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Other Tools

Beyond the core toolkit, Guardian Connector instances can include additional services that support specialized workflows. These tools are optional: deploy them when a project needs a custom web experience, wildlife media exploration, or another capability that is not covered by GC Explorer or Superset alone.

tip

Since these tools are not part of the regular Guardian Connector toolkit, you may require assistance from a Guardian Connector system administrator to deploy or configure them.

🌐 GC HTTP Server​

The GC HTTP Server is a lightweight service for serving static content directly from the Guardian Connector data lake. It runs a minimal HTTPD web server and exposes HTML, JavaScript, CSS, images, and other static assets over HTTP—without a separate build or hosting pipeline.

This fits Guardian Connector's goal of letting communities control both their data and the applications built around it. Upload a folder into the data lake with Filebrowser, point the server at that directory, and the site is available on the web. CapRover can also protect the app with built-in authentication when access should be restricted.

When to use it​

GC Explorer and Superset cover many visualization needs. Use GC HTTP Server when a project needs a fully custom experience—for example a presentation-quality map, a storytelling site, or a bespoke dashboard for a specific audience.

A typical workflow:

  1. Ingest field data with the GC Scripts Hub (for example CoMapeo observations).
  2. Build your own frontend (Leaflet, Mapbox GL JS, OpenLayers, or another framework).
  3. Upload the application into the data lake with Filebrowser.
  4. Deploy GC HTTP Server and set the DIRECTORY environment variable to the location of the uploaded folder.

Both the datasets and the web application then live in the data lake, keeping the experience lightweight and under community control.

🐻 GC Wildlife Viewer​

The GC Wildlife Viewer is an R Shiny application for exploring camera trap images and related annotations on a map with filters. It is designed to be deployed as part of a Guardian Connector CapRover instance alongside the rest of the toolkit.

The app works with exports from Timelapse: tabular data (CSV), exported images or video, and generated thumbnails. Communities can browse wildlife media by location and attributes without needing to open Timelapse for every review session.

Data and deployment notes​

  • Prepare a Timelapse selection export (full-dataset export is not yet supported). See Exporting Images for GC Wildlife Viewer for step-by-step setup.
  • Store exported files in the Guardian Connector data lake so the app can read them from a mounted volume.
  • Deploy via CapRover like other Guardian Connector services; the container HTTP port for this app is 3838.

Together with Timelapse and the Scripts Hub Timelapse connector, GC Wildlife Viewer helps turn camera trap monitoring into an accessible, shareable view for community review and decision-making.