19

Context

While doing tourism, I use the Wikimedia Commons app to send pictures of monuments to Commons (a repository of free media).

Most minor monuments are not on Commons, but the Eiffel Tower has already 1000s of pictures, and my smartphone's camera is not going to produce a better one.

So, I would like to check what pictures of the area are already on Commons.

FYI: Example of a picture with geolocation attributes on Commons.

Question

Is there an app or website that shows Wikimedia Commons pictures on a map?

I am NOT talking about Wikipedia articles. I am talking about Wikimedia Commons pictures.

Requirements:

  • Show all pictures that have geolocation attributes on Commons.
  • Preferably thumbnails on a map, but a list sorted by proximity is OK too.
  • Free, ideally Open Source.

Bonus:

  • Center to my current position.
  • Search a location. For instance searching for "Leesburg" will center the map on Leesburg.
  • In addition to pictures that have geolocation attributes, also show pictures that have no such attributes but have a geographical category, for instance pictures in the category [[VillageTownA]] should be shown at the location of VillageTownA if they have no individual geolocation.
  • Sensible zoom, depending on the number of nearby pictures. Zoom should not be the same in the middle of the Sahara desert and in Manhattan.
  • Click on thumbnail to view picture full-screen.
  • Reasonably low bandwidth usage.

An acceptable solution could be to transform the coordinates of all Commons pictures (SQL file, 200MB) to .osm with each point having an URL to the image.

Improve this question
1
  • I have not tried any of the solutions myself, but you might wish to check my AR list for some examples. I guess Wikitude might be an option (not quite matching your map idea, maybe), or some map overlay apps like mixare / Layar with the WikiMedia Layers. All just pointers, hence no answer, sorry… Commented May 7, 2014 at 9:57

6 Answers 6

Reset to default
7

WikiShootMe is currently the most modern desktop tool for this.

In the upper-right, click the Layers button and deselect all but "Commons images".

enter image description here

  • Show all pictures that have geolocation attributes on Commons: Yes
  • Thumbnails on a map: Not thumbnails unfortunately, just points
  • Free: Yes
  • Open Source: Yes
  • Center to my current position: Yes
  • Search a location: Yes
  • Click on thumbnail to view picture full-screen: Yes
  • Reasonably low bandwidth usage: Yes
Improve this answer
5

http://wma.wmflabs.org/ is a map with all Commons pictures.

For zoom levels with too many pictures, only the best pictures are shown.

Free.

Problem: Very difficult to find the place you want, because there is no search, no way to enter a latitude/longitude, and city names are not displayed.

Improve this answer
1
  • I big plus on pointing on the problems as well. Commented Mar 3, 2015 at 9:30
1

GeoCommons is a project to show geocoded images from Wikimedia Commons in Google Earth.

You can take the KML file, and use it on Android with a KML-compatible navigation app. Using it in OsmAnd would probably require first transforming to .osm then .obf.

Free.

Improve this answer
1

In the file description of geocoded images from Wikimedia Commons you can find a link that shows you the images in OSM, Google or Bing maps (mostly the camera position, sometimes only the object location). Link example OSM:

https://tools.wmflabs.org/wiwosm/osm-on-ol/commons-on-osm.php?zoom=14&lat=42.874&lon=74.598

I cannot guarantee that it is working all night and day, but at least sometimes.

Improve this answer
3
  • I see that toolserver is shutting down in 1 1/2 months. - being migrated to tool labs though. Commented May 12, 2014 at 13:59
  • I get "The GeoCommons database is currently unavailable, please try again later" just like when using maps.google.com/maps?q=http://toolserver.org/~para/GeoCommons/… Commented May 13, 2014 at 5:02
  • Yes, on any image description page there's a link which says "View this and other nearby images on: OpenStreetMap" I think that used to link to that commons-on-osm.php tool. Nowadays it links to wikimap.toolforge.org . An advantage of this map tool is that it tries to show orientation of the photos with rotated markers, if camera/object location is set. Not many examples of this near where OP was asking about, but here's one : wikimap.toolforge.org/… Commented Apr 7 at 11:31
1

I had the same problem. I wanted to place pictures from wikimedia on a map. I created the map here but it's very basic: https://tbo47.github.io/wikimedia/

I also created a javascript/typescript library to get the pictures in an area. So everyone can create their own map if they know javascript: https://github.com/tbo47/ez-opendata

Improve this answer
0
0

The Android Commons app now has this feature, in Explore>Maps:

enter image description here

Free and open source. Centered on user location by default. Map can be navigated, zoomed in/out. Tap a thumbnail then Details to see the full image.

However, it does not show all pictures in an area, there is a maximum of like 20 pictures. WikiShootMe is much better in that regard.

Improve this answer

Start asking to get answers

Find the answer to your question by asking.

Ask question

Explore related questions

See similar questions with these tags.