DIY Action Camera Car Roof Mount

RJM62

RJM62

Touchdown! Greaser!
Gone West
Joined
Jun 15, 2007
Messages
13,157
Location
Upstate New York
Display Name
Geek on the Hill
The pictures kind of explain it:

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The mast is temporary. I'm going to do a quick-release kind of setup. The magnets are rated at 95 pounds each, but I'm going to add a U-hook and a safety strap tomorrow. And paint it black.

Rich
 
Timbeck2 said:
Just one question:


Why?
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I've taken up street mapping as a hobby. I'm active with Open Street Map and Mapillary. Time-lapse pictures taken while driving, especially on secondary and tertiary roads that no one has bothered to capture, help to identify landmarks, road signs, speed limits, POI's, and so forth.

Rich
 
I am glad you told us what you are doing, because it sure looks like you are mounting a terlette on the roof of your car....:lol::lol:
 
Some more pictures of the more-or-less finished product.

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Rich
 
Hmm. Now I'm interested in the camera rig, telemetry, back story, decision to use a black Sole :)

I fancy a belly rig for the same thing on the Sierra. On an angle, fly 360s and gain data for real 360 3D stuff.
 
Eric Stoltz said:
Hmm. Now I'm interested in the camera rig, telemetry, back story, decision to use a black Sole :)

I fancy a belly rig for the same thing on the Sierra. On an angle, fly 360s and gain data for real 360 3D stuff.
Click to expand...

My choices for manual transmission were either black or white: and white cars tend to be invisible here in the winter.

As for the Soul, it's reliable, roomy (it's bigger on the inside than the outside, kind of like Narnia), and I've been getting 38 mpg combined lately. Usually it's closer to 36, but the last time I filled up I used ethanol-free.

Rich
 
And here I thought my time testing software for doing cellular network mapping was odd looking, at least I had them mostly hidden:

IMG_0544-me.jpg IMG_0543-me.jpg
 
chartbundle said:
And here I thought my time testing software for doing cellular network mapping was odd looking, at least I had them mostly hidden:

View attachment 75370 View attachment 75371
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I've gotten odd looks and a few polite questions, but everyone has been pleased with the answer. What helps a lot is that I print up the page with the geographic sector I want to cover during a trip, with my planned route highlighted. It also shows the roads that have already been mapped, and my route usually fills in the gaps. I've even had some people ask if I could do their roads next so they could see them on the Interwebs. (Obviously, there's not a lot of excitement going on around here.)

If I weren't so cheap, I'd get magnetic signs to put on the car. Mapillary makes the graphics available, but you have to have the signs made up yourself if you want them. I really can't be bothered. I mean, seriously, if someone is driving around with a camera mounted on their roof, it seems pretty obvious to me that they're photographing the road.

Rich
 
Juliet Hotel said:
I couldn't see myself doing this but I really like the grass roots nature of it. Very cool.
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I kind of stumbled upon mapping as a hobby when my TomTom subscription wouldn't renew. I downloaded and tried out a few OSM-based navigation programs and liked them, but noticed some glaring errors and omissions (mainly POI's) on the local maps. So I joined OSM and started fixing them and adding new ones.

Being involved in OSM also led to my getting involved with Mapillary. The images are used by the map maintainers (with a lot of help from AI) to add and correct things like access restrictions, speed limits, and so forth on the maps. It seemed like a worthwhile thing to do, and it keeps me on the streets.

Rich
 
RJM62 said:
Being involved in OSM also led to my getting involved with Mapillary. The images are used by the map maintainers (with a lot of help from AI) to add and correct things like access restrictions, speed limits, and so forth on the maps. It seemed like a worthwhile thing to do, and it keeps me on the streets.
Click to expand...

What do they pay?
 
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