Minutes of the Panoramax exchange on October 14, 2024
More than 26 participants connected including :
- Christophe Munoz - CC ValParisis
- Christophe Boutet - Grand Besançon Métropole
- Alexandre Duclaux - Suez
- Stéphane Péneau - Carto’Cité
- Laura Mouchet - City of Bayonne
- Quentin Montaclair - Cap Gemini
- The Panoramax state start-up team: Loic Grondin, Mathilde Ferrey, Christian Quest, Antoine Desbordes, Jean Andréani, Adrien Pavie, Aline Bonnet, Jérémy
Back to back-to-school events
Salon DATA/IA and GéoDataDays
Events held in Nantes (France) in September.
Fruitful meetings with partners, including SOGEFI and Immergis. Discussions on the involvement of new local authorities, including Nantes and the Mayenne energy association. Internal exchanges at IGN to reinforce interest in the project.
Esri SIG2024
Presentation of Panoramax integration into ArcGIS tools.
Request for a future presentation by an Esri representative at the next exchange in November.
Numérique en commun (Chambéry, France)
Panoramax presence - with demo - on the IGN stand
Panoramax workshop in collaboration with Grand Chambéry and Sidec du Jura on data collection and use cases.
**Conclusion: Panoramax is becoming increasingly visible. There is less and less need to explain the concept, except for the decentralized aspect that distinguishes Panoramax from services like Street View. The notion of “commonality” is more often addressed, and with greater interest.
NLnet, Panoramax’s new sponsor
European “NLnet” funding to complete the mobile application, which is very positive.
New IGN team member
Jérémy joins the Panoramax team and will focus on the development and/or documentation of a QGIS plugin to visualize Panoramax tracks on a map and open images directly in the tools without using a browser.
Panoramax in Besançon
Christophe Bouté and Nadège Thareau present the interest shown in Panoramax by the Bensançon agglomeration, and mention a need for free cartography shared by other colleagues.
The aim is to structure a project to carry out a variety of acquisitions in Besançon.
Mention was made of initiatives already underway with OpenStreetMap contributors, but the idea is to move to a larger scale to have a complete map of the city and territory.
Discussion of the successes of other local authorities, such as Grand Lyon, where OSM contributions have helped to fill in missing data.
Encouragement to use OSM community contributions to achieve comprehensive mapping.
Other projects: the team is in contact with the Lozère departmental council, with the intention of following this project closely.
Presentation of a Cap Gemini project
Project presented by Quentin Montaclair, consultant at Capgemini Invent, focusing on sustainable development.
The project is inspired by a tool developed in the Netherlands, which models places that have been made bikeable, Dutch Cycling Lifestyle
The aim is to create a similar tool to raise public awareness of the impacts of climate change through concrete visualizations of their local environments based on their address.
Users would enter their address to generate images modeling their street under different climate scenarios (optimistic, reasonable, pessimistic) in 2050. Highlighting possible consequences without adaptation actions.
The project is still in its early stages, with the idea of using open-source Panoramax photos to enrich the search engine.
Stay tuned!
Panoramax and the Accélibre project
Jean-Louis Zimmermann is in contact with Muriel Larrouy of the Accélibre project, who is very interested in joining the Panoramax project.
Panoramax could serve as a link for the Accélibre project, which aims to document the accessibility of establishments open to the public. Panoramax could serve as photo documentation. Contact made by Mathilde, awaiting reply.
Emphasis on the need to associate semantic attributes with data, to make it easier to use and understand.
Panoramax tests by IGN Lyon
IGN (Lyon) carried out a test with the camera on loan to continuously update data. The camera was installed on the roof of a vehicle, in parallel with a GPS, to take photos while technicians were working in the field.
It was important that the use of the camera was not invasive to the technicians’ work. They can start and stop the camera easily.
Nicolas Py, developed scripts to limit the number of photos and improve the geographic positioning of images, taking into account the technicians’ movements.
The project is currently being evaluated to determine the relevance of the data collected during the tests.
The aim is to raise management awareness of the camera’s usefulness the Panoramax project and improve the IGN database.
Further collections are planned, depending on the availability of technicians and the results of the current test.
The idea is to extend the use of the camera throughout IGN.
AI tool to assess photo quality?
Stéphane Péneau mentions having found an AI model capable of detecting photo quality. This algorithm evaluates various criteria such as blur, reflections, and even seasonal elements (winter, summer).
The idea is to explore this technology to improve the quality control of photos used in their projects. Stéphane suggests that interested parties take a look at the results of this algorithm and assess the computational load involved.
A participant points out that there may be research underway at IGN concerning automated quality control of aerial shots.
The subject is here on the forum: NUS Global Streetscapes: Détecter la qualité des images, et plus encore
New version of Panoramax
A new version has been developed with significant improvements in data management, including the ability to delete unnecessary photos, create multiple sequences from the same batch of data and detect duplicates.
The upload interface (web and command line) has been redesigned, enabling more efficient uploading, including the loading of sub-folders in a single operation.
The system can now identify and filter photos that are close in time and space, and these features are accessible via the website and order line.
Prohibited contribution zones will be introduced, limiting contributions to France for certain instances. Photos outside France will not be deleted, but contributors will be contacted to migrate their photos to other instances.
A new system for reporting photos has been introduced, enabling traces to be kept and reports to be processed automatically via APIs.
Flat photos are now displayed in full definition, with performance improvements to come.
A leaderboard is under development to enhance the value of contributions, enabling the volume of contributions per instance to be visualized.
Future updates will include the ability to manage duplicates a posteriori and configure more options in the web interface.
Panoramax mobile application
Application MVP: Before the summer, an MVP (minimum viable product) was developed, enabling users to take photos and send them directly to Panoramax. The application is primarily focused on photo capture, rather than image management or viewing.
Ergonomic improvements: Since this summer, ergonomic improvements have been made and new functionalities added, including better geolocation management.
GPS accuracy: To avoid location inaccuracies (such as errors of 30 meters), photo-taking is now blocked until GPS accuracy is less than 10 meters. This threshold can be adjusted in the future.
Sequence viewing: Users can now view all their photo sequences, whether taken with the mobile app or on the website.
Photo transfer: A future update will enable the transfer of photos already stored on the phone (in the OS photo gallery) to Panoramax instances.
Version 1.0 is scheduled for December, and the beta phase is underway.
Miscellaneous
Panoramax questionnaire: A link has been shared for a questionnaire on the impact of Panoramax in the workplace. Participants are encouraged to respond before the extended October 25 deadline. It’s here: Loading... - Grist
Photo quality: Work is underway to assess the level of photo quality. A discussion will soon be launched on the forum to gather opinions.
Update here: Qualification de la qualité des photos : récap des travaux en cours - #10 par PanierAvide
Investment committee: An important event is coming up with the Panoramax investment committee. Positive results have been achieved, exceeding targets in terms of number of photos.
International projects: Discussions are taking place on the deployment of Panoramax servers internationally, notably in the UK. Collaboration with MapComplete and OSM Belgium is underway to integrate photos into OpenStreetMap. https://panoramax.mapcomplete.org
New GoPro: Information on the future GoPro Max has been shared, with improvements expected in terms of capture frequency. Expected release by spring 2025.
Project monitoring: Collaboration with services such as SDIS des Vosges was mentioned to qualify the condition of DFCI trails, with an interest in integrating photos into Panoramax.