Every part of the app,
explained without the fluff.
What follows is the full feature catalogue grouped the way the app is actually built: capture and detection, the map and feed, observation detail, projects and community, account and onboarding, offline, quality and trust, and security. Skim the headlines, open the bullets when you want the detail.
Built around the science,
not the other way round.
Eight feature groups that reflect how the app is actually built, from the wizard down to the secure session. Skim the headlines, or open the bullets when you want the detail.
- photo_camera01 / 08
Capture and detection
A multi-step wizard that adapts to the sample type, machine-learning detection on every photo, and per-image validation status.
- Adaptive wizard for water, air, snow
- Up to 30 photos per observation
- Numbered detection chips with confidence bands
- Pause, resume, retry on individual frames
- Sample label gives each observation a human-readable title
Photos per obs.30 - map02 / 08
The global map and feed
A clustered pin map and animated heatmap layer, plus a posts feed, global search, and observer profile sheets.
- Google Maps clusters with tap-to-expand and animated heatmap
- Filter by sample type and time window
- Posts feed with sample photo, location, sample type, detection count
- Search across sample type, location, observer, with sort by Most Recent or Most Detections
- Tap any name to open an observer profile sheet and follow in one step
- preview03 / 08
Observation detail
A three-tab detail view (Information, Detected, Data Quality), pinch-zoom on bounding boxes, inline location card, and a polished PDF export.
- Three-tab detail (Info · Detected · Data Quality)
- Pinch focus on individual detections
- Inline location card with map preview
- PDF export with cover page and per-image annotations
- Owner-only edit and delete with explicit confirmation
One-tap exportPDF - groups04 / 08
Projects and community
Public projects anyone can create or follow, project-scoped observations, leaderboards, and a member directory with follow and unfollow.
- Joined and Discover tabs, optional project avatar per campaign
- Status pills (upcoming, active, ended) on every project
- Top contributors next to follower and observation counts
- Global leaderboard with gold, silver, bronze recognition
- Member directory with haptic-confirmed follow and unfollow
- lock05 / 08
Account and onboarding
Email-based signup with explicit consent, six-digit verification, secure password handling, and a 30-day grace window on account deletion.
- First-launch onboarding carousel previews the capture flow before signup
- Six-digit one-time verification with five-minute resend window
- Hashed passwords, persistent session via iOS Keychain or Android Keystore
- In-app account deletion with two clear choices: keep observations anonymously or remove everything
- 30-day restoration window, sign back in to undo a deletion
- Email confirmations on every account-state change
- wifi_off06 / 08
Offline support
Offline-first capture with status badges, cached scientific vocabularies, and resilient sync when connectivity returns.
- Local save with pending, processing, completed, failed, and draft states
- Auto-retry on failed uploads as connectivity stabilises
- Cached lookups for sample types, equipment, weather, and protocols
- Map and feed cache for instant cold launches
Wizard offline100% - verified07 / 08
Quality and trust
Standardised vocabularies prefetched from the server, data-quality tags, detection confidence bands, and a 30-day grace window on account deletion.
- Sample types · Environments · Equipment · Filter pore sizes · Contamination protocols
- Data Quality tag (Casual · Needs ID · Research)
- Per-particle confidence band visible at a glance
- 30-day grace period on account deletion, reversible in-app
- shield08 / 08
Security and privacy by design
No third-party analytics, no crash-reporting SDK, no ad identifiers, no push notifications, no background location. The app talks to its own backend and to a hosted detection endpoint.
- TLS in transit for every request
- Bearer-token auth with seven-day lifetime and refresh
- Tokens stored in the device secure enclave
- Soft-delete with administrator-recoverable retention
Get CSI Ocean.
Submit your first observation today.
Free on iOS and Android. Twenty minutes from a curious walk to a peer-reviewable record. Every observation contributes to a shared scientific dataset.
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