Hello and welcome to the BAT Photo Processing Tool Video.
The tool is accessible from the photo processing button under the post audit
menu.
This tool is designed to help manage and organize photos
taken after an energy audit and prior to the start of analysis.
It provides two main functions
allows other information stored in the BAT to be directly
tied to photos for cross reference and future use,
and allows photos to be placed
in a common archive directory with a common naming convention
that will allow each photo to be easily referenced for future
use by individuals not participating in the original audit.
The tool is accessible from the photo processing button under the post
audit menu on the right side of the Energy Audit Main Menu.
Note that use of the tool will also make
the photos available from within the BAT menus
for real time reference in future evaluations and walkthroughs.
To open the photo processing tool,
Select the photo processing button. To load photos into the tool,
The first step is to locate the files in the directory
where photos were taken during the audit.
Ideally, this is a local hard drive or portable drive
such as a USB memory stick, since working across a network
or cloud drive may present file access issues.
If images are being taken and stored on a cellular device.
Make sure automatic cloud sync is turned off for audits
where the cloud could pose a security risk.
The process for loading files into the tool are as follows.
Be sure that all files are in JPEG format
With this extension. The BPP can only process
JPEG files at this time.
Click on the load photos button.
A file directory dialog box will become visible which can be used
to navigate to the directory where the target files are located.
Once the target directory is
selected, see folder name near the bottom of the dialog box.
Click okay to proceed with loading the files.
Once initiated, the BPP will read key information
from the photo header, including information about
when the file was created and its current location.
This information, as well as the photo itself, will be displayed
for the first photo to be processed when the tool has completed this task.
If you are processing hundreds of photos, the processing of loading
and displaying files may take a few minutes.
In the second step,
users will be prompted to assign BAT data that was collected at or near the time
the Take photos button was clicked during the audit.
The system will automatically bring up
only BAT data that was collected at approximately the time and date
the picture shown was taken.
To assign data to the photo that is currently displayed
next to each BAT entry in the BAT data table
at the bottom of the screen is an assign data button.
Clicking the assign data button will populate the fields to the far
right of the picture and associate the data with that picture.
If you need to clear information from these fields,
use the clear data button. To replace the data,
Simply click Assign data on another BAT data record.
The user can add notes to the Associated
with the picture using the add notes field.
The previous and next button at the top of the page
can be used to move back and forth through the pictures.
The photo data is automatically saved when moving
either to the next or previous picture.
It is not necessary to assign all photos to BAT reference data.
Photos that are not assigned can simply be skipped or trashed.
See below. Photos that are not assigned
BAT data will not be added to the BAT Photo archive.
The third step is committing changes and archiving photos.
Once the data assignment process is complete,
you can commit the changes to the database and create a permanent
archive of the photo records by clicking
the Save in Archive button of the form.
Hitting this button does several things.
It renamed any photos in the source directory, adding
archived to the front of each file name.
It makes a copy of the photo, renames it,
and replaces it in an archival directory within the BAT
based on the installation ID for future reference and use.
It clears the form and returns the user to the main audit menu.
Important.
The BPP will not process photos in any source directory
where files previously marked as having been archived still reside.
Even if all photos are not processed in the first part,
any files that have been marked as archived will need to be removed
from the source directory before the BPP will run.
This is to prevent double archiving or mis archiving photos.
It is best practice to copy and paste
these archive files into a folder for redundancy and backups.
This can be a sub folder in the same folder
directory as the rest of the stored photos.
Now we will discuss special buttons and operations.
The BPP has several
features that will be useful to the user.
The photo timestamp filter associated in the middle of the display
is intended to narrow the search button for BAT records
that may be relevant to the photo displayed
based on the time the photo was taken and the time that the user indicated
it was taken in the relevant BAT audit submenu.
The default is one minute plus or minus
of the time and date that the photo was created.
In some cases the time between when a BAT data entry was made
and the actual time a photo was taken associated
with that information will be longer or shorter than one minute.
The filter can be changed to expand
the selection of relevant BAT data entries
using the arrow keys and selecting a different time sensitivity filter.
On the occasion
that a photo was taken well after the BAT entry was made,
the 24 hours and all filter features
allow the user to peruse all BAT entries
made in a day or during the entire audit available for assignment to the photo.
The filter clear filter for unassigned photo buttons is so that photos
that are not assigned data can still be quickly filtered
by adding this filter and expanding the photo timestamp filter to all day,
it is possible to quickly clean up any orphaned photos
and make final assignments.
The ignore picture button simply deletes the photo
from consideration in the assignment process.
This is useful for clearing photos that are either blurry or not useful.
This button does not delete the source photo.
However, once cleared, that photo cannot be assigned new data
unless it is reloaded as part of a new processing batch.
The clear data button will clear the information assigned to a photo.
Note that assigning data to a photo is
as simple as selecting a different assignment button.
There is no need to clear the data first.
The process final close out button allows you to finalize
all connections between data entries and uploaded photos.
It also removed all instances of photo
record created from the notes in each data entry.
This should only be done once
there are no more photos to add and the audit is complete.
All the aforementioned information and more is available
in the user guide as well as additional best practices.