Construction Paper

Windows · pipeline environmental inspection

Nobody types a station number into a filename.

Construction Paper gets it from the photo itself: the GPS in the file, the nearest station point in your KMZ, and the station in front with the camera's original name still in it. It will also burn location, bearing, date and a caption onto the face of the photo, and hand you the day as a KMZ for Google Earth. Built for the ROW, by the ROW.

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Latest published release … · …

One pass over the day

Your camera numbers the photos. Construction Paper names them.

From the right-of-way to named files An inspector in a hi-vis vest photographs a pipeline right-of-way. The view tilts to a map, where the right-of-way edges, a workspace boundary, a wetland, a stream, station ticks and camera pins draw themselves. The map then lands on a laptop in a truck cab, listing photos renamed with their station numbers and a Google Earth KMZ for the day. 1043+00 1044+00 1042+00 1043+00 1044+00 1045+00 1043+00 Workspace Wetland Right-of-way N Renamed IMG_4487.JPG → 1043+00_Sire West_IMG_4487.JPG IMG_4488.JPG → 1043+00_Sire West_IMG_4488.JPG IMG_4489.JPG → 1044+00_Sire West_IMG_4489.JPG Google Earth → 9-9-26.kmz
  • 01The GPS in the photo
  • 02The nearest station in your KMZ
  • 03The station in front of the name
  • 1043+00_Sire West_IMG_4487.JPG
  • 1043+00_Sire West_IMG_4488.JPG
  • 1044+00_Sire West_IMG_4489.JPG
  • 9-9-26.kmz

What it does

Rename by station

Reads the GPS out of each photo, finds the nearest station point in your KMZ, and writes a name you can sort — station, project, original filename. Videos too, on a machine that has ffmpeg installed.

Marco Polocator

Burns location, bearing, date and a caption onto the image itself, so the photo still says where it was taken after it has been mailed, pasted into a report and printed.

Google Earth KMZ

Exports the day as a KMZ, one file for each date folder. Every photo becomes a camera pin with a field of view showing which way the camera was pointed, and a plain camera where the phone recorded no heading. Click a pin and the photo opens in the balloon. Send it and the other person sees what you saw.

Stale GPS caught

A plausibility check catches coordinates that could not be right — usually a hot phone that stopped reacquiring GPS and stamped the photo with its last known fix. The suspect photos turn red in the preview, with the reason, before anything is renamed.

Portable

One executable and no installer. Settings, layers, profiles and tile cache live beside it, so it runs from a truck laptop and leaves the rest of the machine alone. The key binds to the first computer it opens on.

Who it is for

Environmental and utility inspectors who photograph a linear project all day and have to file every photo against a station.

Availability

Construction Paper is invitation-only right now. Every copy needs its own license key and will not open without one. Email chris@chrisputnam.me and include the project you are on.

How to get a copy