Matching FAQ#
Additional help with Matching in Wildbook is available in our docs.
How long do I need to wait for detection? Identification?#
Machine learning (ML) jobs in Wildbook run in a shared, serial queue. Detection jobs can take between 10 seconds and hours, depending on how much shared ML work is in the queue. Identification jobs generally run only a few minutes but also share resources in the queue and can take longer while waiting for work farther ahead in the queue to complete.
How can I tell if a detection job has completed?#
You can tell if a detection job has completed by visiting the encounter page. If the images in the gallery have an Annotation box around the animal, detection has completed. You will need to refresh the page to see the Annotation appear.
How can I tell if an identification job has completed?#
You can tell if an identification job has completed by clicking the Match Results button on an image in the Encounter.
How do I manually start a match?#
You may want to re-run your match if you edited an annotation, got an error message in your previous match results, want to adjust the location IDs to check for matches, or want try different identification algorithms. You can manually start a match from the Encounter page. From here, you can modify the location and identification algorithms used.
Where are my match results?#
“No matchable detection” means that due to the image quality or the animal being obscured, the animal wasn’t detected. You can add a manual annotation and start your match. Note: If you see this appear when attempting to match whale sharks or sand tiger sharks, you need to select “spot mapping” from the menu instead.
“Error initiating IA job” means there was an issue with detection that’s preventing identification from starting. If you see this message when starting a new match from your manual annotation after seeing “No matchable detection” in the image menu, WBIA may be down. Let us know in the Community Forum.
“Attempting to fetch results” or “Gave up trying to match” usually means that matching is still in progress. If you don’t see match results within 24 hours, something may be wrong. Let us know in the Community Forum.
“Image Analysis has returned and no match was found”, “No match confirmed”, or “No match results” means that there are no potential matches for that animal based on the location ID you selected.
If you see “Unknown error”, try restarting the match. If that doesn’t produce matches, remove the annotation, create a new one, and start a new match. If you still get an error after following these steps, let us know in the Community Forum.
Why do I see matches for a different side of the animal than what’s in my image?#
Match candidates with similar viewpoints are displayed in match results (ex: left compared with front left or back left). If the annotation viewpoint is incorrect (ex: the animal’s left side saved as its right side), you can edit your annotation in the manual annotation workflow. You won’t be able to edit the viewpoint of someone else’s image unless you have an edit Collaboration with that user.
I uploaded the same image twice; why doesn’t the identical image appear in the match results?#
WBIA checks for identical images uploaded by the same user and excludes them from the list of potential match candidates.
I’m on a project and I can’t confirm matches on its encounters.#
You need to have an edit Collaboration with the other project participants in order to confirm their matches.