • Expt_Start: 06/10/2015
  • Expt_End: 06/10/2015

and the following 5 image times:

  1. 11:02 05/10/2015
  2. 11:00 06/10/2015
  3. 11:02 06/10/2015
  4. 11:04 06/10/2015
  5. 11:02 07/10/2015

Then only Image 3 would be processed.

File Name Filtering

It is also possible to filter images based on a string value. This is entered into the FN_PARSE value in the csv. This option is useful when images are not stored according to their camera, but rather by date, or folders based on when they were copied from a hard drive. This value works by ONLY processing images which have the string value entered in FN_PARSE somewhere in their Global file path.

If you had the following folder structure storing two cameras (Overstory_Nadir, and Understory Nadir):

-- Images -- Field_Photos -- 2015_06_06 -- Overstory_Nadir -- <Images>
                          \             \ Understory_Nadir -- <Images>
                           \
                            \ 2015_06_08 -- Overstory_Nadir -- <Images>
                                         \- Understory_Nadir -- <Images>

Rather than having four values in the CSV, you can simply have one for each camera using the FN_PARSE parameter. The following values would be needed in overstory CSV entry:

  • SOURCE: Images/Field_Photos
  • FN_PARSE: Overstory

This would ignore all images in the Understory folders, as it doesn't have the FN_Parse value in their file path. However, if you had a FN_PARSE value of "erstory" Then all images would be used, as "erstory" is in all the global file path.

Shifting the date and Time

Sometimes its useful to shift all times and dates of images. This can be useful when images are recorded in UTC, but you wish to display them in local time. The csv parameter is called TIMESHIFT Simply enter the number of hours you wish to offset by. So if you wish to shift everything forward 2 hours, enter 2.

If you wanted to shift everything backwards by one day, then simply enter -24 as the value.

Filter by Image Type

We can tell the program to only specifically time stream a particular image type. This is done by the IMAGE_TYPE csv parameter.

Each image type you want to process needs to be separated by a ~ character. So if you wanted to process only jpg images, then your IMAGE_TYPE value would be jpg. However if you wanted to process jpg and raw images, then the value should be jpg~raw

Date from the Filename

Sometimes images don't have the date taken stored in the image metadata, instead storing it in their filename. In this case, you will need to enter a FILENAME_DATE_MASK csv parameter.

This is a string value which stores how to get the date from the filename. Character meanings can be found here.

If the string was

20120901_122732 meaning the 12:27:32, 1st of September, 2012, then your FILENAME_DATE_MASK would be

%Y%m%d_%H%M%S

Timestreaming Images

Copying and Timestreaming Images

Moving and Timestreaming Images

Moving and Archiving Images

Resizing Images

Custom Folder Path

Custom File Name

Rotating Images

Deleting Images By Time and Date

Listing Images By Time and Date

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