Generally there’s no need to regularly annotate most of your images with text, arrows, or the like, since most issues or items should be fairly obvious as the subject of your photo.

However what about the rarer  occasions you need to point out something obscure, or perhaps capture a signature or create a sketch?

A few options that may prove useful.

Directly Insert Photo or Item created in other app

1. First, use the app of your choosing to capture a signature, take and edit or annnotate a photo, or import photos from a drone, sewer scope, thermo, or other camera.
2. Next save your photo or item as a standard JPG.
3. In 3D Mobile Inspector,  while in the desired field, press and hold the camera icon.  Choose “Select From Gallery” to choose the desired image from your separate Pictures/Gallery on your device.
4. Alternatively you could bookmark the field in 3D to quickly return to that spot later in the desktop software and insert it there instead (for instance if you don’t want to transfer drone or scope photos to your mobile device).

Annotate Photos Later in Desktop 3D

1. Take your photo into the 3D Mobile Inspector where desired, and bookmark its location.
2. Later after retrieving t he report into desktop, flip through your bookmarks, tap the item thumbnail in the report and use  desktop tools to annotate as needed.

App Selections Vary

Each device type (iOS, Android, Windows) has varied apps available for use, so you will need to check what might be available for your particular device system.  You may find free or paid apps have the features you wish to use.

For instance, on Android examples of possibly useful apps might include photo/image editors with annotation features (e.g. Pic Paint, Draw and Paint, etc.).  Some Drawing apps might be used to capture a signature for instance by having the  client draw their signature.

Note that once an image is inserted into 3D Mobile Inspector it becomes an integral part of the report, so you cannot annotate it further at that point or access it outside of the report. However one may tap an image thumbnail previously inserted and use menu to remove the image, and then take or insert a different image in its spot. Or one may simply bookmark an image one wishes to annotate further using features in the regular desktop 3D software later.

Other apps available for your mobile platform may allow easy adding of measurements or dimensions onto photos or drawings/sketches you might create while on site and insert into your inspections.  For example, ImageMeter, Photo Measures, or other similar apps may be a good option for some.

General 3D Mobile Inspector Image Tips and Considerations

In narrative inspections it’s easy to insert additional photos for a component or item simply by tapping the Photo button again (or using Select Image again). If your field already contains an image, it automatically copies to accommodate your additional images. Thus allowing additional iamges for the field! And if you use the special below image positioning in your main program, all your images in the fields copied for that item will neatly print side by side across the page in the final report.

Note about inserting images into special graphical forms: Special care is needed if using special graphical forms that always print a certain pre-determined way for every single report item, such as for government or other official mandated forms. This is because graphical forms would need to use specifically designated fields for images and cannot just include additional images outside of those special fields. For example, if inserting a signature into a special graphical form, like Wind Mitigation, WDO, or similar, you would want to be sure to locate the existing field already set up for including the signature and insert your signature graphic there. The same applies to other fields preset for including regular images on such special forms. 3D Mobile Inspector itself won’t know if the report is a graphical form, so you would just take care not to insert images into fields not designated for images, or to have it “copy” the field for additional images, since those copied items would not be able to link up to the final printed report design. Fortunately the vast majority of regular inspection forms are standard narrative style and not special graphical type forms, and would not need such consideration. If in doubt as to what type of form you are using, use the regular program Report Writer File > New to just view the list of form groups- form groups depicted there with a white icon are narrative, whereas yellow ones are graphical.

If including signatures, it may also be helpful to crop any white or unwanted space from the image imported into the final report before printing. Doing so is easily done by clicking the image thumbnail in the report in the regular windows 3D Inspection System and using the Crop utility. That way the image can expand to better fill the signature area provided in your forms.