Mapillary Driver for iOS

Mapillary Driver is an app for completing tasks that are part of Capture Projects, a tool that lets organizations collect fresh street-level imagery in an area by dividing it into smaller tasks that several drivers can work on simultaneously.

The app is available for iOS on the App Store (there is also an Android version, learn more here). To be able to access and use the app, you need to be part of a capture project as:

• a team member of an organization on Mapillary, or
• someone who's doing paid driving with Mapillary.

Mapillary Driver lets you manage the tasks assigned to you, see what needs to be captured in each task, and optionally also capture images for you, if the project is specified to use the smartphone as a camera. You can also keep track of how much time you've spent capturing.

Download Mapillary Driver →

This article will go over the following:

1. Accessing tasks
2. Capturing with the phone
3. Capturing with external cameras
4. Uploading
5. Submitting tasks
6. Aborting tasks
7. Viewing your driving stats

 

Accessing tasks

If you’ve been added to a project as a driver, you can sign in to the Mapillary Driver app with your Mapillary user credentials. If you’re part of only one project, it will open automatically for you. If you’re part of several projects, you’ll see a list of them—pick the one you want to access.

When accessing a project, you’ll first see all tasks that have been assigned to you in the project. Before you can start capturing, you need to go through all new assignments and either accept or decline the task, depending on your availability to complete it. Tasks that need your attention will be surfaced to the top of the task list.

Tap on the task to be able to accept or decline it. You'll also see the activity log for the task there.

 

Capturing with the phone

After you've reviewed all your new tasks, you can start capturing. First, tap the “Start capture session” button.

After completing a short checklist about how to mount your phone, you simply start driving—the app starts logging your session and will automatically start capturing images when you drive in any of your assigned tasks.

At the bottom of the screen, you can also see stats on your session time, how many images have been taken already, and whether the app is currently recording (which it will do only in your assigned zones).

If you want to stop the capture session, swipe up on the stats bar and you’ll see the “Finish driving and stop capturing” button appear. Tap that to stop your driving session.

 

 

Capturing with external cameras

Depending on the instructions from your project admin, you may be required to capture imagery with some other camera than your smartphone (e.g. an action cam or 360° cam). In that case, go to “Settings” in the menu and flip off the switch for the “iPhone captures images” option. You still need to use the phone to log your session but capturing and uploading happens outside of the app.

Note. When capturing with an external camera (or a camera rig), you need to first set up the cameras and start recording on them, then tap “Start capture session” on your phone when you actually start driving.

 

Uploading

When you’re done driving, you need to upload the collected imagery. If you’ve been capturing with the smartphone, go to the “Images” section on the menu, where you’ll see the count of images you’ve uploaded and what you have yet to upload.

Tap the “Upload images” button to start uploading (you can do this both on Wi-Fi or mobile data, but the app will never start uploading automatically). When upload is ongoing, you can tap the “Stop” button to stop the upload for the time being—you can always resume it later again.

Note that you can’t upload images in the background—the app has to be open and active during upload. A good tip is to upload during the night when you’re not using your phone for other things.

Another tip for optimizing uploads is to check the “Multi-threaded upload” option in the Settings tab of the menu. In most cases, you would have this option on, meaning that you’ll be uploading four images at once. However, if your router has trouble handling multiple connections at once, you may achieve faster upload speeds when turning this option off.

Note. If you’ve been capturing with external cameras, you need to upload it outside of the app. We recommend the desktop uploader but you can also use our command line tools or web uploader. You won’t have a count of images on the phone so you need to take care and check yourself that everything gets uploaded. Consult your project admin for a recommended workflow.

 

Submitting tasks

When you’ve covered a task zone and uploaded all imagery (whether from the app or outside the app when using external cameras), it’s time to submit the task to your project admin. Open the task in the task list and tap the “Submit the task as completed” button. Your admin will then see that you’re done and have the chance to review the results.

If everything is as expected, the admin will approve your task. You can see this in the activity log when you open the task from the task list. If any adjustments are needed, the admin can reject your task and add a comment to clarify why they have done so. They may reassign the task to you so you can continue working on the task (e.g. maybe you missed some streets).

 

Aborting tasks

Once you’ve accepted a task, the only way to get unassigned from it is by submitting it. If for some reason you won’t actually be able to complete the task you’ve accepted, submit the task as is and contact your project admin to explain the situation. Don’t just leave the task hanging; let your admin know so they could assign it to someone else instead (even though the admin will be able to see you haven't accepted or declined the task yet).

If you’ve uploaded imagery in the task, it will remain on Mapillary for the organization that the capture project belongs to. If the task is reassigned, the next driver can just pick up your progress.

 

Viewing your driving stats

As you use the app for logging capture sessions, both you and the project admin will be able to see how much time you've spent driving for the project. To see your stats, tap on the "Activity" tab at the bottom of the screen.