This tutorial is for the new, online project designer. The tutorial for the Desktop Designer is available
here
.
Camera Point
Learn how the Camera point can be used and see it in action with the sample projects.
What is the Camera point?
The Camera point allows you to select photos from your photo library or capture new photos to be stored in a session. When used in conjunction with a Sketch point , you can draw sketches to add even more information to your photos.
Key Features
- Can be used with the Sketch point to add sketches to photos.
- Supports selecting existing photos from the device's photo library.
- Supports capturing new photos and saving them directly to a session.
- Automatically geo-tag photos to store the location where photos are taken.
- Stores image metadata including camera make, model, date of capture and more.
- Can output metadata to other points using dynamic references for post-processing and reports.
- Can display a custom overlay of formatted text that can include session data using dynamic references.
Dynamic References
When a photo is taken or an image is uploaded, you can extract information from the photo including
exif metadata, image filename and gps coordinates. This information can be saved to the session by
adding
Reference Points
to the project. This can be done easily by selecting the camera point and in the point's properties tab,
click on the button to
Generate Reference Points
. This will open a window which provides options to select from a variety of dynamic references as well
as the point type of the points that will be generated.
Geo-Tagging Photos
Modern smartphones can be configured to automatically geo-tag photos which captures the geographical location
of where a photo was taken. The camera point captures this information and stores it within the photo, allowing
you to view this information simply by downloading the photo and viewing the photo's details. On a computer
running a Windows operating system this can be done by downloading the photo from the portal, right clicking on
the photo and selecting properties. Select the details tab to view all of the metadata for the photo, including the
Latitude
,
Longitude
and
Altitude
.
Requirements
In order for geo-tagging information to be captured, the device's camera application will need to be configured to enable geo-tagging and allow location services. When a photo is taken, the device will need to be in an environment where a GPS location can be captured, otherwise no geo-tag information will be stored. If a GPS location is required, it is recommended to add validation to ensure a location is captured, see adding validation to GPS coordinates .
Adding Validation to GPS Coordinates
To ensure GPS information is captured for a camera point, you can use dynamic references to output the captured GPS latitude and longitude to Edit points and add validation to ensure the Edit points have a value. This can be done by following the steps below:
Generating Metadata Points for a Camera Point
For this example, the project contains an existing Camera point with the ID Name of
CameraPoint
.
-
Select the Camera Point in the designer to view the point properties window.
-
Click on the
Generate Metadata Pointsbutton. This window provides options to select from a variety of dynamic references as well as the point type of the points that will be generated.
-
Select the options for
Latitude DecimalandLongitude Decimaland then click theCreate pointsbutton. This will insert two new Edit points into the project, below the selected Camera point. The Point ID's of the new points are configured automatically in order to extract data from the associated camera point. Changing the Point ID will disassociate these points from each other, causing the data to not be extracted.
Adding Validation to Metadata
The following steps can be used to add validation on a camera point's data to ensure the session cannot be sent to the web portal until the reference points contain valid coordinates.
-
Add a Math point with any ID, for this example it will be
MathLatLong. -
Set the Math point's expression to:
This expression will check the latitude and longitude values to ensure there is a valid coordinate. If there is, the Math point's value will be 1 otherwise it will be 0.((CameraPoint.lat > 0 | CameraPoint.lat < 0) & (CameraPoint.long > 0 | CameraPoint.long < 0)) ? 1 : 0 -
Open the project's properties tab and scroll down to the
Session Validationsection. -
Enable the
Only allow sessions to be sent when the following point has the specified value. -
Select the point
MathLatLongand setValid when value equalsto1.
This will ensure that a session cannot be completed until there are valid GPS Coordinates captured for the camera point. For a working example of this validation, download or import the sample project .
Configuration and Settings
The Camera point can be configured in the designer to customise the capture method and display options. See below for details on each of this point's properties.
Camera Settings
Action on tap
This setting controls what happens when the camera point is tapped. It can be configured with any of the following options:
-
Display the options to capture a new photo with the camera, photo library, files app or the latest photo in the photo library.
This is the default option and will display all options to the user so that they can choose to:
- Take a photo using the camera.
- Choose a photo from the photo library.
- Choose an image from the files app.
- Use the latest photo from the photo library.
-
Automatically launch the Camera
The camera will be opened allowing the user to quickly take a new photo without having to select the camera option.
-
Automatically launch the photo library
The photo library will be opened allowing the user to quickly select an existing photo from their photo library without having to select the photo library option.
-
Automatically attach the most recent photo from the photo library
The most recent photo will be automatically selected from the photo library.
Tap again to remove image
When enabled, the user can tap on a saved photo to remove the photo from the session.
Capture image size
This setting allows you to set the desired size of the image when saved to the session. 640x480 is the recommended size for best presentation on A4 size reports. Larger resolutions may be required for more detailed reports.
Thumbnail size
This setting allows you to set the desired size for displaying on the mobile app.
Overlay Settings
Text
When set, this will overlay text onto the saved image whenever the camera point attaches a new image. The text can include dynamic references to other point's in order to save session data onto the camera point's image.
The format window is shown when you tap on the Text setting. It provides options that can be used to insert a point's value into the format string. Start by clicking in the format string at the location where the point should be inserted. Then select the point from the drop down list and select whether the value should be added as a string (text) or a number. If the value of the point is numeric ( Math point , Numpad point ) then you can specify additional options if the value is inserted as a number. The differences between inserting as a string/number are explained below:
Inserting as a String
When inserted as a string, the
padding
option can be set which sets a minimum number of characters for the inserted value. When the value
is less than the specified number, the value will be padded with spaces to fill the remaining characters
up to the set amount. For example if the inserted value is
test
with the settings set to
width: 8
the formatted value would be
test
.
Inserting as a Number
When inserted as a string, the
padding
and
precision
can be set. The padding determines the leading number of zeroes to pad to and the precision determines
the trailing number of zeroes to pad to. For example if the inserted value is
1.2
with the settings set to
width: 8, precision: 3
the formatted value would be
00000001.200
.
Displaying image metadata in text overlay
When a project is configured to extract metadata into points , these points can be referenced in the overlay text to save that data onto the image. For example, this could be used to create an overlay containing the photo's filename, GPS latitude and longitude, and the date and time that the photo was taken. See the section on Generating Metadata Points for a Camera Point to see how to add metadata points to your project.
Position
Select which corner of the image to display the overlay in. The text will be automatically left-justified or right-justified, based on the side of the selected corner position.
Overlay Style
These settings customise the font and appearance of the overlay text and overlay background that is displayed
on the image. These settings will only apply if the overlay text has been configured. This section includes
options for
Font Style, Size, Bold, Italic, Underline, Color and Background Opacity. A preview is provided to
show how the overlay will appear.
Using Camera Point on a Mobile Device
On the mobile device, a Camera point will display a thumbnail within the session which will provide instructions to Tap to take a photo . Once a photo has been taken or selected from the device's photo library, the photo will display within the thumbnail, in the session. The size of the thumbnail is determined using the point's properties that are configured in the Mobile Data Anywhere Designer.
Sample Projects
The following sample project demonstrates how a Camera point can be added to your projects along with dynamic references to capture geo-tag and photo metadata.
Sample Projects
Create powerful mobile forms for your business in minutes
