Improved image annotation

ahblake · February 15, 2023, 1:27am

1. What is the general goal of the feature?
There are two goals here that might be better split to separate features, but I'll combine them for now;

Allow enumerators to provide neater/more useful annotations beyond freehand drawing that can be difficult on small screens or by finger input to make legible.
Currently freehand input makes text annotations quite messy, and shape/arrow drawing is irregular.
Use smaller/lower spec hardware without compromising annotated image quality
Currently the returned annotated image is resized to just under the panel resolution (some real estate used by nav buttons and image aspect != screen aspect), which is always less than sensor resolution and for some hardware, far less.
eg a Galaxy Tab A 8" has a 1280x800 (1MP) panel, so the maximum dimension for any annotated image can't exceed this, but the captured images that aren't annotated can be 3264×2448 (8MP).

2. What are some example use cases for this feature?

Being able to provide neat & clear annotation without multiple attempts freehand drawing on the screen via the placement of a small selection of elements coloured as the existing freehand pen selection
- box
- circle
- arrow / line
- text input

eg whatsapp annotations allow freehand plus rotatable/scalable shapes as arrow circle box speech bubble and text (and emoji / stickers, crop-rotate). This is the web annotation toolbar that doesn't have shapes but adds blur:

Being able to use a cheaper/smaller device that is more affordable / compact but still submit higher quality images that maximise the quality of the device camera.

3. What can you contribute to making this feature a reality?
Testing/feedback

ahblake · March 23, 2026, 3:36am

github.com/getodk/collect

Add resizing/rotate support to drawing screens

opened 01:29PM - 12 Mar 26 UTC

seadowg

needs discussion

Currently, the drawing widget input does not work well with rotation/resizing. O…n smaller devices, orientation is locked and on larger ones rotating causes the "canvas" to resize and rotates drawings. Instead: - For `draw` appearance questions the screen should work like paper: when the device is rotated the rotates with it. As an example if I'm in portrait and I draw an arrow pointing to the physical top of the device, when I rotate to landscape, that arrow should be the same size and should still be pointing at the physical top (rather than the side that's currently at facing up). The controls should always be in the bottom right of the screen in either orientation. When the image is saved, the orientation used should match the device orientation when the first stroke was drawn. - `signature` appearance questions should work the same way as above. The one exception being that a line is drawn in the centre of the screen to denote where the signature should be placed. This line does not need to appear in the saved image (as it does now). - For `annotate` appearance questions, rotation should work as with `draw`, but the image being annotated should be fit to the screen dimensions - the longer sides of the image should be placed against the longer sides of the screen. When the image is saved it should retain the original orientation. In all cases except `signature` an orientation should not be forced on any size of device. On compact devices, `signature` questions should open the screen in landscape. ## Questions - Could we retain the original image size for `annotate` rather than scaling it to fit the device? - Should signature be in the form rather than a separate screen? - Could this component be host in a `WebView` and shared with Web Forms?

I think this issue relates to this thread to a degree @seadowg?

Specifically

Could we retain the original image size for annotate rather than scaling it to fit the device?

This would really improve annotated image quality when using small devices or lower resolution devices.

Being able to zoom and then annotate more precisely would be even more of a benefit.

seadowg · March 24, 2026, 10:03am

Yeah defintiely related. The main thrust of the issue is getting the draw screen working on future devices/Android versions that don’t allow us to lock orientation.