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ARGUS User Manual

Media search

Media search is the org-wide surface for finding anything ARGUS captured or produced across operations — drone photos and video, stream recordings, radio transcripts, AI detections, map flags, and chat attachments. Reach it from the top navigation bar, or from the AI Media Search tile inside a live mission.

From a running operation, open the tile pallet and drop in AI Media Search. The tile header reads AI MEDIA SEARCH and shows the live result count. From outside a mission, the sidebar → Media entry opens the same surface scoped across every operation your org role can read.

Search modes

The tile exposes two stacked mode buttons.

Text search

Free-text against filenames, captions, chat, radio transcripts, and AI detection classes. Natural phrases work — the backend embeds the query and ranks semantically. Suggested prompts appear as chips: red car on road, person near water, building with damage, drone shadow. Press Enter or the arrow button to fire.

Drop an image onto the Drop an image here zone, or click browse to pick a file. ARGUS returns visually similar media across the selected scope. Useful for I saw this tarp earlier, show me every frame that matches.

Filters

Above the results:

  • Mission — one or more operations. Defaults to the current one when opened in-mission, and to All missions in org elsewhere.
  • Time range — last hour, last 24h, mission window, or custom.
  • Source — drone (stream), dji-dock, bodycam, survcam, webcam, manual upload.
  • Type — photo, video, audio, transcript, detection, flag.
  • Free-text — additive filter applied on top of semantic ranking.

Results

Each result card shows a thumbnail, a match score percentage, the source type badge, up to three detection tags, and the capture timestamp with source label. Layout depends on type:

  • Photos and videos — thumbnail grid. Click to open the full-size preview with metadata.
  • Transcripts — list rows with speaker callsign, waveform snippet, and the utterance highlighted around the match.
  • Geolocated media — map pin appears on the mission map when you hover the card. Click Pin on map to keep it.

Per-item actions

Hover any card to reveal:

  • Open — full-size preview with metadata drawer (operator, asset, dock, coordinates, flight task).
  • Flag as evidence (aspirational) — tags the item for chain-of-custody, writes an immutable audit record, and prevents hard-delete. Evidence items are marked with a red shield in the grid.
  • Download — presigned S3 URL, opens in a new tab. Bulk-zip over a selection (aspirational).
  • Attach to report — adds the item to the mission AI report’s highlights section. See AI reports.
  • Redact (aspirational) — launches the privacy-blur job; once the redacted copy lands, the grid badge flips to REDACTED and the original is no longer returned to non-admin viewers.

Saved queries

Click Save query beside the search bar, name it, and pin it. Saved queries retain the active filter set plus the text/image prompt and reappear as chips above the search bar. Useful for standing searches like all bodycam footage with visible firearms or all drone photos tagged vehicle in the last 72h. Saved-query share with a team is aspirational.