From a9a240360a38844a4a2a86b22f699da2ba5186b5 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Diego Ripley Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2026 16:46:57 -0500 Subject: [PATCH] Initialize README with project details Added detailed project overview, mission, infrastructure, processing pipeline, and data products sections to README. --- README.md | 27 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 27 insertions(+) create mode 100644 README.md diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..35e90e3 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,27 @@ +# Field Imagery +## The Mission + +Commercial street-level imagery is often locked behind restrictive licenses, proprietary viewers, and paywalls, making it inaccessible to our target audience. We are building a sovereign, open-source alternative for Canada. + +We will be using **[Panoramax](https://panoramax.fr/)** as a base, but will be expanding upon the project to provide a decentralized platform where field imagery is treated as a public utility: fully downloadable, API-accessible, privacy-compliant, and resilient to shifting priorities. + +## The Infrastructure + +* **Storage**: High-performance object storage backend for hosting terabytes of 360°, flat field imagery, and oblique imagery. + +## The Processing Pipeline + +We treat field imagery as a data engineering challenge, ensuring "time-to-insight" is minimized for downstream users. + +1. **Ingestion**: Raw imagery is captured using diverse hardware (ex. 360° cameras, mobile rigs, meta glasses, drones, etc.) and ingested by our systems. +2. **Privacy & Anonymization**: Before publication, all imagery undergoes a rigorous privacy scrub. We utilize automated detection pipelines to blur faces and license plates, ensuring compliance with Canadian privacy standards while maintaining data utility. +3. **Standardization**: Images are processed into systems-ready formats, making it ready for analysis. +4. **Metadata Extraction**: We extract and normalize/strip identifiying information (ex. EXIF and GPS telemetry), indexing it into a **[FAIR Catalogue](https://stac-utils.github.io/stac-geoparquet/latest/spec/stac-geoparquet-spec/)**. + +## Data Products + +Unlike commercial platforms that only offer a "view" of the data, we provide the **data itself**. + +* **Bulk Datasets**: Curated dumps of street-level imagery available for computer vision training, asset management, and change detection models. +* **[FAIR Data Catalogue](https://stac-utils.github.io/stac-geoparquet/latest/spec/stac-geoparquet-spec/) Integration**: Seamless integration with geospatial workflows (ex. DuckDB, QGIS, Python, R, Julia, etc.). +