X4 Camera Data Desyncing from GPX File

Im new to contributing to Mapillary. I have a insta360 x4 camera and I cant get my timelapse video to upload properly. Everytime it takes too large of an interval between shots and too small of an interval on the gpx when uploading, making it quickly desync the gpx data and the video. Theres no settings i can find in the uploader to change it.

The gpx data is all correct, it shows up on other programs and the uploader preview, so i dont know what i can do. Ive tried to take small clips but it still doesnt work right. Ive gone over the upload guide for the x3 camera since its the same file type and i cant get it to work right. Is there anyone who can help me out?

I think there might be something broken with timelapse mode support in mapillary_toos/desktop uploader. cc: @tao

This is the link to the file on the map that I’m talking about:

I’d delete it, since its bad, but if you think there might be an issue in the uploader then it might be useful. It also takes huge jumps at the start and at random points.

And this is a link to a dropbox folder that has the gpx file and the mp4 of the timelapse.

To create a GPX track suitable for Mapillary purposes in the Insta universe, you must select video mode. There are two modes to choose from: video and 5.7K HDR video, the latter being recommended for recording in sunlight.

The advantage of video:
While you would have to find the appropriate interval for each speed with time-lapses, Mapillary thankfully takes care of this for a video. Whether you’re driving very slowly through a city center during a recording, or you’re then entering a highway and then traveling at 200 km/h in Germany, the result in Mapillary is always perfect with a video.

The disadvantage of video:
Higher data volumes. If you want to get the maximum image quality from an Insta 360, choose the ProRes export format. The Windows Desktop Uploader refuses to process this format, but if you’re using a Linux computer, it’s easy to do as long as you don’t exceed the magic limit of 45 GB per video. This means video sequences in ProRes can last a maximum of 5.5 minutes, or half an hour each in H264.
To handle such data volumes effectively, a fiber optic internet connection is recommended. Upload speeds below 125 Mbps are unacceptable.

And there’s another small weakness of the Insta software. To achieve high-quality videos, I recommend using an Apple Mac to render Insta videos, and loading no more than two hours of video recordings into the Insta Studio software suite at a time. If you ignore this, you’ll have to expect Insta Studio to become incredibly slow. To implement this tip, you should first load videos from a micro SD card onto a fast removable terabyte SSD. (Tip:
SanDisk Extreme PRO Portable SSD 1 TB (SSD, NVMe-SSD-Performance, 2,5 Zoll, 2.000 MB/s)
And sort the recording files there into subfolders of four recordings each. To do this, I create several folders in the SanDisc drive, which I name 1, 5, 10, 15, 20.

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Thank a lot for this post! I will stop my plan to buy insta 360 family camera, described workflow is to much for me.

I’m glad I could help. Especially if you like cycling and want to keep things simple, there’s a wide selection of suitable, affordable cameras that already have integrated GPS.

I know only Gopro Max. But after forum reading and sequence seeing i think its quality is not superb and it has overheating.

What another cameras with simple workflow do you mean?

The GoPro Max is the Mapillary recommended 360 consumer camera. Another option you could consider is the PanoX
(we had tested V2, but V3 is now available).

Building quality of the Max is good, picture quality also, resolution is a bit lower than the competition. I never had any overheating issues, I’m using it on my car, enough airflow.

I’m referring here to information I also found in the forum. Personally, I can only speak about my experience with my used Insta 360 X3. There’s no getting around the Insta Remote. If you limit yourself to the H.264 data format, there’s considerable potential for savings and simplification.

The performance of Insta Studio depends largely on the graphics card. The gaming world, in particular, generates a consistent output from inexpensive used Windows computers equipped with very powerful graphics cards.

An Insta camera creates recording sequences, each exactly 30 minutes long. If you limit yourself to H.264 (MP4), you can render such recordings in one go and then upload them in one go with Mapillary Uploader. This simplifies the process considerably.

I haven’t experienced any overheating with my Insta 360 X3 Mapillary recordings so far.

As @osmplus_org wrote, workflow with X4 and MP4 export is much easier and colors and tonal values are quit good balanced, far better as GoPro Max it does. See these recordings from user kits:

Where Insta360 cameras are often superior is that contrasts are handled sufficiently:

And here a typical GoPro Max example of such lighting condition: