Making Connections and New Profile Pages

At Mapillary, our main task is connecting the many photos uploaded to the service. We do this all the time, in the background, using computer vision and reasoners.

Besides showing connections when you are actively looking at a photo and navigating, we haven't really exposed this data. That is changing now.

Weekly Connections

Some of you may have noticed the weekly activity email that went out last week. At the top there are stats on how many new photos you added, how many new connections were made between your contributions and others', and your ranking on some relevent top lists of contributors. Then there is a section called "Close and similar to yours", these are the new connections between you and other mappers made in that week.

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In the screenshot above, you can see that my uploads were matched to other users' uploads. In the top row, the other photo (from a bus camera) is from a later point in time. You can see that the building under construction has several floors added. On the second row, you see a difference in seasons for two photos taken at the same exact spot.

Connections on Profile Pages

Johan made a major update to the profile pages. These show your bio and your basic stats at the top, just like before. Then, next to your uploads, are the connections. Here we are showing which users you are connected to through your uploads. The counter next to the name is how many connections you have. Click a user and the view expands so you can see all the connections.

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Now you can easily see who else is mapping where you are. Who knows, you might make new friends or new rivals this way ;)

We love this way of connecting our contributors, not just the photos. You are not alone out there. When your uploads become connected with others and become part of something bigger, we want to let you know. Hopefully you will find that as rewarding as we do.

/Jan Erik

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