OpenStreetMap
Frustration with Mapillary's minimal Android support
Posted by JesseAKARaccoon on 11 February 2021 in English.What I WANT to do is take Mapillary photos with my phone’s wide angle lens. If I could find a way to easily do this, Mapillary would be a productive way to have fun and adventure! Maybe even a good excuse to buy a GoPro.
However, I have an Android phone and Android tablet. I don’t have a traditional desktop computer. I’ve found that Mapillary’s support for users without an Apple nor Windows device has been…completely minimal. And it’s frustrating me to the point of burnout.
In terms of editing OSM, images taken with the standard lens on the Mapillary Android app can be nearly useless sometimes. I’ve had plenty of instances where I’ve been unable to verify street names, other signage, etc. Gathering house addresses, names of businesses, and other features not DIRECTLY near the road is often impossible. By the time something is close enough to see well, it’s out of frame or blocked by the vehicle ahead of me.
Plus, aesthetically, having imagery that only looks straight down roads is super-unappealing. It squanders Mapillary’s ability to stitch nearby photos together.
The last few days, I’ve instead been taking pictures with my wide angle lens on OpenCamera. The results have been REALLY useful for OSM editing, and creating pleasing Mapillary image collections.
The problem is, the only option for uploading is the Web uploader – I can’t use the Desktop uploader.
So EVERY sequence I submit, I need to personally, MANUALLY hunt down duplicate images (from standing still at intersections) AND normalize the sequence. And make sure no sequence is too big. AND the web uploader behaves frustratingly when you’re using a touch screen instead of the mouse it expects you to use.
Anyone got a straightforward fix for this?
Discussion
Comment from vorpalblade on 11 February 2021 at 17:42
You may want to look at mapillary_tools. It is a command line tool to upload images. The README has some examples.
It does look for duplicate images, and doesn’t upload them. You can also normalize the sequence, although I recommend turning on the compass in OpenCamera instead (you will have to recalibrate the compass every so often, it gives a popup).
Comment from GOwin on 12 February 2021 at 03:29
This is interesting. Thanks for sharing.
Do you mind sharing links to some of your sequences you took using OpenCamera?
Comment from JesseAKARaccoon on 12 February 2021 at 05:17
@vorpalblade – Oh, I’d heard of that. Good thinking, I’d love to use it! Except… is running that on an Android device a straightforward process? I see installation info for Windows, iOS, and Linux. Oh, gosh, I’d have to root one of my devices, wouldn’t I…?
I do turn on the compass on OpenCamera, but it’s very often off by about 20+ degrees to the right, and sometimes off by much more in a random direction. Can’t seem to get better accuracy than that…
@GOwin – Sure thing! Here’s one of driving on a sunny day, on a road I liked (mostly). Images were taken every 0.5 seconds. I’ve since changed to every 1s because I’ve found that my GPS EXIF data updates slightly less often than twice a second, resulting in about 15% overlapping images. The overlapping took quite a while to clean up using my phone… :
Link – https://www.mapillary.com/app/?lat=40.863244080555575&lng=-124.07715188333333&z=17&tab=uploads&pKey=xK6aptjrElhWX52aIUxOHW&x=0.5193214895634117&y=0.4894374844345887&zoom=0&focus=photo
Image key – xK6aptjrElhWX52aIUxOHW
This next sequence was taken out on a hike shortly afterwards. OpenCamera set to repeat every 3 seconds. Just held my phone by hand,, walking at moderate pace:
Link – https://www.mapillary.com/app/?menu=false&lat=40.58335066666666&lng=-124.15694425000004&z=17&tab=uploads&pKey=BzBx5v51dnjUQOMN2syAvQ
Image key – BzBx5v51dnjUQOMN2syAvQ
Comment from GOwin on 12 February 2021 at 05:27
Thanks for sharing the links. Some of these post-capture processing you’re doing is hard on mobile, and thanks to mapillary_tools, a lot less hard on the desktop.
Comment from JesseAKARaccoon on 13 February 2021 at 07:12
Okay, so…
I found out how to run command lines and install basic Linux packages on my phone without rooting it.
BUT
You need Python 2 to install mapillary tools (3 won’t work), but Python 2 has been so thoroughly retired in favor of Python 3, that I can’t use it nor mapillary_tools without rooting my phone…
Although I love Mapillary as a concept, and will continue to contribute, it feels like development of the Android app and mapillary_tools has been essentially abandoned.
Comment from JesseAKARaccoon on 13 February 2021 at 12:49
NEVER MIND, I JUST INSTALLED mapillary_tools! And I’m excited to give it a try!
Comment from GOwin on 15 February 2021 at 03:46
@JesseAKARaccoon, do keep us posted how mapillary_tools on Android works out for you. :)
Comment from JesseAKARaccoon on 15 February 2021 at 07:19
Sure! I have new entries with how I installed mapillary_tools, and how well it’s working. It’s reduced my effort with processing images significantly.