tools – OpenStreetMap @ Grab

OpenStreetCam plugin becomes KartaView and integrates new visualisation feature

OpenStreetCam plugin becomes KartaView

Following OpenStreetCam’s transition to KartaView at the end of last year, we’re writing to announce that our plugin component will undeniably mirror these changes. The latest version integrates a new name and a matching set of icons and colors which we hope you’ll find not only aesthetically pleasing, but also convenient to work with.

Let’s not stop here, though!

Wrapped 360° photo visualisation

The current KartaView plugin is about to bring to the community some new features related to photo visualisation. Recently, the team has integrated in the tool the support for displaying wrapped 360° images and the possibility to switch between these two available formats.

Map representation and design updates

The wrapped photos integration has been visually enhanced with the following features:

the purple dots represent the location of the photos, which now offer the option of visualising both photo types (wrapped and front-facing)
the blue dots mark the location where only front-facing imagery can be found

Moreover, this fresh plugin version now uses a cool new set of icons for illustrating the actions found in the panel in a more intuitive way.

Switch options and photo display

You can choose a favoured photo format from the preference panel by selecting it from the available options – this will have a general impact on the actions from the tool (e.g. seeing the photos of a loaded track or loading previous/next photo).

Another switching option is pressing the 360^o button from the panel. It is an extremely useful feature for changing the format of the currently shown photo. As seen in the attached picture, all the previously implemented features are available on both formats, including the rendering of the corresponding detections.

This being said, we’re eager to find out how you are going to use this fresh, interesting feature. You can get in touch with us any time at geo.kartaview@grabtaxi.com and let us know what projects you’re working on – we’re always psyched to share with the world what our talented community is up to.

OpenStreetCam plug-in – Search Box for detection filtering

The most recent version of the OpenStreeCam plugin contains a new feature for improving detection filtering. This option became a need due to the significant growth of sign types. Its main purpose is to increase the ease of finding data. Therefore, the signs displayed in the characteristic area are reduced.

The team has added a search box to enable users to find a specific sign by entering keywords. To make filtering more relevant, the typed words should include the category, the sign name, or a combination of these two information. As a result, the detection type area will be sorted according to the input text.

This feature also works alongside the selected value for the region.

We’ll strive to continuously improve the OpenStreeCam plugin with new features!

OpenStreetCam and ImproveOSM are moving to Grab

Following Telenav’s strategic partnership with Grab, we’re announcing that the OpenStreetCam and ImproveOSM platforms are moving to Grab! The goal of contributing to the OSM project by supporting the community with tools and data remains unchanged, and users will continue to benefit from those platforms.

Data and applications: The data is available to the OSM community just as before, with better latency for many.

Open Source: Good news, the code license is changing from LGPL to the more permissive MIT license. The imagery license will remain the same, CC BY-SA version 4.

ImproveOSM source code moved to https://github.com/ImproveOSM and OpenStreetCam stays at https://github.com/openstreetcam.

Policies: The Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy were updated to reflect the project’s transition to Grab, other than that similar to the previous OpenStreetCam policies.

OpenStreetCam apps: The iOS and Android apps will now be published under the Grab AppStore / Google Play account – that makes no difference in contributing awesome imagery to the community! You can download and use the apps as usual.

Waylens: You can keep using your Waylens dashcams to contribute imagery to OpenStreetCam.

As always, we look forward to collaborating with the community members and improving OSM.

A fresh Cygnus+ version

Cygnus is a tool that helps the community improve the OSM map by comparing it with an external (local) map, and detecting differences between the two maps. The differences detected include road geometry and certain tags of interest (e.g.: ‘name’, ‘oneway’, ‘ref’, ‘maxspeed’) that are missing or have different value from OSM.

In this latest version of Cygnus, we have introduced new features and made a few overall improvements.

New Features

Minimum Way Length Distance

A new setting was added in this latest version: the minimum distance by which a way’s length in the OSM map may be extended using the external map.

Conflation setting which is defaulted to 15%. Maximum can be 50%

Extending a way’s length can be very useful where section of a road may be missing or a new road needs to be added. Existing ways will be extended when the local map has a significantly longer way (as defined by the maximum connect distance). If it is possible to connect the extended way to any new ways, this will be done automatically.

New Grouped Settings and Checkboxes

We have grouped settings for ease of use into conflation, way-related and tag-related groups.

New checkboxes were also created for adding/extending ways (to allow more refined usage), adding/changing tags and specifying a minimum lexical difference.

Conflation Results

The conflation zip file now contains a narration log detailing each change that is proposed by the conflation archive. The Cygnus+ output explains in the ‘telenav:action’ tag exactly what action was taken on each way (this same output goes into the narration log).

Improvements

The conflation algorithm was improved and also the readability of parameters on jobs in the queue.

We hope you benefit from those changes, and let us know if you have any questions or ideas for further improvements.

OpenStreetCam – Confidence level visualization

The OpenStreetCam plug-in has once again brought a new feature to help its users. It now allows displaying and filtering aggregated detections based on their confidence level. The confidence level represents a measure of confidence of the validity of the detection or aggregated detection.

New aggregated detections display

Aggregated detections can now be displayed using a confidence level based color code. This is an optional behavior that can be turned on in the plug-in preference settings by selecting the following preference:

If selected, each aggregated detection will be displayed with a border of the corresponding color, according to the legend table displayed under the check-box.

Map display based on confidence level:

If the checkbox is not selected, all aggregated detections are displayed with a white border.

Confidence level filtering

With the introduction of the confidence level attribute, a new form of filtering was added. Filter data now allows setting a value for minimum and/or maximum confidence level. When set, only the aggregated detections with the appropriate confidence level will be displayed.

The confidence level minimum and maximum must be values between 0 and 1.

ImproveOSM plugin – design updates

The latest version of the OpenStreetCam JOSM plugin has many design changes which make the usage more intuitive. The Telenav OSM team added new icons for the three main layers of the ImproveOSM plugin (Turn Restriction, Traffic Flow Direction, Missing Roads) and modified the cluster colors accordingly.

Also, some improvements were made regarding the visualization of turn restriction detections at a high zoom level. The color for the grouped detections was changed in order to match the aspect of the corresponding cluster and to facilitate spotting the detections from the map, the turn restriction icon was changed too.

OpenStreetCam JOSM plugin – new features

The Telenav OSM team just released a new version of the OpenStreetCam JOSM plugin. In the last couple of months we had improved our sign detections and improved the detection map view, by displaying aggregated traffic sign detections instead of individual detections. Traffic signs are detected per OpenStreetCam photos, in dense areas the same traffic sign is detected several times. Checking several detected signs that represent the same traffic sign in real life is time-consuming and slows down the mapping process. In order to improve the mapping process, detections that represent the same traffic sign were aggregated into a single detection.

Map View Changes

Aggregated detections are displayed for high zoom levels starting with zoom level 16. Each aggregated detection is represented by a traffic sign cluster icon rotated based on the detection heading.

Aggregated detection data

An aggregated detection can be selected by a right click from the map and unselected by a double click. When an aggregated detection is selected the detection icon along with the belonging photo locations are highlighted on the map and its information is displayed in the right side OpenStreetCam Detection panel. The photo on which the detection has the best visibility is also loaded automatically.

Loading other photos that contains the detections can be done by either selecting a photo location from the map or by pressing the Next/Previous buttons from the OpenStreetCam Detection panel. For the associated shortcuts take a look at the OpenStreetCam shortcuts from JOSM Preferences.

By default, the plugin displays the photo locations of a selected cluster, but the plugin can be configured to display also the actual detections. This can be enabled from JOSM Preferences->OpenStreetCam plugin -> Aggregated detection settings.

If enabled individual detections are connected to the corresponding photo. This visualization is used mainly for debugging purposes.

Data filters

The OSC plugin data can be filtered based on various new filters. Some of these filters were already present and others were extended.

data to display – the type of data to be displayed for high zoom levels; by default, we display OpenStreetCam photos and aggregated detections; if both detections and aggregated detections are selected then besides aggregated detections only the detections that do not belong to any aggregation are displayed
only mine – displays OpenStreetCam data contributed by the logged in user
not older than – filters out data based on a given timestamp
detection filters – are applied to detection/aggregated detection data
- mode – is applicable only to individual detections; if set filters data based on detection mode; manual detections are detections that were manually marked on the OpenStreetCam photos, while automatic detections are detections recognized automatically by our platform
- edit status – is applicable only to individual detections; if set filters detections based on edit status (if the user had edited or not in OSM the detection)
- OSM comparison – filters the data based on the status; OSM comparison represents a status of a detection regarding its presence in OpenStreetMap; this filter is useful since the mapper can visualize only detections that need to added to the map
- detection type – filter data based on detection type and subtype; this filter is useful if the mapper would like to focus on mapping only a certain type of signs

Default filter settings can be reset by pressing the “Reset” button.

If you are interested in the components used for aggregating the traffic sign detections check out the following presentation: https://youtu.be/3I8lsIttqVA?t=290.

Upcoming features
The JOSM plugin is work on progress, we are working on improving the usability and plan to add new features from time to time. In the near feature, we plan to improve the detection mapping workflows.

We hope that you enjoy the new features! If you have ideas, suggestions or encounter any issue with the plugin during editing sessions please submit either to the GitHub issue page or to the Feedback forum .

Have fun improving the map by using OpenStreetCam images!

ImproveOSM plugin – new features

The Telenav OSM team just released a new version of the ImproveOsm plugin. We have added a location search box (helpful feature for reaching an area to be mapped) and a button for downloading previously selected ways.

Location search box

A new feature we added to the ImproveOSM plugin is the location search box. It enables the user to visualize the desired geographical point at a higher zoom level after entering its coordinates in the text field. The input of the search box should contain the values for latitude and longitude separated by a comma. If the plugin doesn’t understand your input, an intuitive message is displayed in order to help you. This works similar to the JOSM Jump to position but the search box brings advantages such as the single field for data collecting and more validations for the latitude-longitude values.

Download way button

Another feature is the download way button for the Traffic Flow Direction layer. This enables the user to download the ways of the selected road segments in a new Data layer. This option is only available if the Traffic Flow Detection Layer is active. Furthermore, the button becomes enabled when one or more road segments are selected.

Detecting Traffic Signs in OpenStreetCam

OpenStreetCam’s mission is to help you improve OSM with street-view imagery. Photos taken with regular smartphones seem to be good enough for capturing map features like traffic signs, lanes or crosswalks. However, browsing the 120 million+ photos in OSC to find relevant things to map will take a while. The human factor is fundamental to OSM’s culture and we don’t see that changing, but we want to make editing street related attributes more efficient with automation.

We’re happy to announce a beta release of the traffic signs recognition on OpenStreetCam photos, made possible with machine learning. We processed a few million photos and detected around 500.000 traffic signs so far, currently available for tracks in several areas in United States and Canada. We’re working on extending the training sets and optimize the processing so that the area’s soon expanded.

What’s new from a user perspective: the track page on openstreetcam.org will now show detected traffic signs when available:

There’s a preview list of all detections in the track, detection overlays on photos and, of course, filters. Filters might now get a rep as something really exciting, but we’re excited about one of ours: the OSM status. Here’s why: after detecting a sign we compare it to the corresponding OSM feature and check if they’re consistent. Based on that, filtering is available.

For a practical example, let’s take speed limits: Instead of manually cross checking every detection with the maxspeed tag in OSM, one can only review detections where presumably maxspeed is not set or the value’s different in OSM. Just tick the Need review in OSM box.

Here are a few more examples of trips that have already been processed with our sign detections.

What’s next?

We’re busy working on a few things:

Scale the training sets and pipeline to extend the supported areas.
Traffic signs integration in the JOSM plugin.
Tagging new traffic signs support in the webpage.

If you like what we do and want to help:

First and foremost, you can use detections to improve OSM. If you’re seeing detections on tracks check them out, see what needs reviewing in OSM and edit. You can open iD or JOSM to photo’s location straight from the webpage.
Help us improve the traffic signs recognition. There’s a chance you will find some bad detections. You can review them and flag whether they’re good or bad, see the two buttons above the photo. We’re adding those reviews to training sets to improve recognitions, so please play nice.
Help us add these detections to the iD editor as well.

Tip: you can navigate between detections with Ctrl/Cmd + right/left arrows and confirm/invalidate with Ctrl/Cmd + up/down arrows. Goes pretty fast.

Talk to us, tell us what you like and what you don’t at openstreetcam@telenav.com or on Github.

New Features and Enhancements in Cygnus+

Cygnus is the Telenav Mapping conflation tool. We use it a lot internally to compare approved external data sources with existing OSM data, but there is also a public version. We outlined how it works in an earlier blog post. In this post, I want to highlight some of the newer features in Cygnus. These new features are based on the feedback from our team of Map Analysts, who use the tool in their day-to-day work.

Discarding Very Short Segments

Cygnus outputs the differences in geometry between existing OSM data and the spatial data that we want to use to improve OSM. Sometimes, when the differences are very tiny, Cygnus used to export very short ways. These are not really meaningful enhancements, and clutter up the result data. Therefore, we implemented a length filter. Ways shorter than a defined length threshold will not be included in the output. Based on experience, we set the default to 5 meters. In the internal (command line) version our team uses, this can be tweaked using a parameter. In the public web version, this is not yet possible. We can consider adding it if there is sufficient demand.

An example of Cygnus in action. It finds an opportunity for improvement (possibly incorrect street name) as well as a false positive (degraded road geometry)

Road Names

When comparing road geometry, Cygnus not only compares geometry but also road names. An annoying side effect we noticed is that road names are often not exactly the same in OSM as they are in the external data we compare with. This does not mean that the external data is necessarily better. For example, OSM could say that the name of a road is “River Road”, and the external data source could say it is “River Rd”. This is not a meaningful difference, and we would want to exclude those in most cases. So we added a string distance based threshold in Cygnus to filter out similar strings. It is set to a sensible default which, again, can be tweaked in the command line version we use internally, but not yet in the web version.

Another Cygnus improvement related to road names is to ignore name differences on certain types of ways: roundabouts and service roads. Roundabout ways in OSM do not have names by convention unless the roundabout itself has a name, so they should generally not be added. Service roads technically can have names in OSM, but it is not common. In external data, they do sometimes have names, but if they do, it usually does not make sense to add them to OSM. Based on our experience, they often have descriptive names like ‘driveway’ or ‘access road’ in the source data.

Using Cygnus

You can use Cygnus yourself by going to http://cygnus.improveosm.org/ and uploading your source data file. You need to do a fair amount of work to prepare the source data: translating the source attributes into valid OSM tags and converting to OSM PBF. And always remember to consider carefully what you do with the result. Cygnus is not designed to be an automated import tool. Every suggested change should be manually reviewed.

Let us know how you have used, or would like to use Cygnus!