In Hivemapper Colony (on-premise) Admin is the interface for administrators to:

• Setup, configure, and manage their Mapping Engine pipelines.
• Initiate bulk video uploads.
• Manage basemaps such as LiDAR imports and satellite imagery.
• Review status of all videos uploaded across your instance.
• Add / Remove users from your organization.

Basemaps in Hivemapper include terrain, LiDAR, streets, and satellite imagery. Basemaps provide geographic context and serve as a starting point for your map ー think of our basemap data as the existing coat of paint and when you add new video that is transformed into a map we generate a fresh coat of paint.

When you need to upload hundreds or thousands of videos per day the Bulk Video Upload feature is crucial to simplifying that workflow. In the Hivemapper Colony product an administrator can point Hivemapper at a file directory and when new video is added to the directory Hivemapper will automatically notice the new video files and prompt a user to upload all the files in the directory.

The Bulk Video Upload feature is available in the Admin interface of Hivemapper Colony.

The CSV (comma-separated values) format is common for table data, like the kind you may use in Excel or other spreadsheets. Hivemapper defines video metadata in a CSV allowing developers to transform an unknown video metadata format to a format understood by Hivemapper. To learn more about the CSV metadata see here.

Change Detection is the Hivemapper product that autonomously discovers changes in the physical world and visualizes these changes in the Map web application.

Change Detection detects changes in all 3-dimensions and does so across different types of collections and different types of data:

• Video (3D Map) to Video (3D Map)
• IR Video (3D Map) to Color Video (3D Map)
• Video (3D Map) to LiDAR

Clustering is a module in the Mapping Engine that automatically groups video frames together based on similarity. This is needed because longer videos with many frames need to be broken up into smaller pieces to be processed. Grouping frames based on their similarity allows for the most matched features per group and therefore the most dense 3D map.

A coordinate is the combination of latitude and longitude. As Hivemapper is a 3D map we always include altitude as a third value.

In our Hivemapper Colony product the Core Services are all the modules needed to run the entire Hivemapper platform. Think of these as the minimum set of modules that need to be running to build maps with the Mapping Engine and then use the Map web application.

Interface for uploading video, reviewing status of the video-to-map Mapping Engine process, and accessing the maps you built. Learn more about using the Dashboard here.

MVS is a module in the Mapping Engine that adds additional points to a sparse point cloud to create a dense point cloud. This adds more detail to your map.

Video captured with a standard color camera. EO stands for electro-optical.

Full motion video. Standard video.

Frame Selection is a module in the Mapping Engine that intelligently extracts frames from your video.

GRiD is one of a few different LiDAR data warehouses that Hivemapper uses as a source of LiDAR data.

Georegistration is a module in the Mapping Engine that registers a new map (without coordinates) to the global map (high accuracy).

Consistent and accurate 3D map made by combining (Georegistering) all successfully transformed videos into a single and accurate global map.

• Example of a global map is here.

When a new map Georegisters to the global map at 50cm accuracy or better we include it in the high accuracy global map.

Hivemapper Colony is our on-premise or self-hosted software product that runs on your own hardware.

• Hardware requirements for Hivemapper Colony.

Hivemapper Swarm is our cloud based software-as-a-service (SaaS) product.

Video captured with an IR or infra-red (thermal) camera.

Imagery is a module in the Mapping Engine that attempts to registers the map to satellite imagery when no GPS metadata is available for your video.

Video cameras embed metadata in the video they produce in the form of KLV. The KLV format is defined by MISB. Hivemapper automatically extracts KLV data from many video cameras.

Is a common point cloud file format used by Hivemapper to export map data to 3rd party applications. The LAS files are included in your map exports.

LiDAR refers to 3D point cloud data collected using the same principles of radar but using lasers and light instead of sound. LiDAR data is available for many locations and Hivemapper automatically discovers and imports this data when available. Hivemapper uses LiDAR to Georegister your new maps, detect changes against older LiDAR data, and provide visual context for the maps you build. By default LiDAR is turned off in the Map, but you can turn on LiDAR maps.

When no video metadata is available, Hivemapper asks the user to provide a Location Estimate for the video ー an estimate of where the video was collected. Using this location Hivemapper will attempt to georegister your resulting map.

Mapping Engine is the Hivemapper product that transforms 2D video (that is moving)to a 3D map and Georegisters the new map to our Global Map.

When a new map Georegisters to the global map at worse than 50cm accuracy we include it in the medium - low accuracy global map. By default we hide these from the Map. You can enable it by turning it on under Map Layers.

Merger is a module in the Mapping Engine that integrates the new segment map into the global map.

Mesh Creation is a module in the Mapping Engine that generates a textured map from video frames.

A module is responsible for a single part of the Map Engine processing. Examples of a module include Frame Selection, Reconstruction, and Mesh Creation. The modules work together to transform video to an accurate 3D map and build the map that a user can visualize in the Map.

Is a common file format used by Hivemapper to export map data to 3rd party applications like Unity for creating VR experiences. The OBJ files are included in your map exports.

Visualizes the map as a series of dots. In the Hivemapper Map you can display your map as a point cloud. Point clouds, while not as visually attractive as textured mesh, provided a clearer look at the 3D data.

• Learn how to view your map as a Point Cloud.

Video cameras often produce metadata in the form of an SRT file. The metadata in the SRT file describes the location of the camera and camera attributes along with timestamps. Hivemapper automatically extracts SRT metadata from a wide variety of video cameras.

Every video segment in Hivemapper is assigned a 24 character alphanumeric segment ID. This ID is used to identify the video segments and can be observed in the Hivemapper URL when viewing these maps as either standalone segment maps or as part of a Change Detection set.

You can find the segment ID by selecting any video segment in the dashboard and selecting the More Info dropdown.

A map made from a single video segment. Some segment maps are not added (Georegistered) to the global map.

• Example of a segment map is here.

SFM is a module in the mapping engine that finds the location of all the frames relative to each other in 3D space and generates a sparse point cloud.

Terrain maps define the vertical and horizontal dimensions of land surface. Hivemapper uses terrain to help build accurate maps from video and provide visual context for the maps you build. By default our terrain basemap is visible in the Map.

Photorealistic visualization of a map. In the Map textured mesh maps are displayed as Default.

• Example of a textured mesh map - see here.
• Learn more about textured mesh maps in Hivemapper.

When a map is generated from a video or video segment but cannot be positioned on the global map due to a lack of basemap or location information. This can also happen should the automated validation determine that the resulting map data is not of high enough quality or accuracy to be added to the consolidated map.

Every video uploaded to Hivemapper is assigned a 24 character alphanumeric video ID. This ID is used to identify the uploaded video and can be view the source video on Hivemapper.com

You can find the video ID in the dashboard under the More Info dropdown.

Video Mapping is a module in the Mapping Engine that geocodes video frames to the 3D map enabling a user to click anywhere and see all historical videos of that exact spot.

The Mapping Engine will often break apart a single video into multiple segments, as some parts of the video can be successfully mapped while other parts don't have sufficient visual data to produce a map. Longer videos or videos that cover a large area might also be broken up to cluster sections of the video together based on location.

Video Transcoding is a module in the Mapping Engine that converts video into a web friendly format for online viewing.

Upload video through the Dashboard interface. This begins the process of building a fresh map.

Most video cameras produce metadata (location, camera settings, timestamp, etc.) that Hivemapper attempts to automatically extract during the processing of your video. Examples of video metadata include KLV, SRT, and CSV. To learn more about video metadata see here.

WMS is a Web Map Service. In the Hivemapper Colony product in the Admin interface you can add satellite imagery from any source with a Web Map Service endpoint. This enables support for Georegistration when no video metadata is available.