Hi,
We already posted this on talk-be but I’m adding it here for extra visibility. Een Nederlandstalige vertaling kan je daar ook vinden; tu trouvera une version en francais la. https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-be/2022-January/011404.html
During the recent official OSM Belgium meeting [1], we decided we’re going
to buy a 360° camera for use by OSM Belgium volunteers.
As you may be aware, Mapillary donated a GoPro 7 to OSMbe some years back,
with much success [2]. (mostly thanks to polyglot, Thierry1030 and myself)
We’ve also created an “organisation” of OpenStreetMap volunteers that use
their own hardware [3]. Just to show how much of the Mapillary coverage is
thanks to us.
With OSMbe we’ve written before about how important open streetlevel
imagery is [4]. While this has had some success (experiments by WVI [5],
full 360° coverage in Oostrozebeke, Ham and Londerzeel, all mapped by
Vansteelandt.be), there’s still much terrain left uncovered.
Mapillary and KartaView provide a low barrier to entry in street level
imagery, because they make it easy to contribute with any device from a
smartphone up to professional equipment. **But if we want to make the case
for professional users to switch to these platforms - and hopefully
contribute more - we need higher quality imagery. The 360° experience that
even a simple GoPro Max can offer is a big step up in user experience from
most devices. That is why we want to invest in this.
**
We need your help for this project.
First, we intend to buy a GoPro Max 360 and the necessary accessories to
use it on a bike, on foot and on a car. We’d like to lend this kit out to
volunteers like you who can commit to using it for some time with some intensity.
Ideally, you can map your entire municipality. Or perhaps a specific topic
(shopping streets, long distance hiking routes) for a larger area. Simply
send us an email at community at osm.be with your proposal, and we’ll be in
touch!
But we can use more help:
- right now, Mapillary is the most popular platform in Belgium. While the
data is open, the platform itself isn’t. And it’s owned by one of the
largest tech companies in the world. Can you help us spread the images
wider? Can you help even with simple offline storage of the massive amount
of data created? - we’re doing this not just to improve quality and coverage ourselves.
We’re doing this to inspire other people (companies, government
organisations) to do the same. Can you help us find partners? Contact your
local municipality, aks your employer, suggest other options. All help is
welcome on this front!
Note that we already have a GoPro Hero 7 (donated by Mapillary) and
necessary kit for car and bike (donated by yours truly), that we can also
lend out for your projects. There’s something to be said for using both
devices at once, as the Hero series offer higher resolution images than the
360.
We’re looking forward to your thoughts, comments and especially your offers
to help 
Joost Schouppe
For OpenStreetMap Belgium
P.S. also a little shout-out to filipc, who has covered a huge part of
Flanders and Brussels and is number 5 in the -world- when it comes to
contributing to Mapillary
1: https://github.com/osmbe/working-group-bylaws/blob/master/minutes/2021-11-30%20-%20official%20meeting.md
2: https://www.mapillary.com/app/org/osmbelgium?lat=50.5316722710794&lng=4.841864848611294&z=7.942410762346885
3: https://www.mapillary.com/app/org/mosmbelgium?lat=50.672181962608875&lng=4.897018535547431&z=6.915225322892092
4: https://openstreetmap.be/en/2019/09/27/streetview.html
5: https://www.wvigisco.be/gis-coordinatie/oostrozebeke-als-eerste-volledige-gemeente-360-op-mapillary/
