03 / Project
Field Notes
A visual research platform for documenting environmental data.
2025 · Software Engineer · Research Tool
Overview
Field Notes helps researchers collect photographs, samples, and observations from the field and return them as a structured visual record. It is built for work that happens outdoors and is reviewed later — slowly, with context, against previous seasons.
The Problem
Environmental teams were capturing rich material on phones and cameras, then losing its meaning in folders named by date. Location, weather, and protocol notes lived in separate notebooks. Comparing sites across years required a person who remembered the trip.
The Approach
Each entry is a note with a place, a time, and a set of media. The archive is browsed as a landscape of images first, with scientific metadata available but never shouting. Collections can be assembled by site, season, or question. Export is treated as a publication step, not an afterthought.
Implementation
A TypeScript web client talks to a Python service that handles ingest, EXIF and geospatial extraction, and thumbnail pipelines. Originals are stored in object storage. PostgreSQL holds the research graph: sites, visits, observations, and links between them. Search is constrained to fields researchers actually use.
Outcome
Field material remains attached to its context. Teams can reconstruct a site visit months later, and seasonal comparisons no longer depend on personal memory or informal file conventions.
Technology
TypeScript · Python · PostgreSQL · S3
