CooRecorder cannot find the image file

[Barry Howe]

I'm afraid my first question starkly reveals my ignorance of computers. Indeed, this question is probably more about my computer than CooRecorder. At any rate, when trying to open a coordinate files with CooRecorder, I get the following error message:

Cannot find file
C:\Users\Barry\Pictures\Fulbright\cores\2c\Kyzyl Unkur\Kyzyl Unkur 2.jpg
as specified on line 2
#Imagefile C:\Users\Barry\Pictures\Fulbright\cores\2c\Kyzyl Unkur\Kyzyl Unkur 2.jpg
Try to find the right file?

I've got 10 .pos files in my Kyzyl Unkur folder. I can't figure out why CooRecorder won't open them today. Yesterday, they opened without any problem. All my other folders in 2c contain .pos files which open just fine. I was working on Kyzyl Unkur all day yesterday, and figure I must have done something "illegal" on my computer. Any hints? I really don't want to go back and redo all those measurements.

[Subject changed by administrator]

[Lars-Ake]

I'm afraid my first question starkly reveals my ignorance of computers. Indeed, this question is probably more about my computer than CooRecorder. At any rate, when trying to open a coordinate files with CooRecorder, I get the following error message:

Cannot find file
C:\Users\Barry\Pictures\Fulbright\cores\2c\Kyzyl Unkur\Kyzyl Unkur 2.jpg
as specified on line 2
#Imagefile C:\Users\Barry\Pictures\Fulbright\cores\2c\Kyzyl Unkur\Kyzyl Unkur 2.jpg
Try to find the right file?

I've got 10 .pos files in my Kyzyl Unkur folder. I can't figure out why CooRecorder won't open them today. Yesterday, they opened without any problem. All my other folders in 2c contain .pos files which open just fine. I was working on Kyzyl Unkur all day yesterday, and figure I must have done something "illegal" on my computer. Any hints? I really don't want to go back and redo all those measurements.

This problem might be caused by a still unknown programming error or by some (unintentional) fiddling with file names or directory names.
A good way to try clear out this type of error is to look into the pos file and see what is actually stored there.
This is best done with a simple type editor like Notepad usually found through Start/Programs/Accessories
Then you will find data of this type at the top of the .pos file

Code: Select all

#DENDRO (Cybis Dendro program compatible format) Coordinate file written as D:\ake\tree\tmp3 extra\SN_001_A2.pos
#Imagefile SN_001_A.jpg
#DPI 1600.0
#All coordinates in millimeters (mm)
SCALE 1
123.253,6.064 
121.745,5.778 

If you store your .pos files in the same directory as where you have your image files, then CooRecorder will save the image filename without the pathname as shown above. Then you can easily move or copy these files together as a pair to any other directory and open them with CooRecorder.

Though if you store your .pos file in a directory in quite another place as the image file, then CooRecorder will usually (see below) identify the image file with its full path, e.g.

Code: Select all

#Imagefile D:\ake\tree\tmp\SN001A.jpg

Then if you move both the image file and the .pos file to another directory then, when CooRecorder opens the .pos-file, it will find the name
D:\ake\tree\tmp\SN001A.jpg where there is no image file any longer.

It may be a bit clumsy to mix image files and .pos files in the same directory, so you might create a subdirectory for your image files, like D:\ake\tree\tmp2\images and store your .pos files in its parent directory, i.e. in D:\ake\tree\tmp2
Then CooRecorder will save the image file name as

Code: Select all

#Imagefile images\SN001A.jpg

i.e. as a relative path name. Then you can copy your parent directory with all your .pos files and with the images subdirectory to quite another place in your machine or to a backup disk and anyhow be able to open the .pos-files with CooRecorder as CooRecorder then uses the relative path pointing to the images directory.

When CooRecorder cannot find an image file, it offers you a way ("Try to find the right file?") to find the correct image file by browsing for it. If you find the correct image file that way you then have to save your .pos file via the command "Save as" to make the new path written to your .pos-file.

Avoid blanks within file names
As far as I have seen, CooRecorder is able to handle blank characters within file and path names. Though I do not recommend having blanks within directory names and file names because programming code is not always correct.
Better use the "_" character within the name, e.g. My_name.pos
Also very special characters like # should be avoided.
With best regards/Lars-Ake