Add the capability to reference images by URL, not as attachments.

[ChrisBuscaglia]

@jessnoo

[jessnoo]

use case: support photo collections where the image is referenced as a URL instead of an attachment

history: this request was first made by Kevin Armstrong in Aug 2016 via email:

1. Would it be possible to wire this app up to read an image from a url stored in a field of a REST service? Seems like it just reads attachments now but I may be wrong. FEMA publishes a CAP photos REST service. Being able to poll this with GeoEvents would be great and remove all the need for downloading photos and running desktop tools. Huge timesaver! The app would update itself every time FEMA adds photos. We could just provide a sample schema for publishing the output service that GeoEvents would write to. This could be an easy way to sell GeoEvents and it would be easy to implement. I have messed around with CAP Photos and GeoEvents trying to update a story map with some limited success. I think this template would be great for GeoEvents integration.
2. Any chance this app could become a hosted template?

Although Kevin's feedback is around geoevents, the process to update a service with the latest CAP imagery could also be accomplished with a GP script or manually with the Append function and that workflow could be described in the EM version of the doc as applicable.

Reference Collateral
FEMAs CAP Service: https://imageryuploader.geoplatform.gov/arcgis/rest/services/ImageEvents/MapServer

• includes a link to the full image and a thumbnail image

concept for survey data structure using a URL instead of attachments, with some sample data
PhotoSurvey_sample.gdb.zip

Other Considerations
For organizations with large photo collections, it may make sense for them to store them on disc and publish a service using ArcGIS Server where the images are simply referenced that way. It's possible to create this type of a layer with the GeoTagged Photo to Points GP tool. In the case of FEMA, they have embedded URLs, other organizations may simply want to reference photos on a file storage location which is accessible by their server.

@NikkiGolding fyi

[jessnoo]

@ChrisBuscaglia please let me know if more information is needed to evaluate this one.

[ChrisBuscaglia]

@jessnoo I'm getting more confused by this enhancement request, and I'm not sure what was wrong with the workflow as documented and supported? Did the customer (FEMA?) request these changes or did the Photo Survey application just not work for them?

1. I don't think that referencing URLs in the application for the photos is a huge stretch, since attachments are displayed the same way (by URL) but the application would have to change dramatically to handle this custom service type. We'd also have to create a new method for associating the photo points to this custom service - I'm not sure that we want to start supporting custom services. What if the service changes, who maintains that?

2. I agree with Kevin's idea of updating the service, how would you envision that working when the service is updated - I don't think that it's just a manual process. The new association tool would need to interrogate the service to see what new photos exist, use an ID or something (location?) to create a new point (add the survey fields) and associate the URL, then append?

3. Referencing images on disk is a completely different enhancement. Is the customer having problems publishing the photo collection to ArcGIS Server using ArcMap or Portal/ArcGIS Enterprise using ArcGIS Pro?

4. Do we have the other enhancement logged - the hosted template one?

[jessnoo]

@ChrisBuscaglia

1. The service is quite slow because it contains all their event data -- here's a web map with the service loaded - Photo Survey - Image Reference by URL

• the Oblique photo points in the feature layer and map service layer is filtered for the Harvey event.

2. I don't think it's a requirement to use the FEMA CAP service directly in the app. Seems like this requires further discussion before design -- i'd suggest that the CAP service is a source of photos, but not the source service used in the app. Users (or FEMA) would need to create a service that accommodates storing the answers to the survey along with the reference to the image.

3. Again -- i think a discussion would help. From my perspective - any new tool designed to create the Photo Survey question FC could be a combo of (new FC with questions and attributes for Photo URL) + ((filter if necessary) and Append tool to load photo points from an existing service or layer). If it's required that the tool delivered from Photo Survey do everything -- seems like i'd be easier to meet and discuss and then document outcomes here.

4. i see what you're saying -- they seem like similar workflows but perhaps it's difference. This is not something i've heard from a customer directly and can be ignored as far as i'm concerned.

5. i'll check and add it. not familiar with the Photo Survey backlog.

Regarding feedback directly from FEMA, I don't believe we have that - though they do have a photo scoring app that they use -- it seems like it's been updated since i've seen it last, more like photo survey but with more options for identifying things in the photo: FEMA Damage Reviewer

Most often this request is revisited when a disaster happens and we need to demonstrate capabilities of leveraging the CAP photos. Here's a snippet from Rupert as the teams were struggling to get CAP data available in a viewer, i believe this was specifically around Irma -- Photo Survey is a natural fit for photo interpretation:

The requirement to be able to quickly get a large number of images/videos onto a map so they can be browsed and interpreted, with clustering, preview, sort and filter images by date/time, etc the ability to change basemap and turn on other layers, isn't going to be met by the Story Map apps. I think it would be good for Esri to come up with an app template specially for this.

[jessnoo]

this is a link to the original app FEMA had (i think we may have built it for them) -- doesn't seem to be working but is more in line with what photo survey is doing -- http://imageryuploader.geoplatform.gov/ImageEventsPublic/imagevote.html

[jessnoo]

one last note on this after the day's contemplation about it, for future reference.

from a technology support perspective - perhaps it could be as simple as:

• a GP tool that adds questions to an existing feature class / feature service (or takes an existing FC/FL as input and creates a new one that includes all the existing fields and data and adds the survey questions to it)
• enabling the app to accept a field with the URL, which seems like it would be straight forward to do