After almost a year of thinking, development and testing, the OSM team at Telenav is ready to present OpenStreetView to all OSM mappers! OpenStreetview (OSV) is the free and open street level imagery platform designed 100% with OSM and mappers in mind.

We officially presented OSV to the OSM community at State of the Map US where we had a 20 minute talk and a booth where we gave away crazy little remote controlled cars to everyone who signed up :). The cars were gone quickly – almost half of the people at SOTM US signed up! - but you can still see the talk thanks to the great SOTM US organizers who had all the sessions professionally recorded. If you have 20 minutes and don’t like reading, watching that video is going to be the best way to be introduced to what OSV is and how you can use it to improve OSM. Or if you are coming to SOTM in Brussels, you can come meet our team there (more remote controlled cars? Who knows!) and attend the workshop.

The OpenStreetView booth at SOTM US

If you do prefer reading, read on! I wanted to quickly introduce OSV, what the components are, why we believe it is the #1 choice of street level imagery for OSM, and of course how to contribute and use it.

OpenStreetView components

OSV is a web site, openstreetview.org, free and open source mobile apps for Android and iOS, a specialized Map Editor, a plugin for JOSM, and of course a back end server. Support for iD is also planned.

The web site is where you go to explore imagery from all over the world, see leaderboards and your own profile and trips. To see your personal stuff, of course you will need to sign in. Your OpenStreetView account is linked to your OSM account, so you don’t need to create a separate account. All we store when you sign in for the first time is whatever is public on OSM. (If you want to check what that is, go to https://www.openstreetmap.org/api/0.6/user/8909 , changing 8909 to whatever your OSM ID is – unless you want to see my details.)

The apps are free to download from the play / app store. For Android, you can also download the APK directly. With the apps you can capture trips. They are optimized for driving but also work well for biking and walking scenarios. Apart from recording trips, you can also upload your trips to OSV. This will happen automatically when you enter WiFi, if you want. Finally you can review your local and server trips and see your profile. Even if you have not logged in on the web site, you can log in to OSV with the apps, also through OSM OAuth. Either way, this will create an account for you on OSV.

One thing that is really specific to OSV is that you can link the app to an OBD2 dongle in your car. Those are little devices that read from the OBD2 port in your car. Almost every car has one. (Challenge: find yours!). The dongle reads all kinds of diagnostic info from the car and broadcast it over Bluetooth or WiFi. They cost around 20 Euros. A list of OSV compatible ones is on the OSM wiki. (Ehm, a very small list so far. If you have a different model, please add your experience!)

OSV will read the speed and curve to improve the accuracy of the GPS signal that is recorded for your trip. It comes in extrememly handy when GPS reception is poor or lost altogether, for example in dense tree cover or in tunnels. The dead reckoning provided by the OBD2 unit will maintain proper alignment to the road. Here you see what that means when you are driving through a tunnel (blue = GPS only, signal lost, red = with OBD2 connection).

The OSV apps also have sign detection built in. So this is not done on the server but at 60FPS on the client! This means that it will detect speed limit signs, and more to come, in real time and can warn you if you are speeding. This warning feature is almost ready and will be in one of the next builds. (We update the apps very frequently.)

The JOSM plugin is in an early beta stage. Right now it will simply display the locations of images on the OSV server, and you can click on them to show the image in the OSV panel. Basic functionality, but it works :) and we hope that you have ideas (or even code) to improve it.

Speaking of ideas, we already have an active community reporting issues and suggestions on Github. This is the best place to let us know of any bugs and ideas you have about any part of OSV. Github is also where all the source code for all the components mentioned here is located. Almost everything in OSV is open source, and if it is not we are looking at how we can make it open source.

If you do not like Github or do not want to create an account there, you can also write to hello@openstreetview.org with your ideas or bug reports. We are also on Twitter as @openstreetview and we are getting on Facebook and Instagram if you’re into that kind of thing.

If you check Github, you will see that we also have upload tools for your existing Virb / GoPro and other action camera images. These are Python scripts, but we also have a GUI tool that you can just drag and drop directories onto to upload. This is in early beta but if you want a copy, let me know.

There are two components that I have not mentioned yet: the Map Editor and the back end. I want to save those for a separate post that I will write soon. Here is a screenshot of the map editor:

Why OpenStreetView?

We think that OpenStreetView is the #1 choice for street level imagery for OSM. Not only because it is almost completely open source. You also remain in full control of the data you upload to OSV. You can always delete individual photos, trips or even delete everything and remove your account if at any moment you don’t want to be a part of OSV any longer. This option is on the web site, no need to email anyone or submit a request.

Another reason is because we are building a platform that is very tightly integrated with OSM. This is obvious from the way we handle user accounts: log in with OSM, no separate account. But also deeper down the integration with OSM is tight: we map all trips to OSM ways, so we can link back and forth between trips / images and OSM way objects. This opens up all kinds of interesting possibilities, and I want to spend a separate post on that as well.

For now, it would be cool if you would give OpenStreetView a try. Download the app for your phone, sign in and start capturing. Tell us about your experiences. Explore what is already there. And most important please use it to improve OSM!

Note that OpenStreetView is not a project run by OpenStreetMap or the OpenStreetMap Foundation. It is maintained by Telenav, where I work, for the sole benefit of improving OpenStreetMap.