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FIGS IN THE PARK
What is “Figs In The Park” all about, for many years I have enjoyed walking around various areas in Brisbane and take photos of landmarks and sometimes of trees I see along the way. I always liked to look at photos taken from the same site but year apart and compare the changes.
One of the reasons for walking was also to try to get some exercise but walking 10,000 steps and stopping 100 times to take photos is probably not the ideal exercise but at lease it is some and I enjoy doing it. (I did walk 26,600 steps in one day though.)
On 26th January, 1999 when I purchased my first digital camera on a walk along the Riverside Promenade (from Boundary Street near the Storey Bridge) to South Bank I took a picture of a fig tree on a rock wall just below the Treasury casino. The picture quality in those days was very poor but this was the start of the digital revolution and I was there for the ride.
This disk is intended to become a photographic record of figs growing in and around Brisbane.
I have not restricted my pictures to only parks but also include many other areas such as Reserves, Streets etc but I have endeavoured to keep all the sites public areas.
Most of the pictures are taken in Brisbane but some are in other areas eg Gold Coast, Ipswich, Logan, Moreton and Redlands and lately even further afield.
Because of the large scale of this project there will not be a complete copy for quite some time, but because of the nature of this project it should not matter.
My thoughts are that this disk is not like a picture book where you look at every page. That will take a long time with this disk but it is a reference for areas you may know or visit to see what is in your area.
I hope it will be a good reference in years to come – eg in 10 years are they still growing well, how they have changed. (I have already seen some trees that are struggling under modern conditions – bitumen right up to the trunk etc.)
Please make copies of this disk to give away to other interested people but please note the DVD disk is Double Layer not the standard single sided 4.7 GB but 8.5 GB. Just too much information.
This programme works even better if you copy all the data from the DVD to your hard drive and run the programme from there. Walk away while it copies though as there is a lot to copy.
If you use any of the photos or data for other projects please acknowledge my work.
Peter Scopes
30th September, 2012
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There are 189 suburbs listed in Brisbane – I have not tried to visit them all. (So far)
22nd July, 2007 Started Suburbs finished Areas Visited End of
21st July, 2008 029 390 1st year
22nd July, 2009 058 687 2nd year
22nd July, 2010 102 984 3rd year
22nd July, 2011 129 1,640 4th year
(from 22-07-11 Areas Visited now also includes areas with no figs)
27-07-11 129 1,647 Wynnum
(Areas Visited now also includes areas with no figs)
26th May, 2012 149 2,013
22nd July, 2012 5th year
30th September, 2012 156 2,056
22nd July, 2013 6th year
26th December, 2013 Now only have 25 parks to visit.
17th December, 2013 Brisbane City Council have a new list of all the parks in each suburb,
This is a major update on the original lists I have been working on. I will not be making these changes
Until I have finished visiting all the parks as too much work is involved in this.
11-03-12 BALANCE to do = 357 I would like to finish these within 2 years this would mean
doing 3.5 parks parks a week from now on.
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22nd March, 2008 changed the design of this program, I split Brisbane up into 3 areas (originally 1) & separated Sundry & outside Brisbane Program now loads quicker with fewer areas on the opening screen.
17th April, 2008 copied the entire index thumbnail to one directory only for each section to try and speed up the page opening speed. Finished 27th April, 2008
14th May, 2008 Finished input of a very basic list of all parks and suburbs into Excel To do list = 1481 still to do but still have to input all the additional data. 13th July, 2008 All Park Name & Suburb added. Only UBD reference to be added. 20th May, 2009 finished adding all UBD references.
12th July, 2008 In Excel updated all UBD page numbers to 3 digits for correct sorting
13th July, 2008 started to add all parks etc to Google Maps
20th August, 2008 started to rename all the reference areas in Google by adding the postcode as the start of the name. As Google Maps only displays 200 references at a time it was not possible to see all the references for each suburb with an A to Z index. Displays Banyo but Zillmere, which is close by, would not be on the map. (Google Earth appears to not have this limit) Still not perfect as the post codes for Fortitude Valley = 4006 then Kangaroo Point = 4169 then Birkdale = 4159.
This is the best solution I have to this challenge at the moment.
24th April, 2009 reduced the picture size from 980 x 735 to 800 x 600. This will allow the program to work on a smaller screen. The trend in LCD screens is to make them wider with less length. The other advantage is the saving of space on the DVD disk. I am getting to a stage where I will soon fill up a DVD disk, the disadvantage is the picture quality is not as good. As I already have 650 areas with the larger resolution it will take quite a while to convert them all to the lower resolution. Will display on a 15” LCD monitor with a screen size of 1024 X 768 – BUT must use F11 key for full screen display Finished converting all sites 14th June, 2009.
25th May, 2009 Arles writes new code so I no longer need the \arlesimages directory for each site now only 1 directory.
3rd April, 2010 Arles added drop down menu for index so you can go directly to any picture.
26th July, 2010 I have now reached the size limit of a single density DVD disk with 33,824 photos. I will now have to look at double density disks for the future.
6th November, 2010 Added a link to Alan Waddell web page – an inspiration to walk
23rd November, 2010 Started to add a picture of the park from nearmap.com.
Open NearMap to the required site (full screen), Open FastStone Image Viewer on top of NearMap to capture view = File, Screen Capture, Capture Window / Object, press left key of mouse & captured screen will appear in the Preview window at the bottom left corner, click on this image and it will become a full screen image, crop area required and Crop to File making sure FastStone is in the directory of the pictures you are working on, Save as = z NearMap 12th Sept 2010. Edit this file and resize to Standard 1280 x 1024 or 1024 x 1280. Save by overwriting the file name.
10th December, 2010 changed the picture size to 800 x 600 and reduced the quality from 75 to 65 and the thumbnails from 65 to 60. Still unable to find the ideal size as this is small on a large screen but too large for a laptop.
11th May, 2011 started a new numbering system for photos taken. To try a separate the different trees I am showing. I am changing all the numbers to giving each tree it’s only group of numbers. The 1st tree will start with 010 and increase from there for that tree and the next tree will start from 020 etc. I will see how this works out, it should make it much easier to work out when a tree stops and starts. This will be a long project and will probably take up to 2 years to finish.
20th June, 2011 started to work only 4 days a week at work. I will be using the Monday I have off to speed up all the parks to visit. All I have to do now is keep up with all the photos.
25th January, 2012 another change to the numbering system. The above system works well for separating each tree but in the future when I take more pictures of that tree to compare it will not work. Now I will start with 000 but add an alpha character to each photo of that tree,
Eg 000a 010a 010b 010c 010d 020a 020b 020c 020d 020e 020f 030a etc. – each number will be all the pictures of one particular tree.
In the future when I take more pictures of a tree I will increase the number by 1 from 000a to 001a etc. This will at put the trees in order but working out some of the trees in the future and comparing it to the past may become a challenge.
26th January, 2012 Originally had 2 lists of parks with figs and one without.
To make it easier to see all the parks I have visited I have merged the 2 lists into 1.
Only one problem I now have about 300 parks without a picture, I will sort that out over the next few years.
17th February, 2012 Started to use AKVIS Enhancer ver 13 a great programme to automatically editing a photo for the best colour. The best thing it is doing is enhancing the dark parts of the photo and making them much more visible. A tree with a lot of foliage without direct sun on the foliage tends to become very dark.
I intend using this programme for all future photos I take.
1st April, 2012 Started to change all the file name to incorporate the date photo taken
Eg 000a.jpg now 000a 26th October 2008. Will be easier in the future when I take more pictures of the same tree to start comparing them.
11th November, 2012 Started to compress files even more after compressing and enhancing with AKVIS I use FastStone to save all the files with 70% compression. No visible sign of degradation on screen.
16th December, 2013 BCC have updated the list of parks by suburb, this is the first change since I started
With my original list. There are quite a few changes which will take quite a long time to upgrade.
Excel BCC List = marked park with _ok if converted the new list of parks. CARS10_ok etc
9th March, 2014 In excel spreadsheet added a Google Maps link to the UBD reference. In the future the UBD/Gregorys map references may become redundant. These links will take a few years to added them all.
1st May, 2014 The above changes to the UBD Google link not always working properly. Found out it was adding .au the the reference because I was using the older version on Google maps. Now starting to convert all the links to the new short reference created by Google new maps.
29th July, 2014 Started to look at putting all parks with no figs with the main A to Z list. This will add
A name to the main index of all parks. 4th August, 2015 Now have names only of in A to Z screens.
Still have to link all the files
2nd September, 2014 When I have taken my original photos I am finding out I have not taken enough.
Especially when trying to identify some figs, all photos need more background. From now on increasing
The number of photos taken for each tree. Also sometimes adding a notes page where more information
When returning next time will be useful.
4th August, 2015 Started to create new screens for screens with more than 2 letters
Eventually to split up IJ, PQ and TU. Starting on U but could take a month or so to finish all.
10th August, 2015 Added another column to Excel spreadsheet for Qty. This is the total number of trees in a park. Another project that will take quite a while before finished.
17th December, 2015 Changed date from 1-01-2015 to 1st January 2015 for directories and leave out UBD when creating file.
17th January, 2016 Finished adding all No Figs In The Park to the main index instead of a combined file.
12th July, 2016 Increased to size of pictures from 800 x 600 to 1200 x 900 and quality to 80% & 6 per page
And add a counting number to each new tree for a total number of trees in each park.
9th August, 2016 Split up I P T and W from IJ PQ TU WX. This will take a few years to convert all parks over.
23rd April, 2017 Started to rename the master files with NO FIGS so NO FIGS is before the UBD.
8th November, 2017 Started to add a tree number jpg to all parks from now on.
20th May, 2018 Started to use Photolemur 2.2 instead of AKVIS Enhancer
20th October, 2018 Updated ARLES changed all GIF files to JPG
4th November, 2018 Started to upgrade all the old photos with Photolemur 3 Changed MAP = Number to P
10th July, 2019 Finished upgrade of all photos with Photolemur
18th July, 2019 Started to use OpenStreetMap for location
1st July, 2020 Using Luminar 4 instead of Photolemur 3
27th July, 2020 Started to us Queensland Globe by Queensland Government instead of Google Earth
Google Earth not being upgraded regularly and 2019 version is poor quality. Last good version was in 2017
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In the parks I have visited I have not necessarily photographed every fig but normally a majority.
I have not tried to put names to any of the figs but if they have a name I have photographed it.
The photo with a tree name is the last in the series for that tree, after the foliage photos.
All UBD references are from the 2005 Brisbane edition but because of the way the maps are referenced any version will be compatible. “where would you be without your UBD ?”
Information for all the parks has come form the Brisbane City Councils web site where there is a very comprehensive list of the suburbs with all the parks in each along with a map which can be used to help find the parks
BCC Report it:Park maintenance
BCC suburbs with list of Parks
BCC My Neighbourhood – a suburban map
Added this February, 2011 a very good map to confirm where a park is and all the parks appear to be listed.
I note that most of the park areas are named as parks even places with only a street address, I have regarded a park as having a sign with a name on it for my list. This will change the way I list these areas in the future.
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Photographic equipment used
I have taken all my photos with a Canon Power Shot SX 5IS digital camera capable of 8.0 mega pixels
All photos have been taken at 5.0 mega pixels with medium compression. 2592 X 1944
An Image Stabiliser is essential, without it a lot of the close up shots would be impossible to get.
I have used auto for most shots & P only for macro, flash & a few uncooperative autos shots.
Taking a photo of leaves from 300mm to 1m away sometimes is not easy especially when the wind will not ease off.
A few photos on this disk could have been better but overall I am quite satisfied with the quality.
The macro on this camera is very good as you can see from some of the very close up pictures I have taken.
To produce this disk I have had to cut down the picture size to 980 x 735. I started off at a higher size but due to the various monitor sizes I have had to cut the size down to fit a larger number of screens.
Unfortunately even at this size it will not display properly on a 15″ screen.
Computer Screen size —– MINIMUM screen resolution size = 980 x 735
Press the F11 key to make the screen full page and F11 again when finished works.
8th May, 2007 Canon Power Shot SX5IS
8 meg
16th November, 2008 Started to use a new camera = Canon Power Shot SX10IS
10 meg but using 6 meg only
24th April, 2010 Started to use a new camera = Canon Power Shot SX20IS
12 meg but using 8 meg only
6th October, 2010 Started to use a new camera = Canon Power Shot SX30IS
14 meg but using 7 meg only
5th February, 2011 Started to use Canon EOS 500D SLR again
Stopped using 19th February, 2011 takes a good photo most of the time but
In some situations like distant shots could focus on something closer to the camera.
Need more practice to master this camera. When taking 400 pictures a day I can
Not afford to have any of the major photos not good enough.
6th December, 2011 Started to use a new camera = Canon Power Shot SX40 HS
12 meg but using 6 meg
27th September, 2012 Started to use a new camera = Canon Power Shot SX50 HS
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The following is a list of some of my favourite programs I use to compile the DVD
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Arles Image Web Page Creator ver 7.3 – settings now 7.4.2
Files Source folder = C:\FITP\0Data
Target folder type = Other
Target dolder = C:\FITP\x
Overwrite all
Thumbnails 160 x 140 Tick = Lock aspect ratio
Advanced Mitchell Tick Sharpen = Tick Apply to resize = Tick
Save = 60 JPEG quality
Images Tick = Resize images 800 x 600 (980 x 735 would prefer 1024 x 768)
Advanced Mitchell Tick Sharpen = Tick Apply to resize = Tick
Save = 65 JPEG
900 x 675 = 230mm x 171 mm – size of picture on the screen
950 x 712 = 242 mm x 180 mm
1024 x 768 = 262 mm x 195 mm
Index Page = Columns = 5 & Tick Single page Cell pad = 5
Gallery style = Standard
Navigation = Tick Top
Image Pages – Navigation = tick Top
Options = Index Page, Tick Home = Link = \FITP\3 Page\3Page.htm
\FITP\5 Varieties\5 Varieties.htm
Titles Gallery title: = leave blank
Do not save any settings on exiting program once setup correctly.
Previous settings:
22-08-09 Changed settings Thumbnails, Advanced = Resize method = Mitchell, Sharpen =1 & Save 75%
Images Advanced = Resize method = Mitchell, Sharpen =1 & Save 75%
Resize options = Only reduce thumbnails = ticked – appears no difference on or off
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Brisbane City Council
Brisbane suburbs – this has all the information I use. Map & Parks in a suburb
My Neighbourhood
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EXCEL 
using Office Home 2010 but saving as Excel 97-2003 *.xls
A good way to look at all the data is by sorting it which can be done in many ways.
An alternative way to run the program
If you can not open the spreadsheet because you do not have Microsoft Excel you can downland a free viewer from
MEANING of Column I = BCC List
There is a list of 2 parks in Hendra, I have given these numbers 01 & 02 so my reference HEND01 means it is Bannister Park at Hendra.
XXXX99 = 99 means there is no reference – because it is probably not a park.
To edit a hyperlink = Ctrl K
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FastStone Image Viewer ver 3.90 20th October, 2009 now ver 4.60
A great programme I use this all the time now for sorting out the original pictures and transferring to various directories. It has a feature where you can set up favourite directories this is such a time saving feature. Used to add comments at the bottom right of a picture.
Has a Auto-Adjust Colours which can work very well on dark pictures.
Draw Board, Use bottom icon on left side (Fit) to see all picture in windowed full screen
2nd icon from top (Text) to create box in right hand corner
Green border Hue 80 Red 0 Sat 240 Green 128 Lum 60 Blue 0 with white centre
Border = 6 Text Style = Tahoma 32 not bold Double click in box to add text
Resize rectangle to fit into bottom right corner
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GOOGLE MAPS
Google map references
Switch from Map view to Satelite view for a great view
Roma Street Parklands
John’s tree, River Drive, CABOOLTURE
This program has been so useful for me & I would not be able to produce this disk properly without Google Maps. – now using NearMap which is more up to date and much better resolution.
To make a copy on my hard drive of all references = right click on RSS icon
Save Target or Link) as = Figs In The Park date.XML (Use shift to bypass GetRightPro)
To restore all of the edited references from the hard drive to Google Maps =
Import, Browse to find Figs In The Park.xml (delete date reference from above)
Tick Replace everything & Upload from File
To transfer info to Google Earth = Click the KML icon = View in Google Earth & Save Link As = Figs In The Park.KML
The advantage of Google Earth it that it will display all the references on the main screen.
Information:
Mountains to Mangroves
Brisbane Track maps added 28-04-12
Catalogue of the Plants in the Queensland Botanic Gardens Walter Hill Government Printer Brisbane 1875.
NearMap – similar to Google Maps but better quality and very up to date.
I am using this now as my map programme. http://www.nearmap.com and go to Maps
Note the date on the image 21st June 2011 I copied this image on 9th July 2011 that is very up to date.
What a great programme this is.
Before I go to an area to photograph I try to look at all the references on nearmap to get an idea of what is in the area. This has been so helpful.
It is very useful later when I am sorting out the pictures; it allows me to confirm where I have taken a picture from.
9th Avenue Sandgate
3rd December, 2012 stopped producing a free copy, now only available by Business subscription.
Will now have to use Google Maps.
8th June, 2014 Took out a subscription plan as they were running a special.
Advantage Personal – Single State – QLD for $79.00 for 12 months for 50mb of data a month.
This amount of data is very small but at least I can view the latest maps which will be a great help.
The previous best plan they had vas $49.00 per month for 50mb of data.
Q. How much data do I need?
It depends on what you’d like to do. 50MB covers about 4 virtual site visits per week. With 2 months of unlimited usage you can figure out what your ongoing nearmap usage is likely to be.
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ON THE WEB
LIST OF FIG NAMES =
Porcher Michel H. et al. 1995 – 2020, Sorting Ficus Names.
Multilingual Multiscript Plant Name Database – A Work in Progress. School of Agriculture and Food Systems.
Faculty of Land & Food Resources. The University of Melbourne. Australia.
Australian National Botanic Gardens Australian National Herbarium Australian Plant Name Index (APNI)
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EltraEdit – when a park is moved to another directory ver 17.10.0
1. To make all the Index Icons display = Edit C:\FITP\S.htm etc Replace 2PZ%20I with I
C:\FITP\B.htm Replace 1%20I with I
2. Move all the files from \FITP\xxxx to the new directory
Run UltraEdit
Search …. Replace In Files
Find: 1HO\1HO \FITP\Z\Z.HTM (\FITP\default.htm)
Replace With: H\H
\FITP\1HO\1HO.htm OR \FITP\2PZ\2PZ.htm
In Files/Types: *.html
Directory C:\3\
Tick = List Changed Files & Search Sub Directories
Click Replace All then YES
M O V E all directories from C:\3\ back to new directory C:\FITP\2PZ etc
../arlesimages/tsign_purple_home.gif
/FITP/2home.gif
../arlesimages/tsign_purple_index.gif
/FITP/2index.gif
../arlesimages/spacer.gif
/FITP/2spacer.gif
../arlesimages/spacer.gif
/FITP/2spacer.gif
../arlesimages/tsign_purple_next.gif
/FITP/2next.gif
../arlesimages/tsign_purple_last.gif
/FITP/2last.gif
arlesimages/tsign_purple_home.gif
2home.gif
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UBD Australian City Streets Version 6 Purchased DVD 31st October, 2009 $74.95
“Easier & more accurate way to produce the map reference”
In Excel in column “L” I have marked UBD on any site I have checked against the DVD and have confirmed is correct.
In the future I would like to have a street map of Brisbane in PDF format which I can add all my photo locations to. I have never had the opportunity to try a PDF editor so that is still in the future.
Brisbane City Council has PDF files for Brisbane but they have had to split them up into about 32 areas so having 1 map may not be very practical. But that is another job to think about next year or.
UBD Australian City Streets Version 7.1 Purchased DVD 10th June, 2014 $65.99
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To check all the html links are correct, very good and fast considering the number of
links it has to check.
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If you know of any significant trees which I have not visited yet send me a reference & if possible a picture, thanks.
pscopes@bigpond.net.au
Peter Scopes Tahoma 11
Additional info
Street- Directory.com.au Brisbane map
The following will show all the suburb boundaries for Brisbane
The following will show all the suburb boundaries for Brisbane using Google maps & the post code
National Register of Big Trees
Brisbane’s Community Parks Guide
National Register of Big Trees also American Forests – “Good luck and keep looking up”
MAP Openstreetmap.org
MAP WhereIs
BCC bushland acquisition
BCC Council’s meeting minutes (23rd March, 2014)
BCC Cycling in Brisbane (5th March, 2015)
BCC Bikeway and pathway projects (23rd March, 2014)
Brisbane Stories – Banyo
Chermside & Districts Historical Society Inc.
Northgate Ward Community News – Kim Flesser
Kedron Brook Catchment Network
Brisbane Bike Adventures
BCC Bikeway map with Google maps
Neighbourhood walks
Walking For Pleasure Brisbane Inc.
Kidstodo.com.au Playgrounds
Monument Australia
Video – The Queen Of Trees The sycamore fig of Africa
Stranglers and Banyans
Indian Tribe Masters The Art of Weaving Living Root Bridges
Karawatha Forest Protection Society Inc
Your Brisbane: Past and Present
Yeronga Memorial Park Honour Avenue
BCC Park details and events
Brisbane Kids – playgrounds
Brisbane City Council – Cityplan
The Plant List
Brismania an urban love affair
TJDWabkabout Ted and Judy
The Figs Of Borneo 13th June, 2019 from Sheryl Backhouse
Brisbane’s Botanic Treasures
Greenslopes DCP Site Demonstration Catchment Project
Xenu’s Link Sleuth (TM) ver 1.3.8 http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html