Top-down (Dorsal) pictures of Whale Sharks (Rhincodon typus)

Community Research
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Hello there!
I’m doing some research on Whale Sharks ( Rhincodon typus ) in October this year and will be using a drone to take pictures for measuring length and behaviour.

From what I’ve understood, the area used for individual markings on these animals is the left side behind the gills, which might not be visible from the air (with a drone).

I’ve decided to build a database to identify individuals from above instead of the side and would be incredibly thankful if there is anyone who would like to help!

I need some pictures taken of Whale sharks from above to train the model and to build up a reference database. If anyone has these types of pictures ( preferrably from Madagascar, but from anywhere would be more than helpful ), I would be very happy if I could use them.

Thanks for your time,
Emil

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Hi @eplomin

You’re welcome to try manually annotating whale sharks from above with MiewID and see how well it performs in finding positive matches. You’ll want to select the viewpoint “up” in the manual annotation workflow.

1 Like
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If we were using manual annotations to test flukebook on hyperoodon, would we also use viewpoint “up”? or would we use “down”? Not totally clear how this affects the potential matching…

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Great question (and a recurring subject of internal debate with our team because those up/down viewpoint labels are confusing)!

Use “up” if like @eplomin you’re using aerial images of the whales. Otherwise, labels correspond to the side of the animal that’s visible in the photo (the animal’s left, front if it’s facing the camera, back if it’s facing away from the camera, back left if it’s facing away from you and its left side is visible, etc.)

Match results take into account the species, the viewpoint, and the location ID. Matching viewpoints include the same or similar viewpoints like matching lefts with fronts lefts, etc.

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follow up - can you change the viewpoint of an annotation ? :slight_smile: or do you have to delete and redo?

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Right now, the only way to correct a viewpoint on an annotation is to delete it and manually draw it with the correct one.