News — 03 April, 2017

Uploading made easier: new options available for OpenAerialMap

Since OpenAerialMap launched we’ve required imagery to be stored in a publicly accessible place prior to upload. This enable us to focus more on the design challenges for browsing data and lean on third-party tools for uploading -- Amazon S3 provides cheap storage with command-line and other client integrations; Dropbox makes it easy to sync large files over low-bandwidth; and, Google Drive provides low-cost storage for existing Google account holders. Over the past two years, users have uploaded thousands of images to OAM through AWS, Dropbox, and Google. This past weekend we rolled out the latest new feature: browser-based uploading to OAM.

A view of the local file upload at upload.openaerialmap.org.

Now UAV pilots and aerial imagery companies can distribute their imagery as soon as they’ve completed a collection without needing to use a third-party tool. This simple, new upload method opens up more opportunities for anyone to share and distribute their imagery through OAM. Now anyone who does not have a storage account with Dropbox or Google can upload imagery from a web browser. As part of our work in the Pacific on the PacDID project, this feature will be integrated into a regional deployment of OAM. The regional deployment of OAM enables our partner, the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), to share and distribute in a local environment while also staying connected to the larger global OAM.

Thanks to Nick Bumbarger and Daniel da Silva from Development Seed and Seth Fitzsimmons for developing and supporting the integration of the new upload method. We’re continuing to develop additional integrations with other services and tools. Keep in touch with our development here or check out our GitHub repository for key features and issues we’re working on.

Request a token to start uploading. If you’re interested in contributing to the development of the project, get in touch with us on Gitter or Slack.