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Google Lens (on the stock Android camera app) works pretty great for identifying plants to me. I'd say it's right about 95% of the time (in New England) if I ca

by SamBam 6y ago

Google Lens (on the stock Android camera app) works pretty great for identifying plants to me. I'd say it's right about 95% of the time (in New England) if I can see a flower, and about 75% of the time for a leaf.

kazinator 6y ago
I've used Google Lens a little bit, to see if it could be used for object identification. It always seemes assume that I'm trying to buy something and tries to find products me that are somehow visually related to what it's looking at, or else to the content of some lettering that it's able to detect. So I gave up on it. Are there some settings I can tweak?
- SamBam 6y ago
  Unsure. That maybe sounds like the Google Lens standalone app from a couple years ago. The Google Lens mode with the stock camera app never shows me anything to buy. ....actually, I just pointed it my rollerball pen, and it identified the pen correctly and then showed me a link to the pen on Alibaba. But I think that was just the image it was matching. It never does that for natural objects.
  - kazinator 6y ago
    That explains it; it is the Google Lens app I used. Or does it? However, if you go to the Google Store page for it, it does tout this feature: "IDENTIFY PLANTS & ANIMALS Find out what that plant is in your friend's apartment, or what kind of dog you saw in the park." I have the current version, which was updated on August 13, 2020. I will give it another spin, and also look for the lens mode in the camera app. (My phone is from Google, so the camera is the Google one; if any Android camera app has a Google Lens mode, it should be that one.)
lanewinfield 6y ago
I was going to say, Lens works incredibly well. Working with a farm box of random vegetables that we couldn't identify, Lens had a 95% accuracy and instantly, too.
zetalemur 6y ago
"Working" can be interpreted differently. 75% accuracy (?) is not that great for predicting a specific class (depending on distribution on course). If you need high accuracy, let's say for e.g. estimating eco system performance based on specific plant distribution, 75% is very low (especially if you want to feed it into another predictor) compared to a professional field biologist.

by SamBam 6y ago

kazinator 6y ago

I've used Google Lens a little bit, to see if it could be used for object identification. It always seemes assume that I'm trying to buy something and tries to find products me that are somehow visually related to what it's looking at, or else to the content of some lettering that it's able to detect. So I gave up on it. Are there some settings I can tweak?

SamBam 6y ago
Unsure. That maybe sounds like the Google Lens standalone app from a couple years ago. The Google Lens mode with the stock camera app never shows me anything to buy. ....actually, I just pointed it my rollerball pen, and it identified the pen correctly and then showed me a link to the pen on Alibaba. But I think that was just the image it was matching. It never does that for natural objects.
- kazinator 6y ago
  That explains it; it is the Google Lens app I used. Or does it? However, if you go to the Google Store page for it, it does tout this feature: "IDENTIFY PLANTS & ANIMALS Find out what that plant is in your friend's apartment, or what kind of dog you saw in the park." I have the current version, which was updated on August 13, 2020. I will give it another spin, and also look for the lens mode in the camera app. (My phone is from Google, so the camera is the Google one; if any Android camera app has a Google Lens mode, it should be that one.)

lanewinfield 6y ago

I was going to say, Lens works incredibly well. Working with a farm box of random vegetables that we couldn't identify, Lens had a 95% accuracy and instantly, too.

zetalemur 6y ago

"Working" can be interpreted differently. 75% accuracy (?) is not that great for predicting a specific class (depending on distribution on course). If you need high accuracy, let's say for e.g. estimating eco system performance based on specific plant distribution, 75% is very low (especially if you want to feed it into another predictor) compared to a professional field biologist.