KartaView, formerly called OpenStreetView and OpenStreetCam, is a project to collect crowdsourced street-level photographs for improving

OpenStreetMap OpenStreetMap (OSM) is a free, open geographic database updated and maintained by a community of volunteers via open collaboration. Contributors collect data from surveys, trace from aerial imagery and also import from other freely licensed g ...

operated by Grab Holdings. Collected imagery is published under a

CC BY-SA A Creative Commons (CC) license is one of several public copyright licenses that enable the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted "work".A "work" is any creative material made by a person. A painting, a graphic, a book, a song/lyric ...

license and whil
some of the project's code
is released as

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

, much of it (most notably, the mobile app) still require

proprietary software Proprietary software is software that is deemed within the free and open-source software to be non-free because its creator, publisher, or other rightsholder or rightsholder partner exercises a legal monopoly afforded by modern copyright and int ...

to function. This is one of the few alternative platforms that offer street view like

Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...

. Contributors gather imagery with their smartphones using an Android or

iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...

app. It is also possible to upload images captured with other cameras. The KartaView app supports using an

OBD-II On-board diagnostics (OBD) is a term referring to a vehicle's self-diagnostic and reporting capability. OBD systems give the vehicle owner or repair technician access to the status of the various vehicle sub-systems. The amount of diagnostic inf ...

dongle plugged into the vehicle; in concert with the mobile device's GPS, KartaView can derive more accurate image locations. The app also recognizes and processes street signs in real time while capturing imagery. Once the imagery is recorded, it is uploaded, processed, and published to the website. OpenStreetMap editors can access KartaView images using the iD editor or

JOSM JOSM () ''(Java OpenStreetMap editor)'' is a free software desktop editing tool for OpenStreetMap geodata created in Java, originally developed by Immanuel Scholz and currently maintained by Dirk Stöcker. The editing tool contains advanced featu ...

plugin. KartaView's purpose resembles that of

Mapillary Mapillary is a service for sharing crowdsourced geotagged photos, developed by remote company Mapillary AB, based in Malmö, Sweden. Mapillary was launched in 2013 and acquired by Facebook, Inc. (now Meta Platforms) in 2020. This is one of the ...

. The main difference between the two is that KartaView's web and mobile apps are at least partially open-source (although no functioning open-source app can be built at least since December 2017, due to requirement of other proprietary components), whereas Mapillary mobile app does not open source even that. KartaView also makes it easier for user to delete their uploaded photos in case they change their mind about contributing.

History

KartaView was founded in 2009 as OpenStreetView. In 2016,

TeleNav Telenav, Inc. is a wireless location-based services corporation that provides services including Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite navigation, local search, automotive navigation solutions, mobile advertising, enterprise mobility and w ...

took over the openstreetview.org domain and started its own service under the name. The service was renamed to OpenStreetCam after an intervention by an unnamed trademark holder. On December 12, 2019, TeleNav sold OpenStreetCam to Grab Holdings for an undisclosed amount. In November 2020, OpenStreetCam became KartaView.

References

External links

* Android (operating system) software IOS software Internet properties established in 2009 Mobile route-planning software Web mapping Street view services {{DEFAULTSORT:KartaView