Turn a Tesla into a mapping vehicle with Mapillary | Hacker News Reader

Turn a Tesla into a mapping vehicle with Mapillary

blog.mapillary.com

68 pointsfaebi28 comments

This could use an upgrade. Combining teslausb [1] for video retrieval and teslamate [2] for GPX retrieval, you could probably make this an automatic pipeline. Add in some "excluded locations" and I could see this as a full solution.

[1] https://github.com/marcone/teslausb

[2] https://github.com/teslamate-org/teslamate

Heh, "they should use a computer to emulate the storage" was my first thought when this was posted, didn't even check to see if anyone had done it yet. :)

This article is about 5 years old. I wonder if the project went anywhere?

I hadn't heard of Mapillary before, but it seems like a great idea to add street-view-like functionality to OSM. I'm wondering if the data is easily viewable somehow on the OSM interface? After having a quick look now, I couldn't seem to find it.

Mapillary was acquired by Meta around this time. I am not sure if they changed focus then but seems likely. I was more active mapping for OSM before this and Mapillary often published blog posts on how their services could be utilized by OSM. But I have not paid much attention last couple of years.

Based on their website it looks like the focus remains the same. I just wonder where the data lives.

Wait, this code uploads data to a server somewhere? To what end? I would not have expected capture to come with mandatory redistribution, nor would I trust any third party with my location, let alone the output of my car's camera feeds. And I definitely wouldn't trust meta with, well, anything, let alone my own personal identifying information.

I'm not sure what you expected, Mapillary is built to make pictures and upload them with the most information possible. Street View but for everyone, and there's no need to have a 360° camera.

I actually think I may have misunderstood, and this doesn't upload to mapillary by default.

...but that said, what is the kind of person to upload specific times and places where they were to a private corporation? What would motivate a person to do such a thing? Can you get paid for it?

It is done for cartographers in OpenStreetMap to map where they have been (or where others have been).

I use it to add metadata to my local area, things like business names, postboxes, benches, etc.

Mapillary is not a private cloud for your own personal Google Street Map. It's a public Google Street Map with appropriate licencing (open) for mappers to add data to OSM, using Google Street Map would be in violation of its licence.

Here are some images of what this looks like in the ID editor (the front-end) for Open Street Map and Mapillary.

I don't own a tesla or use this project so the results will be different for this project.

https://imgur.com/Vjyktcz https://imgur.com/85kYHZL

Not to get too snarky, but the number of people that knowingly or not have GMaps location history enabled has to be in huge millions. I talked to a few of them personally and they saw it as some little neat feature to eg. quickly list the cities they've been to in the last year.

It seems easy to access through JOSM, which is the primary editor for heavy mappers who are doing almost all of the work. I haven't tried doing that, there aren't enough mapping enthusiasts around for Mapillary to be of any use.

When you edit a map in the Openstreetmap website (the "id" editor) you can see each data point by expanding the Map Data menu (line and polygon icon, just below the Background Setting icon), expanding the Photo Overlays section and checking the various Mapillary features. You can both view the images themselves (and filter for 360 or regular pictures), and also look at the traffic sign and map features (manholes, benches, poles, shop signs, etc..) that Mapillary has automatically detected.

If by OSM interface you mean OSM.org then not really.

Funnily enuogh, this was a rabbit-hole I dived down when I was given a company Tesla for a while, and was frustrated by the last of streetview imagery available where I lived. Unfortunately, the teslausb distribution was just too unreliable at the time, and I never found the time/energy for a ground-up re-write.

For those concerned about contributing to Mapillary specifically, there are alternatives to contribute to, like Panoramax, which is fully open source and supports federated instances, and is not owned by Meta.

(Panoramax integrates with iD and JOSM just Lille Mapillary.)

Panoramax instances are currently only really available for France and Belgium though. Turns out it is neither easy nor cheap to host that many pictures.

This is a very creative idea, but I wonder how practical it really is. The blog seems old and doesn’t go into detail about productionizing such a pipeline formats. Without a straightforward way to address these issues, it feels more like a clever experiment than something scalable for real-world mapping. Because an average tesla owner will not go through those steps.

Why do you want every idiot with a TSLA to do "real world mapping" anyways?

I’m not sure why you had to be so crude about that, especially since you do not seem to make any specific point, but I think the bigger issue is that teslas are essentially mass surveillance system platforms right under the noses of people.

Just like mobile phones have become personal tracking and sentiment surveillance devices we willingly carry around on us, teslas and many EVs with their cameras are public mass surveillance and tracking platforms that make free movement nearly impossible even beyond such crude systems like the UK’s CCTV surveillance network.

Combine that with things like doorbell cameras and other cheap video surveillance and we have willingly and enthusiastically entered the dystopian matrix.

Public places are now surveilled (which has pros & cons), but you can still go anywhere you want (free movement)... do privacy-related topics always have to be so hyperbolic?

We literally just got past and are even still dealing with the ramifications and ripple effects of the Covid lockdowns (a term originating in prisons) for years, where people were censored, berated, abused, violated, and even beaten; and you’ve already forgotten about those abuses, perhaps because you also took part in them, and now want to chide people for “hyperbole” like any narcissistic abuser always does when their abusive episode has subsided.

No, there is no such thing as hyperbole when it comes to free speech or privacy from narcissistic psychopaths that want to control and abuse you, because when they have you in their clutches they will never let you go.

Psychology considers narcissism incurable as it is a character type, albeit a malignant one, but it can be managed and controlled, even if it is difficult and requires constant vigilance of those who are vulnerable to and target of narcissists. You may want to consider that.

Looks like the hyperbolic assessment was accurate.

since the problem to be solved is "mass mapping", maybe every "idiot" is what you need? language... don't be weird

Also could be phrased as: perform unpaid labour collecting surveillance data for Meta (who ultimately control the data source)

More like turn your surveillance machine into a surveillance machine that at least benefits society as opposed to just the mothership. Meta currently holding the data is a problem though as they can decide to cut off free access to it, and I would never buy a Tesla in the first place...

Images are CC. What are potential risks apart from rug pull by Meta provided no one does backups of this database?

Near realtime streetview would be cool

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