HERE Technologies, the global provider of map data and location services, is partnering with street-level imagery platform Mapillary to generate map data from images contributed by their communities and processed with computer vision.
Amsterdam – By linking the image-gathering efforts of the Mapillary and HERE Map Creator communities, the two companies are expanding the pool of imagery used in the mapmaking process. The partnership follows a pilot conducted in the second half of 2016 and is currently live in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, with potential expansion globally in 2018.
Mapillary will provision its database of 150 million street-level images, combined into a 3D representation of the world using computer vision technology, within the HERE Map Creator editing tool. This will allow the HERE Map Creator community to add more details to maps, which means greater map coverage and fresher data for millions of people using applications powered by HERE.
In parallel, the HERE Map Creator community will be able to upload street-level images to Mapillary’s database using Mapillary mobile apps, dashcams, or any GPS- enabled cameras. Within hours of upload, the images will be available through Mapillary for commercial and government use, GIS applications, academic research, and humanitarian projects.
“Following our successful pilot together, HERE is delighted to enter into a partnership with Mapillary," says Iain McNicol, Planning Manager at HERE. “This is great news for people passionate about mapping our planet. Now our community has even more resources at hand to help them make great maps.”
The partnership validates a new approach to map data collection, using advances in computer vision and off-the-shelf hardware to achieve greater reach and faster processing at lower costs. With this approach, communities like those of HERE and Mapillary can play a major role today in scaling and speeding up the development of maps for building smart cities, powering location-based services, and developing autonomous vehicles.
“We’re working with HERE to combine our strengths in computer vision with tried-and- true methods of making maps where they matter most—where people go,” says Janine Yoong, VP Business Development at Mapillary. “While we’re constantly pushing the boundaries of machine intelligence for extracting data from images, the heart of this collaboration is human.”
To read the full interview with Janine Yoong, please go to HERE 360.
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About HERE Technologies
HERE, the Open Location Platform company, enables people, enterprises and cities to harness the power of location. By making sense of the world through the lens of location we empower our customers to achieve better outcomes – from helping a city manage its infrastructure or an enterprise optimize its assets to guiding drivers to their destination safely. To learn more about HERE, including our new generation of cloud-based location platform services, visit http://360.here.com and www.here.com
About Mapillary
Mapillary is a street-level imagery platform, powered by collaboration and computer vision. By making street-level imagery available and affordable, Mapillary helps to build smart cities, create the maps of the future, and pave the way for autonomous vehicles. Mapillary’s apps and tools empower anyone to collect, share and use street- level images to explore places. Using computer vision, Mapillary reconstructs locations in 3D and recognizes objects from the images to generate map data. People all over the world have contributed more than 150 million images toward Mapillary's mission of helping people understand the world's places through images.