Hi, I’ve captured 360 footage, walking and cycling, with my GoPro max 2.
I’ve been having issues uploading it with the Mapillary uploader. I get notifications that the GPS is not present in the datafile. While the GPS was switched on. The images in the GoPro media library show a globe, so I think the GPS is in the data:
The GPS needs to “lock on”, and it takes a time. When it locks on, the icon changes from dark grey to blue. Did you check if the GPS icon was blue before recording? This is something I had problems with too initially, I thought the dark grey icon was enough.
Both, I once started a photo sequence with the grey icon, it become blue after a while, so part of the sequence had georeferenced pictures and some didn’t.
What I usually do is just waiting for it to turn blue, but it takes quite a time sometimes, and drains battery “for nothing”. But I don’t know if there’s a better method atm. Also there’s no notification or audio clue when it locks on, so you have to check from time to time if it locked on.
Btw I think the “globe icon” you mentioned just means that the file is a 360 file. But I don’t have the GoPro handly now so I can’t check.
Great tips folks! I’ve updated the help center article to be more clear about this: “Ensure GPS has “locked” before you start recording - this requires a clear view of the sky and about a minute. The GPS icon will turn blue on the MAX2 and white on the MAX to indicate a successful GPS lock.”
Wouldn’t be better to add that text to the “Ensure GPS is on” paragraph only instead of repeating it in the three (walk, bike, car) following paragraphs? It would reduce the “wall of text” effect.
Certainly, this could be compacted to and made more clear with (no LLMs used):
Ensure GPS is turned on. Wait for the GPS icon to turn blue on MAX2 or white on MAX before recording. Bad weather or an occluded location can extend the wait time.
It’s a little complicated, because GPS being on is not the same thing as GPS having a lock (it is on, and its acquired satellites) - sometimes people just read the section they care about (e.g. bike or driving, etc), so trying to catch them there
When looking at the Mapillary front page, one may be under the impression that capture instructions and help are a bit too deeply nested or could be made more prominent compared to and with respect to map exploration and capture apps. In other words, it might help to visually and spatially elevate capture instructions to the same level of importance as map exploration and capture apps. Although I am not a webpage designer nor I have any field study numbers, I think that psychologically for newcomers three things should be kept visually and spatially relatively close together: exploring the map, Mapillary apps (or generally capturing), and capture instructions or help.
Currently, the path for newcomers looks somewhat like this:
Download the app → Google Play or App Store → user clicks install on the external app store (you “lost” the user) → user runs app → user more or less pays attention to capture instructions in the app
user scrolls down (if they even do so) → See our camera recommendations → user sees camera options (end of the line for most users here) → user maybe goes further to finally see a help page or instructions
Perhaps it would help to put capture instructions after capture options that contributors can choose from but before upload options, in the sense that “before you capture, read this”. So, replacing “Download the app” with the following might work better?
Capture or Contribute (whatever you like better) → Choose your equipment: , 2D‑, or →
Capture instructions for → Download the app → and so on…
Capture instructions with 2D‑ → Upload instructions, i.e. Desktop Uploader or mapillary_tools
Capture instructions with → Upload instructions, i.e. Desktop Uploader or mapillary_tools
By “capture instructions”, I do not mean that users should be simply dumped on a help.mapillary.com page but rather a visually simple diagram of the things to do and things not to do with some simple basic numbers for , , and . If I am not mistaken we already have or had something like this. Imho the help pages should go much deeper than these simple instructions. The help pages should not only describe what to do and not to do for each capture device and mode of transportation but especially explain why one should or should not do certain things when capturing, mention common quirks and bugs, and discuss workflows.
By the way, are Mapillary Help pages permalinks? If not it might be a good idea to make sure they are, especially for when they are used on the forum.
Ensure GPS is on” paragraph only instead of repeating it in the three (walk, bike, car) following paragraphs? It would reduce the “wall of text” effect.
, 2D‑
, or 
, 
, and 
. If I am not mistaken 
we already have or had something like this. Imho the help pages should go much deeper than these simple instructions. The help pages should not only describe what to do and not to do for each capture device and mode of transportation but especially explain why one should or should not do certain things when capturing, mention common quirks and bugs, and discuss workflows.