How Mapillary helps you stumble across new things?

Hi, guys.

I’m new to Mapillary, currently living in a small town in China. First one here using Mapillary.
While I find it truly amazing to be able to map my own city, I also don’t know how long I’ll be doing this, as I’m literally alone here using it.

I read the self intro of Simon (tryl), where he said it’s awesome to map the entire town he lives in. But, if one lives in a place already, why would you go back to the map and check out your own mapping sequences over and over again? The reason I’m asking is that it feels everyone is so engaged here in the community, so am I missing something?

How do you use Mapillary to serve your own purposes and discover new things? I’d love to hear your stories. Thank you for sharing!

/Yan

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Congratulations for your english.

My story can be told in two links:

Or the people at Mapillary can cook a story from it for their blog.

First, when you live in China (or is just in China) you should be very aware of the current laws regarding mapping. Restrictions on geographic data in China - Wikipedia seems to sum it up. Mapping (perhaps including taking Mapillary pictures) without permission or in the wrong coordinate system can be punished quite hard.

I map the place I live because it changes. New roads are added, buildings are removed and others are build. Everything changes. Some places more than others. But when I got the pictures, I’ll have the memories in 50 years and so do my small children. I would be really happy if someone had done this to the places I grew up in the 1980’es. But the the technology was quite different back then. For me, I also map just to be able to go back to places I have been. A camera in the cars window or on the bike and it is done.

To discover something new, I have written: Mapillary browser which is free software (see the GitHub link in the bottom of the page). Zoom in to a part of the world and look for images. I am currently expanding it with features for liking and making lists of images, then e.g. display such lists as a slide show.

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That, I cannot agree more with. I’d love it if someone had done it for the small village where I grew up. Harry put it nicely: “I see Mapillary as the beginning of a fantastic historical document” Keep going, guys!

So, when you revisit your sequences, what really is it you’re looking at/for? As you’ve just seen it already? Thanks!

That’s awesome. On it now.

Thanks, filipc!
It says you’re a “Highly Active Casual Mapper”. Haha, I like the title.

I lean back and think back. Or for new places, I try to imagine I am there.

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I see! Thank you very much!

I open the explore section in the morning and look for places that have not been mapped. I am almost as alone here in northern Ohio as you are in China. All the mapping you see in Northern Ohio if from my efforts.
I look for new areas to map on any day when I am free to wander. I stumble on many places that are interesting and previously unknown to me.
I also ask friends on Facebook. They have sent me mapping in many New places.

Wow, you meant the whole northern part of the state? That’s amazing!

To be fair Cleveland was covered by someone else.
I have a run down to Kentucky planned for later this week. I was in Michigan a week ago. I spend my off time mapping.

Awesome! Did you manage to find anyone else around who maps too? Or vice versa? I’m thinking how I could I find others who share the same interest. I guess, you also do this just for fun, right?

I mapped picktures for Google Earth for about 4 years, posting over 80,000 picctures. During all that time i never came face to face with another contribuutor.
I just started with Mapillary after Google Earth went down. I stayed with Panaramio right up to the final hour.
With Google/Panoramio there were far more contributors, yet I never met anyone face to face.
I’d often give a heads up to someone who was in an area where I was going, but even this never yielded a meeting.
I read on the Panoramio forum about big meetings but never one where I was going to be.
Perhaps now that I am a big fish in a smaller pond I may meet up with some other contributors. (By big fish I mean the top ranking contributor this week with one point 7 million pictures posted since New years.)

Wow, that’s totally mind blowing. I however couldn’t use Google services here. Did Google/Panoramio pay people to upload photos, at least the top ones? Just out of curiosity, since I’ve never used it. Also, Panoramio didn’t stitch up photos in 3D, right? Thank you!

The pay for Panoramio/Google Earth was just the same as it is here on Mappillary. We earn recognition and are honnored to be able to answer questions and help others to see the world through our eyes (cameras).
Panoramio , in my opinion, was for good pictures of landmarks, old barns, churches, cemeteries and other unique structures.
This stitching, as you call it, is new to me.
I’d far rather take individual pictures centered on a structure or object.
I still stop and take pictures while I am mapping. This morning while I took about 2,200 stitched pictures I found 12 old barns, bridges and abandoned silos to take what I call “real pictures” of.
Those 12 pictures do a better job of describing the area than all those pictures of the road I passed along.

That’s beautiful!

Nice!

Good point! I’ll try to take more of those too!

Could you please send me a link to one of those 12 pictures you took? Would love to see them! Thanks!

If you can get Facebook over there I go by Jb Brown on Facebook.

:cry: cannot, unfortunately.

Do you have or can you install “Wechat”?

I can. How do I find you there? Thanks!

JB TheMilker
If you invite me or if you have an account Ill invite you.