OpenStreetMap

Don’t worry, I won’t write a report every week!

So, the second week of capturing imagery with the GoPro Max granted by Meta is over. I’ve uploaded around 30,000 images since I started, but I’m not quite sure how many.

Here’s a little animation of my progress. It certainly helps me to stay motivated, if I can visualize my progress:

I still have only used it cycling and walking, but I had an ebike at my disposal on Easter Monday which was great for two reasons: The streets weren’t as busy because of the holiday, and I could obviously cover more ground. This was the only day so far that the camera battery ran out of energy before me. I might borrow it again to venture out further into the country.

I used the camera on the public bus as well, but obviously couldn’t use the 360 deg function, but instead just held it against the bus window from the inside. Not ideal, but I got some coverage of roads that had not been covered on Mapillary before at all. (Those do not appear in the animation, because I filtered for 360 imagery.)

It seems that Mapillary deals with the images a bit faster than during the first couple of days; usually they are fully processed after about two days now.

Interview on local radio

Yesterday, I gave a wee interview on one of our local radio stations about the project. I had hoped to inform the public about it that way, so that I don’t get as many looks of bewilderment, but I’m not sure that very many people listen to that radio station. If you’re interested, this is the link, and it starts around 47:59. It’s a bit of a pity I discovered that holy well, because it took valuable time off the interview which could have been used to address issues about privacy or whatever. However, I had suggested mentioning the holy well to him before the interview in the hope of finding out more about it, but then I found it out between that and the interview, but he liked the local history angle, I guess, so we stuck with it.

Panoramax

I’ve also started uploading some of the images to Panoramax, more as a test than anything, because we don’t have our own Irish instance of it yet. The uploading works like a charm, only it doesn’t show a map in the background: Panoramax screenshot

There’s a storm warning in place until tomorrow evening, so I don’t know if I will be able to keep up my streak, especially since I have to cycle further to even start capturing now.

Discussion

Comment from jonnymccullagh on 8 April 2024 at 08:38

What is Panoramax ? Is there a link ?

Comment from b-unicycling on 8 April 2024 at 13:28

Et voila: panoramax

Comment from zorglubu on 8 April 2024 at 18:29

Hello, you should rather try to upload to https://panoramax.openstreetmap.fr/ You will get the background map.

The IGN instance is more for France ;-)

Comment from Datico on 8 April 2024 at 19:49

Really enjoyed reading your updates and definitely motivates to get mapping done myself. I hope they expand the lending program to Germany and for Panoramax to venture over just OSM France since it seems like a great alternative for OSM

Comment from Rjian42195 on 18 April 2024 at 15:08

hi,

can you say anything about the differency to mapillary? Great work, though.

Comment from zorglubu on 18 April 2024 at 17:11

The main differences between panoramax and mapillary are : * Mapillary belongs to Facebook, and Facebook “is” the “owner” of your pictures and could suddenly decide to stop giving free access to Mapillary * Panoramax is open and free (like in free software) and decentralised. Any organisation is welcome to build a repository, shared with all other instances.

Comment from Milhouse on 20 April 2024 at 11:49

Thanks for writing the diary - I’ve been recording street level imagery in my area (https://www.mapillary.com/app/?lat=51.50138625980165&lng=-0.33074324317226456&z=12.412109168034068) for a few years and it makes me feel less weird that other people understand the point! I started off with a GoPro Hero 9 Black and now also have a GoPro Max, partly to record evidence of dangerous driving when I’m cycling (with four reports to police over three years) and partly on the recommendation of the Mapillary forum. There’s not much more rewarding than when other people start updating OSM in your area based on imagery that you’ve captured! My biggest disappointment is that even with a GoPro Max mounted on my bike helmet, the imagery is usually too fuzzy to read addresses. One of the reasons I want to contribute is because I think the UK Address Database (The Postcode Address File) should be open data, and the closer OSM gets to a complete dataset, the less value the PAF has as a proprietary dataset that they demand megabucks for. Anyway, how have you found the image quality for reading door numbers? Thanks again! Steven

Comment from b-unicycling on 22 April 2024 at 10:44

Hi Milhouse, thanks for taking the time to comment. House numbers are not really legible on the imagery, but luckily, I had mapped them all already. In one estate where I hadn’t, I had the camera in one hand and used StreetComplete with the other which wasn’t ideal, but I didn’t walk through the estate twice.

The quality from walking with a selfie stick is still better than on the helmet, but maybe my helmet is also not stable enough in my head.

Comment from Datico on 22 April 2024 at 22:36

@zorglubu Mapillary doesn’t own the data. I’m not giving up ownership and my pictures are licensed over CC BY-SA. I’d prefer another platform but imho I think mapillary is my best option at the moment with good JOSM and iD integration as well as feeding Osmand.

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