GOwin's Diary

A more inclusive mapping party setup, for same-day imagery collection and mapathons.

Posted by GOwin on 18 January 2024 in English. Last updated on 24 January 2024.

Objectives

Guests who show up during mapping activities don’t always have the same level of motivation, equipment, or goals for participating. Some may like to just learn and collect imagery, but are not keen to edit. Some may prefer to just edit, and not go out in the field.

Nobody is even sure if you’d see the same faces again in the next event, so investing too much time on specific (or “better”) tools are deferred, to focus on simpler tools that gets the job done.

A collage of sample photos taken with OpenCamera

The Toolset

a smartphone with OpenCamera - an open-source camera app for Android smartphones, specifically for the following features
- auto-level - when mobile (i.e., walking, or especially on bikes), to automatically keep level camera shots
- infinity focus to for a clearer photo of the scene, rather than detected or nearby objects.
- capture photos at set intervals (e.g. 5s) and unlimited repeats
- designate a folder for storing photos (i.e. a different folder to capture sequences, separate from your regular photos)
- I don’t use iOS, so I’m not yet aware of camera app options on that offers a feature-set similar to OpenCamera.
Panoramax/GeoVisio - a set of of open source tools to serve, host georeferenced photos, similar to KartaView and Mapillary.
a selfie-stick, or smartphone holder or harness for bikers - selfie stick is optional for folks on foot, but for user safety, some kind of holder or harness is strongly recommended for those on bikes or scooters.
For a low-tech setup, consider using FieldPapers for assigning coverage, and for actual data collection.
- Mobile apps may be good enough for basic editing or digitizing POIs collected from the field.

Onboarding

Training is stream-lined, with everyone using the same app.
Optional signup for hosting geo-referenced photos.
- Photos can then be collected immediately after data collection and uploaded by the organizers, or a different user (e.g. a separate account for images collected by users without accounts.)

Smartphone caddy

Most folks don’t have action cameras, but most smartphones are more than adequate for the job.

I found this silicone caddy, that securely holds a smartphone and attaches to the handlebar, even on badly paved roads.

About ~2 USD. Cheap enough to get a few, for lending out during activities.

A ~2 USD caddy - secure, cheap and effective!

My bike has a Mickey Mouse handlebar, and some parts actually showed up slightly in the photo, but since the camera is set to infinity focus, the rest of the visible scene remained sharp.

Panoramax/Geovisio

Photos uploaded to Panoramax are immediately available a few minutes after upload, and they can be used for editing OpenStreetMap on iD or JOSM

Screenshot of the Panoramax website.

At the moment, regions outside France don’t render at lower zoom levels. May, or may not work for you, depending on what you’re doing.

Mapathon, Digitizing Data

When access to computers are limited, mobile phones and tablets may be good enough for digitizing simple POIs.

Thematic mapathons are fun, and simple quests may be developed for SCEE/StreetComplete, to make the most out of the app, and engage with new users with easy, simple tools that can help improve the map.

SCEE with a FieldPaper Snapshot as a background layer.

Another fun thematic editor candidate is MapComplete, which is a web-based app, with lots of built-in themes all ready for use, like this theme for hydrants and fire stations.

MapComplete theme showing Fire Stations and Hydrants

There’s also the powerful Vespucci editor, especially when paired with a mouse, for Android tablets. JOSM users will be very at home with it.

Edit: * The initial version of this post had a link to a photo gallery because I encountered issues displaying them. It seems to be working fine now, so I’m restoring the photos.

Discussion

Comment from kucai on 19 January 2024 at 03:43

One thing to check with Opencamera - infinity focus doesn’t necessarily work with all phones. On mine ( older Mi Max) it is blurry. I have to either set manual focus, or focus lock on a distant object to get sharp photos. Of course, the included factory camera app is sharper but lacks other features you mentioned for OSM photo surveying.

Comment from GOwin on 19 January 2024 at 05:23

Thank you for tip, @kucai.

I guess that I’ve been lucky so far, that auto-focus has worked on the phones I’ve tried.

But since you mentioned it, I guess I should’ve said that there are many other OpenCamera features that are very dependent on what’s available on your phone, so YMMV.

@kucai, by the way, have you been using it extensively? I actually have an action camera, so I’m only testing this out of curiousity, but would like to know how it has been working out with other folks out there.

Comment from kucai on 20 January 2024 at 08:35

Opencamera is pretty much the only app I use, the intervalometer function is essential. And depending what I am doing (personal survey and such, instead of recording for Kartaview/mapillary), I really dig the stamp GPS coordinate feature so that I don’t have to open image properties to check out the exif tags.

I set the shutter speed, ISO and aperture manually, usually setting high shutter speed since I need to minimize movement blur during capture from a moving car. Shooting perpendicular to car movement (at higher speed) is almost hopeless though since the sensor readout is too slow to prevent blurring small details like street names etc, especially house numbers.

Another bonus is the ability to trip the shutter through bluetooth. A cheapo bluetooth transmitter only costs pennies these days.

I also have a sony a6000 that provided fabulous photos with tons of details, but I am pretty scared to use it extensively. I fear that its internals will be shaken to bits by car vibrations.

Comment from jidanni on 23 January 2024 at 11:03

Perhaps mention what area those pictures are of.

Comment from eneerhut on 31 January 2024 at 00:46

Great write up as always Gowin. I’m curious which aspects of OpenCamera are most appealing relative to Mapillary? I had in on my phone for years, but never used it extensively. Sounds like I should take another look.

Comment from GOwin on 1 February 2024 at 00:15

@eneerhut Hello!

I suppose that for the existing userbase of OpenCamera , the main feature is having direct access/control over their camera’s settings. In some cases, there are hardware features that are made available, but aren’t accessible with default camera options because of the abstraction layer. Of course, that also means that, some settings/features are dependent on the user’s camera.

In the context of imagery collection (and on-boarding participants), it could be useful as an agnostic single app for capturing images, regardless of what hosting platform they end up using for their geotagged photos: Panoramax, Wikimedia Commons, KartaView, Mapillary – or something else.

Again, in the context of imagery collection, most default camera apps don’t have the ability to capture images on timer, so that’s one particular feature useful for photo-mapping activities.

I personally like the “auto-level” ability. :) With focus set to infinity, the photos look much better, and always level. :) Perfect for outdoor activities, while on the move, whether on foot, or a bike or vehicle.

We belatedly realized that people who enjoy going outdoors, taking photos, are not necessarily the same group who utilize the same photos for OSM mapping. :D

So in those cases, folks are still welcome to participate. They can have fun during the photo mapping, without signing up for anything, and later, they can choose to upload it themselves, or we can offer to do the uploading on their behalf using a generic account. A win-win for everyone, right?

The belated realization came about when we discovered area gaps in a photo mapping activity. We followed-up with the persons who volunteered for them some weeks after, they told us, they didn’t have time to fiddle with the issues they encountered with the software/OS while trying to upload them.

That was some months ago, and the photos are still unavailable, so sadly, that effort they made capturing the photos may been wasted. :

Comment from eneerhut on 2 February 2024 at 01:06

Thanks for the detailed response Erwin. It makes a lot of sense valuing the ability to match the capture settings to the phone’s capabilities and having an easy way to transfer the images.

And good to know that features such as auto-level and focal adjustment are appreciated.