Panoramax

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Panoramax
GeoVisio panoramax instance OSM Nov2023.png
Panoramax.svg
Author: Panoramax Team
License: MIT License
Platform: Web
Version: 2.7.0 [1] (2024-10-10)
Website: Panoramax.fr
Source code: https://gitlab.com/panoramax
Programming languages: JavaScript and Python

"The free alternative to photo-mapping territories"[1]

https://panoramax.openstreetmap.fr/#background=streets&date_to=2024-08-19&focus=pic&map=17.98/48.810323/2.344034&pic=b5e701b7-d539-466d-adc7-7c980d64bc8c&pic_type=equirectangular&speed=250&theme=default&xyz=236.00/0.00/30. The photo displayed was taken by zorglubu on October 1, 2023 of street level imagery in Paris, France.
Panoramax 360° photo showing the contributions of zorglubu in France. CC-BY-SA-4.0

Panoramax is a federation offering geolocated street-level pictures. Pictures are offered through a decentralized architecture, with a set of free and open-source tools. In other words, it is "like a self-hosted Street View"[2] that does not impose its own app and gives you the right to fork the server.

The main selling points are:

  • self-hostable, as a public instance or in your private organization
  • free-licensed server (unlike Mapillary or Mapilio)
  • freedom to choose or develop your favorite client app
  • federation through a meta-catalog, which gives a single entrypoint (API, web viewer) to all publicly available servers

Instances

Services

Some services store in-app uploads on custom Panoramax servers, which means that photos are accessible not only through an in-browser slippy map (i.e. the default Panoramax frontend), but also via the federation API, the Panoramax API, and the STAC API.

URL Region Publicly viewable Publicly editable License Other notes
https://panoramax.xyz 🌐 Global Yes No Mixed The meta-catalog list all pictures available across the public federation. After uploading an image, you may have to wait some time before it is visible on the meta-catalog[3].
https://panoramax.openstreetmap.fr 🇫🇷 France (and outside for tests) Yes Yes, with OSM-account CC-BY-SA 4.0 (see below) by OSM France

In the short term, OSM FR can host pictures from the outside of France, but worldwide coverage is not sustainable in the long term, due to storage limits (and costs). Therefore, it is preferred that other local communities set up their own federated instances.[4]

https://panoramax.ign.fr 🇫🇷 France Yes etalab-2.0 by Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière
https://panoramax.mapcomplete.org 🌐 Global Yes Yes, but only via https://mapcomplete.org, requires OSM-account CC-BY-SA 4.0 Images uploaded in MapComplete are stored here

OSM-France adopted CC-BY-SA for the pictures, but also grant a right to create non photographic derivates under CC-BY or ODbL.

Community

Deploy youre own instance

Check list

Tagging

panoramax=* - Associate a Panoramax picture to an OSM feature.

Contribute

Panoramax docs contribute

Development

Mobile App

Translation

Software

As Panoramax is a federation, the main matter is to agree on standards. Servers have to offer their pictures through a STAC API. Beyond that, any compliant server can be a part of Panoramax.

Main software used for Panoramax is listed below.

Server-side

All servers are running under the Panoramax API, which is fully free and open-source. It's a Python and Flask API, relying on a PostgreSQL database with PostGIS. It handles users, as well as uploading and serving of pictures.

Client-side

Many clients can be made available for Panoramax, as long as they accept STAC and/or WFS servers.

Clients from the Panoramax project itself:

Clients using the standard STAC or WFS APIs:

Third-party clients:

  • Panoramax-js, a Typescript library with which one can upload images to a Panoramax instance and with some other API calls made available; developed and used by MapComplete
  • MapComplete, an OSM editor and viewer, lets users browse nearby pictures from Panoramax and also upload pictures to Mapcomplete's own Panoramax instance. They moved all old images (hosted on imgur) to their panoramax-instance. This is documented in this issue
  • OsmApp.org shows Panoramax-images as well but doesn't (yet) shows a correct attribution (as of 2024-11-21)
  • QGis plugin: https://gitlab.com/panoramax/clients/qgis-plugin
  • A plugin for JOSM has been requested here on the JOSM issue tracker.
  • Vespucci feature request is here
  • overpass-turbo.eu links to panoramax.xyz when a panoramax-hash is detected

Use in OSM editors

iD integration

  • iD support with ability to filter by capture date, contributor and image type has been implemented, see screenshot below

Screenshot from 2.10.2024 of how to access Panoramax images in the iD editor for OpenStreetMap

Work in progress:

Statistics

Panoramax stats Panoramax Weblate

Panoramax Weblate

Third-party viewers

  • In MapComplete, click a map feature, then click "Browse nearby pictures" in the panel at the right. This includes the pictures from the Panoramax meta-catalog - so not only the pictures that were uploaded to MapComplete.

Made possible by

https://gitlab.com/panoramax/gitlab-profile/-/raw/develop/images/sponsors.png

See also

OSM wiki

Wikipedia

Wikidata

External Websites

For developers

To convert a panoramax-hash into the src for an image, query https://api.panoramax.xyz/api/search/?ids=<hash> which will give you a .json. A normal-sized image is available at features[0].assets.sd. Use .hd or .thumb for other sizes

Alternatively, one can use https://api.panoramax.xyz/api/pictures/{hash}/sd.jpg

References

  1. https://panoramax.fr
  2. https://gitlab.com/panoramax/server/api
  3. Source taking MapComplete as an example.
  4. Message from the OSM FR infrastructure maintainer, in #panoramax_fr:matrix.org, on Aug 26, 2023; message in #panoramax_fr:matrix.org, on Aug 25, 2023.