5 ms·

Openly Licensed Streetview with Panoramax

106 points by maelito 2y ago

Rygian 2y ago
At least in the instance I've used, my pictures end up published with a link to my personal OSM account, and with the full dump of Exif data coming from my camera (including bits that are irrelevant for this kind of picture). This has privacy implications. Caveat emptor.
Kye 2y ago
The only coverage in the entire southeastern US is a gas station in Alabama. It's an interesting project but "openly licensed streetview" is overselling it by several football fields in any country.
- stevage 2y ago
  You know this site is about startups, right? Literally every startup pitch is about what they hope to eventually create, it's not about what they actually have now.
- globular-toast 2y ago
  OpenStreetMap started as a blank canvas before we made it. This isn't about some dataset you can freely pillage, it's about an open platform you can use to create our streetview.
  - Kye 2y ago
    That doesn't really address my comment, which was about the framing in the blog post. It's not an openly licensed Street View. It's not even an openly licensed Street Side (Bing). It isn't even close to an openly licensed Panoramio. It has the potential, but framing sets expectations and mine were not met. This is feedback for the author and anyone around the project trying to come up with a pitch. Focus on what it could be, don't try to say it is something it isn't (yet).
  - maelito 2y ago
    Huge difference though : one person with a car and some energy can panoramax-map most of a city in one day. The same cannot be said of one person in one day for mapping the data on OSM. Expect Panoramax to grow way faster than OSM :)
- marisen 2y ago
  There are currently only 2 panoramax instances. One from IGN (french "National Geographic Institute) and one from the french OSM charter. This is obvious by looking at the coverage the world. France it where the majority of the coverage is. The coverage of most cities is actually pretty impressive for a young project. While the UI and coverage is not necessarily on par with street view, it's still pretty usable in France. Secondly Panoramax is first built for OSM contributors/mappers, not for end users. The blog reflects this in the tldr: "If you are interested in contributing"
botanical 2y ago
They should import data from Mapillary as I see the whole of South Africa is missing. Although most libre licensed products have poor image quality; I hope that improves.
- maelito 2y ago
  Some French cities have good quality 360° pictures https://api.panoramax.xyz/#focus=pic&map=20/48.580583/7.741854&pic=abb8a19b-d922-48b0-8a18-be66479c4b04&pic_type=equirectangular&speed=250&theme=default&xyz=29.96/-0.61/30 https://api.panoramax.xyz/#focus=pic&map=20/48.580583/7.7418... One user coded a script to download your mapillary images and reupload them on panoramax https://forum.geocommuns.fr/t/outil-mapillary-download-pour-recuperer-ses-photos-depuis-mapillary/1033 https://forum.geocommuns.fr/t/outil-mapillary-download-pour-...
nickreese 2y ago
Kinda hijacking the thread but... My hypothesis is that we will look back and see that Streetview imagery is a goldmine for AI and will be a path to being able to answer HARD questions about the real world. The insane thing is there are only like 7 companies that actually have meaningful datasets. I spent 1.5 years studying the geospatial space and went so far as buying a Mosaic51 and scanning the entire country of Andorra as a test before looking at buying the camera manufacture. Ultimately I walked away from buying the company after issues with the family office I was working with... but long story short I believe streetview imagery will be a gold mine in the future. If anyone is working in the space. Feel free to ping me, happy to chat and even make intros to the space. If you are training an AI, ping me as well. Happy to open my images up to the right person to make something "country scale" (160k images... every 3 meters with RTK labeled gnss data).
- globular-toast 2y ago
  I have always wondered if/when Google will start using their streetview data to improve mapping. They could (in theory) generate directions like "turn left after the green building" and find speed limits, road surface, width, and potentially even bus routes and stuff like that. They don't seem to, though. The routes they generate are always incredibly naive when it comes to actual road type, like "let's go up this single track road with a 20% gradient to save 2 minutes". Curious whether you think this is more than just improving mapping/routing related stuff, though.
  - Arelius 2y ago
    To be clear, streetview was originally built to improve mapping. You can thank the wealth of street names and address labels on streetview.
    - maelito 2y ago
      Indeed. Google is a crawler, not only of the digital world. "Crawling the physical web". http://graphics.stanford.edu/projects/cityblock/ http://graphics.stanford.edu/projects/cityblock/
nullc 2y ago
Perhaps relevant to this subject, there are now <$400 three-band GNSS compass receivers (e.g. two three band receivers in a single unit so you can run two antennas with a meter or two baseline and get accurate headings in addition to position), based on the Unicorecomm UM982 chipset. E.g. https://www.ardusimple.com/product/simplertk3b-compass/ https://www.ardusimple.com/product/simplertk3b-compass/ (There are other vendors, but I've done business with this one before) I mention it because for imaging, small heading errors have way more impact on where you're looking than small position errors but single antenna gps doesn't really give you headings except with assumptions from motion. I've got one sitting in a box here, haven't tried it out yet but plan to soon...
maelito 2y ago
In case you wonder, Panoramax instances are 100 % French for now. Even if the OSM-FR instance can be used for photos outside of France, don't expect yet to see lots of international photos on it. It takes time to communicate and convince people it's a good idea. In France though, a few months ago, there was not really more than one big french city (Strasbourg) captured in 360°. Now, more than ten big cities have interesting coverage. Check out this link to see a map of all the 360° photos https://api.panoramax.xyz/#focus=map&map=7.33/47.583/0.742&pic_type=equirectangular&speed=250&theme=default https://api.panoramax.xyz/#focus=map&map=7.33/47.583/0.742&p... In fact, lots of municipalities already have 360° photos of their streets... sleeping on their servers. Interesting fact : in France, public funded administrations must open their data, by law, exceptions aside. Disclaimer : I'm not working on the Panoramax project, but plugged it on https://cartes.app/?choix+du+style=oui&rue=oui#6.67/47.493/2.177 https://cartes.app/?choix+du+style=oui&rue=oui#6.67/47.493/2... (https://github.com/laem/cartes https://github.com/laem/cartes), the French open source alternative to Google Maps, which is in dire need of good quality 360° photos !
- Iulioh 2y ago
  They don't make it easy to contribute to the project... Between only French forum, French FAQ on the website (English website) and dead links...it's...uhm
  - jraph 2y ago
    Give it time, it seems really new. I discovered its existence at a local OSM gathering just this Monday. I was so happy.
  - marisen 2y ago
    It's a french project funded in part by the french government and the only current instances are for french contributors. They actually make it pretty easy to contribute... for the people that will contribute in France.
snapplebobapple 2y ago
So if i wanted to buy a good setup to contribute to this what should i buy? The faq andd doxumentation appear to be in french.
- maelito 2y ago
  The recommanded setup is a GoPro Max. Indeed the guide is only in French for now... https://panoramax.fr/comment-participer-a-panoramax/guide-collecte-pieton-debutant https://panoramax.fr/comment-participer-a-panoramax/guide-co...
chaz6 2y ago
It is good to see an alternative with a friendly license. As storage gets cheaper I would like to see seasonal as well as night/day images for streetview photography.
nakedrobot2 2y ago
I tried offering the author of this to publish a huge dataset on it and he seemed oddly uninterested.
- NetToolKit 2y ago
  Out of curiosity, could you describe the data set here?
- maelito 2y ago
  Hi, which "author" (it's a French gov funded project), and which dataset ?

106 points by maelito 2y ago

At least in the instance I've used, my pictures end up published with a link to my personal OSM account, and with the full dump of Exif data coming from my camera (including bits that are irrelevant for this kind of picture). This has privacy implications. Caveat emptor.

Kye 2y ago

The only coverage in the entire southeastern US is a gas station in Alabama. It's an interesting project but "openly licensed streetview" is overselling it by several football fields in any country.

stevage 2y ago
You know this site is about startups, right? Literally every startup pitch is about what they hope to eventually create, it's not about what they actually have now.
globular-toast 2y ago
OpenStreetMap started as a blank canvas before we made it. This isn't about some dataset you can freely pillage, it's about an open platform you can use to create our streetview.
- Kye 2y ago
  That doesn't really address my comment, which was about the framing in the blog post. It's not an openly licensed Street View. It's not even an openly licensed Street Side (Bing). It isn't even close to an openly licensed Panoramio. It has the potential, but framing sets expectations and mine were not met. This is feedback for the author and anyone around the project trying to come up with a pitch. Focus on what it could be, don't try to say it is something it isn't (yet).
- maelito 2y ago
  Huge difference though : one person with a car and some energy can panoramax-map most of a city in one day. The same cannot be said of one person in one day for mapping the data on OSM. Expect Panoramax to grow way faster than OSM :)
marisen 2y ago
There are currently only 2 panoramax instances. One from IGN (french "National Geographic Institute) and one from the french OSM charter. This is obvious by looking at the coverage the world. France it where the majority of the coverage is. The coverage of most cities is actually pretty impressive for a young project. While the UI and coverage is not necessarily on par with street view, it's still pretty usable in France. Secondly Panoramax is first built for OSM contributors/mappers, not for end users. The blog reflects this in the tldr: "If you are interested in contributing"

botanical 2y ago

They should import data from Mapillary as I see the whole of South Africa is missing. Although most libre licensed products have poor image quality; I hope that improves.

maelito 2y ago
Some French cities have good quality 360° pictures https://api.panoramax.xyz/#focus=pic&map=20/48.580583/7.741854&pic=abb8a19b-d922-48b0-8a18-be66479c4b04&pic_type=equirectangular&speed=250&theme=default&xyz=29.96/-0.61/30 https://api.panoramax.xyz/#focus=pic&map=20/48.580583/7.7418... One user coded a script to download your mapillary images and reupload them on panoramax https://forum.geocommuns.fr/t/outil-mapillary-download-pour-recuperer-ses-photos-depuis-mapillary/1033 https://forum.geocommuns.fr/t/outil-mapillary-download-pour-...

nickreese 2y ago

Kinda hijacking the thread but... My hypothesis is that we will look back and see that Streetview imagery is a goldmine for AI and will be a path to being able to answer HARD questions about the real world. The insane thing is there are only like 7 companies that actually have meaningful datasets. I spent 1.5 years studying the geospatial space and went so far as buying a Mosaic51 and scanning the entire country of Andorra as a test before looking at buying the camera manufacture. Ultimately I walked away from buying the company after issues with the family office I was working with... but long story short I believe streetview imagery will be a gold mine in the future. If anyone is working in the space. Feel free to ping me, happy to chat and even make intros to the space. If you are training an AI, ping me as well. Happy to open my images up to the right person to make something "country scale" (160k images... every 3 meters with RTK labeled gnss data).

globular-toast 2y ago
I have always wondered if/when Google will start using their streetview data to improve mapping. They could (in theory) generate directions like "turn left after the green building" and find speed limits, road surface, width, and potentially even bus routes and stuff like that. They don't seem to, though. The routes they generate are always incredibly naive when it comes to actual road type, like "let's go up this single track road with a 20% gradient to save 2 minutes". Curious whether you think this is more than just improving mapping/routing related stuff, though.
- Arelius 2y ago
  To be clear, streetview was originally built to improve mapping. You can thank the wealth of street names and address labels on streetview.
  - maelito 2y ago
    Indeed. Google is a crawler, not only of the digital world. "Crawling the physical web". http://graphics.stanford.edu/projects/cityblock/ http://graphics.stanford.edu/projects/cityblock/

nullc 2y ago

Perhaps relevant to this subject, there are now <$400 three-band GNSS compass receivers (e.g. two three band receivers in a single unit so you can run two antennas with a meter or two baseline and get accurate headings in addition to position), based on the Unicorecomm UM982 chipset. E.g. https://www.ardusimple.com/product/simplertk3b-compass/ https://www.ardusimple.com/product/simplertk3b-compass/ (There are other vendors, but I've done business with this one before) I mention it because for imaging, small heading errors have way more impact on where you're looking than small position errors but single antenna gps doesn't really give you headings except with assumptions from motion. I've got one sitting in a box here, haven't tried it out yet but plan to soon...

maelito 2y ago

In case you wonder, Panoramax instances are 100 % French for now. Even if the OSM-FR instance can be used for photos outside of France, don't expect yet to see lots of international photos on it. It takes time to communicate and convince people it's a good idea. In France though, a few months ago, there was not really more than one big french city (Strasbourg) captured in 360°. Now, more than ten big cities have interesting coverage. Check out this link to see a map of all the 360° photos https://api.panoramax.xyz/#focus=map&map=7.33/47.583/0.742&pic_type=equirectangular&speed=250&theme=default https://api.panoramax.xyz/#focus=map&map=7.33/47.583/0.742&p... In fact, lots of municipalities already have 360° photos of their streets... sleeping on their servers. Interesting fact : in France, public funded administrations must open their data, by law, exceptions aside. Disclaimer : I'm not working on the Panoramax project, but plugged it on https://cartes.app/?choix+du+style=oui&rue=oui#6.67/47.493/2.177 https://cartes.app/?choix+du+style=oui&rue=oui#6.67/47.493/2... (https://github.com/laem/cartes https://github.com/laem/cartes), the French open source alternative to Google Maps, which is in dire need of good quality 360° photos !

Iulioh 2y ago
They don't make it easy to contribute to the project... Between only French forum, French FAQ on the website (English website) and dead links...it's...uhm
- jraph 2y ago
  Give it time, it seems really new. I discovered its existence at a local OSM gathering just this Monday. I was so happy.
- marisen 2y ago
  It's a french project funded in part by the french government and the only current instances are for french contributors. They actually make it pretty easy to contribute... for the people that will contribute in France.

snapplebobapple 2y ago

So if i wanted to buy a good setup to contribute to this what should i buy? The faq andd doxumentation appear to be in french.

maelito 2y ago
The recommanded setup is a GoPro Max. Indeed the guide is only in French for now... https://panoramax.fr/comment-participer-a-panoramax/guide-collecte-pieton-debutant https://panoramax.fr/comment-participer-a-panoramax/guide-co...

chaz6 2y ago

It is good to see an alternative with a friendly license. As storage gets cheaper I would like to see seasonal as well as night/day images for streetview photography.

nakedrobot2 2y ago

I tried offering the author of this to publish a huge dataset on it and he seemed oddly uninterested.

NetToolKit 2y ago
Out of curiosity, could you describe the data set here?
maelito 2y ago
Hi, which "author" (it's a French gov funded project), and which dataset ?