#CompletetheMap Hamburg

A challenge to create a dense image map of Hamburg.

A few months ago we ran #CompletetheMap Berlin. This was a completely new experiment, but the local community responded well and 20,000 images were contributed over a 3 week period. An equally active community in Germany is Hamburg, so we thought it would be fun to encourage a healthy rivalry between the two cities and give Hamburg a go to #CompletetheMap.

The idea of #CompletetheMap is to divide a city into zones and then fill them in by capturing street-level imagery throughout the city. As you move through the city, your imagery of roads, bike lanes, and footpaths help to complete each zone and eventually #CompletetheMap.

There are plenty of areas throughout Hamburg that could benefit from denser street-level imagery. This challenge will allow us to gather fresh imagery for areas that need it, over a specific period of time. The data that we gather during this time can then be used for map editing and local government purposes.

Anyone living in Hamburg or passing through during this time is welcome to join the #CompletetheMap challenge. Read on for more info on how the challenge works and how you can contribute.

Follow the action here.

Getting started with Mapillary

You can contribute imagery to Mapillary using any device capable of taking geotagged images. That is imagery that contains GPS information. Most people contribute with their smartphones using the Mapillary app on [Android][1] and [iOS][2] or using thier action cameras.

You can upload directly from the smartphone apps over wifi. If you’re using an action camera, you can connect it with the iOS app and also upload via your phone. Android is not currently supported, so see our instructions for uploading via computer [here][3].

Take a look at our [getting started page][4] and the rest of our help guide [here][5].

The Challenge

Hamburg has been divided into a 4 x 4 grid. To participate in the challenge, simply capture imagery of streets, bike paths, and sidewalks between August 26th 00:00 Hamburg time and September 18th 23:59. We’ll update the colour of the zones to reflect the status of coverage across the grid. The contributor with the most images by the end date wins #CompleteTheMap Hamburg.

If you’d like to take part, make sure to charge cameras and phones, and start capturing images in your area. Good luck!

The Rules

How do I enter the challenge?

Anyone capturing within the grid will automatically participate in the challenge. You don’t need to sign up for your images to be counted.

The Grid

We will be checking coverage every day and assigning a color to each zone that represents the percentage of roads and paths for that zone. Red will represent 20% or less of coverage, yellow between 20% and 80%, and green greater than 80%. Only images captured from day one of the competition (August 26th) will be counted.

Rankings & Updates

We’ll be maintaining a live page with the results that you can visit any time here. As usual, you’ll also be able to get updates on Twitter and Facebook.

How to win

The overall winner will thus be the one to collect the most images during the challenge dates. The competition will end when all the zones go green or on September 18th, whichever comes sooner.

To keep the challenge as fair as possible, we will make sure that images taken in each zone are useful. When necessary, we’ll manually update the zone to make sure it accurately reflects the state of image coverage in that area. You’re welcome to send in feedback to tell us which zones need to be adjusted.

Invite Friends

If you would like to invite your friends to take part in the challenge, all they have to do is capture within the grid area and they will automatically appear on the leaderboard. If they want to stay updated, make sure to follow the #CompletetheMap hashtag on Facebook and Twitter.

And we’re off!

Charge your phones, get your action cameras out, and #CompleteTheMap Hamburg! Have fun exploring the city.

P.S. Nominate your city here if you’d like to see the challenge in your neighbourhood. We’ve also open sourced the code for the grid and leaderboard so that you can run the challenge yourself at any time.