Phone ID programs for plants and other things.

[MizBrown]

I'm finding that iNaturalist's Seek is proving very useful with my mixed range of tropical plants, temperate plant photos taken when I lived in the US, and various bugs.  I'm taking photos with my main cameras and using Seek to ID what's on screen (fussing with the phone before using the camera might cost me bug shots and fish that are moving around are hard to impossible to ID.  Seems to mostly work.  I check identifictions against Google Images for the same things. 

Plant Snap has been less useful. 

 

This Mournful Sphinx (Enyo lugubris) was ID'ed through Seek

 

Edited September 10, 2020 by MizBrown
adding photo

[Gina Kelly]

I also love Seek and use it a lot in pretty much the same way - getting the photo first and worrying about ID'ing later, double-checking with google, etc. When I first got the App I think it only ID'd plants, so I forget sometimes to use it for insects and other things.

Cool moth shot! 

[noelbennett]

If you take a photo on your phone and upload it to Google Photos there is button there that identifies the object in the image . 

 

 https://lens.google.com/

 

Google Photos give you 15GB of storage free, after that you can pay for extra storage.  

[MizBrown]

3 hours ago, noelbennett said:

If you take a photo on your phone and upload it to Google Photos there is button there that identifies the object in the image . 

 

 https://lens.google.com/

 

Google Photos give you 15GB of storage free, after that you can pay for extra storage.  

 

Just tested it against Seek, using Lightroom images, and Seek's IDs of some things are better.   Seek has failed, too, on orchids out of bloom.  Google Lens came closer on some, but ID'd a day lily as a daffodil.   Outside with the patio plants using the phone, neither could ID my orchids out of bloom.  Google Lens and Plant Snap did better with the Euphorbia geroldii.   I think with orchids, it's going to be necessary to have them in flower and I have a good Facebook group for those IDs.   Google Lens is an app for Android and iPhone/iPads.   Nothing could ID my orchids out of bloom, no surprise there as many of them are hard for orchid people to ID out of bloom.

 

Isochilus orchids get ID'ed by Seek as grass, which is only close as Monocots.  Plant Snap and Google Lens also failed.    All of these programs will be as good as the database of photos they're working from.  Seek does use location, which I suspect will be useful for a range of things. 

 

Another tool.   Thanks.

[John Mitchell]

I like the iNaturalist Seek phone app, but so far it has delivered mixed results, even when I input several different views. I don't think that it will be putting the forum's expert plant, etc. ID team out of work any time soon.

[MizBrown]

14 hours ago, John Mitchell said:

I like the iNaturalist Seek phone app, but so far it has delivered mixed results, even when I input several different views. I don't think that it will be putting the forum's expert plant, etc. ID team out of work any time soon.

It did spiders and bugs better than expected.

[John Mitchell]

20 hours ago, MizBrown said:

It did spiders and bugs better than expected.

 

You might be right about that. The iNaturalist Seek app was able to correctly identify a "False Hemlock Looper Moth" for me yesterday from a very fuzzy phone pic.

[meanderingemu]

On 13/09/2020 at 03:08, John Mitchell said:

I like the iNaturalist Seek phone app, but so far it has delivered mixed results, even when I input several different views. I don't think that it will be putting the forum's expert plant, etc. ID team out of work any time soon.

 

 

yeah, it identified what i believe to be a juvenile male wood duck as "bird".  So i'll add that to the KWs

[John Mitchell]

8 minutes ago, meanderingemu said:

 

 

yeah, it identified what i believe to be a juvenile male wood duck as "bird".  So i'll add that to the KWs

 

Just for the heck of it, I ran a selfie through the app. Apparently, I'm a "placental mammal". 😁