A model is only as good as the reality you test it against. That's why VisScanner founder Wytse Punter is soon pulling on the boots and joining a fish-stock survey run by ATKB.
ATKB is an environmental consultancy that has professionally surveyed fish stocks in the Netherlands since 1996 — on behalf of water boards, for the EU Water Framework Directive. Using seine nets, fyke nets, gill nets and electrofishing, they sample the size and composition of the fish stock: which species, which numbers, which sizes. Exactly the kind of ground truth a data product like ours runs on.
Why sampling is the ground truth
VisScanner is built on open data — catch records, water quality, biodiversity. But that data comes from surveys like this one. Going along yourself means seeing how those numbers are made: how an electrofishing transect is worked, why a crew picks one bank over another, and what ends up in the net that never reaches a dataset.
That last point isn't idle curiosity. In our own imagery research we ran into a sampling bias — surveys are, after all, done where a crew can get to. A day on the water is the best way to understand how that data comes about, and how to account for it honestly.
What we hope to take away
- A feel for how representative our catch data really is.
- Ground truth to sense-check our habitat and spot predictions against.
- Images and stories from the waterside — because data only convinces once you've seen the place behind it.
We'll report back once it's done. Want to follow the founder? You can, via the founder page.
This is an announcement; the write-up follows afterwards.