360 cameras, 3D models, aerial imagery, drones, and privacy.
State of the Map is the annual conference of the OpenStreetMap Foundation.
This years SOTM was a little different. Originally due to be held in Cape Town, South Africa, the conference was rescheduled to be held remotely for the first time ever due to COVID-19.
There were some brilliant talks at this years conference, now available to watch back on Youtube.
I’ve documented some of my favourite talks most closely linked to the work we do here at Trek View that I know you’ll enjoy.
The Map in 360
Firstly our friends at Mapillary. Their talk examines the 360 camera market, discusses data collection and benefit of street-level imagery collection with 360 cameras, reviews strategies for uploading 360 images, and highlights how OpenStreetMap communities around the world are using 360 images to improve local maps with Mapillary.
Related OSM project: Mapillary JSOM plugin
Assessing Global OpenStreetMap building completeness to generate large-scale 3D city models
Lately I’ve been very focused on using 360 imagery to create 3D models. This talk from the Urban Analytics Lab at the National University of Singapore demonstrates the potential for generating 3D city models by extruding building footprints in OpenStreetMap to a building height that is predicted using artificial intelligence.
Related project: Large-scale 3D geospatial data for urban analytics
Buildings are the new Streets
Following on from the talk above, this session gives overview of how worldwide building data is used and will be in the near future. It shows some of the latest projects, reaching from the creation of risk models, via automated building extraction from satellite sensor data to building completeness estimates, and set these developments in context with other community-driven activities.
Related OSM project: OpenBuildingMap
Drones for Community Mapping
Drone technology is an evolving industry used in multi-disciplinary fields ranging from agriculture, marine conservation to real estate and films. There’s so much potential and possibilities on how drones could help people to make their work faster and more efficient. In mapping, aerial imagery uploaded to Open Aerial Map can be used as basemap for OSM editing.
Related OSM project: OpenAerialMap
Also see: OpenDroneMap.
What to do when local citizens do not consent? A discussion on how to navigate difficult field
Privacy is always a big concern for us. And rightly so. When you have a 360 camera mounted to your backpack people will naturally get curious, ask questions and possibly become suspicious or hesitant to accept your data collection activities. This session explores one of the Humanitarian Open Street Map Teams field mapping projects implemented in Kampala. Despite all the correct steps taken, community entry in a specific jurisdiction felt impossible and field mapping could not be carried out. Find out why, and the lessons the team learned.
Related OSM project Humanitarian Open Street Map Team
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