There are 17 million Wayspots in the database and more on scanning
PkmnTrainerJ-ING
Posts: 5,138 Ambassador
More on Scanning!
A recent Niantic blog post - https://nianticlabs.com/news/engineering-the-worlds-most-dynamic-3d-ar-map/?hl=en
shows how to do scans and also discusses that there are 17 million Wayspots currently in the Lightship database.
“Wayspots are publicly accessible objects or locations that our players consider special in their area e.g. statues, local art installations, parks, or fountains. We have 17 million Wayspots in our database and we select those that are in areas where our local player community is and prioritize Wayspots where we need more scans. However, users can scan at any Wayspot whether it is a prioritized Wayspot or not.”
It also discusses that they blur out any identifying features before the scan data is passed through AI to do checks including that “…that the camera was not pointed at the ground or out of focus, and that it filters out images that appear to be taken indoors.”
Are you still scanning Wayspots? What method do you use for scans?
Via the UK Cross Platform Wayfarer Channel - https://t.me/UKWayfarer
Comments
")" is part of the link, so it won't work just by clicking it, you have to delete the character and load again (if you you still want to edit your post). I didn't do any scans lately, but that's mostly because I don't play Ingress and PoGO that often anymore. Since there's now also Poffin in raid rewards, there's very little incentive left for me to do scans.
Thanks. Managed to edit without it going to moderation.
The Pokémon GO rewards are lacking for sure. I powered up a nearby Wayspot to level 3. Not worth it at all.
Now a Fracker and a Battle Beacon, yes.
I heavily use the free fracker when I want to flash farm a random portal. So useful!
It's nice that they have a method for scans, but they've on this blog post only exhibited scans where people can walk around them. It would be nice to see how you would scan a plaque on a wall perhaps.
Someone else asked this in a chat and there is some advice on the Pokémon GO page. I’ve changed PokéStop to Wayspot but the info is the same.
Flat Wayspots (murals; memorial plaques; signage; etc.): Face the Wayspot and walk laterally from one side to the other. If the Wayspot itself is small, like a memorial plaque on a bench, please scan the entire bench versus the memorial plaque only.
Large Wayspots (historical building; athletic fields; etc.): While staying within range of the Wayspot, move laterally across the faces of the structure or building. Before starting your next Scan of the same large Wayspot, take two steps back to overlap your new Scan with your previous one. If the Wayspot is a park or athletic field, try to focus on free-standing elements that are most representative of that Wayspot. If you are able to continue Scanning further, you can connect free-standing elements by getting two or more of them filmed in the same Scan.
Whoops, forgot to add a word: "diagram". It's nice to see the illustrations of the circular, spiral and flower movements for ones that can be walked around, but I'd like to see diagrams for flat surfaces, such as parallel, semi-circular or concave movements. I dunno.
Ah yeah, a diagram or an example (Someone filming someone else scanning) would help if they want some good scans
WOW I've never seen information on how to scan! I've seen plenty of requests for it, and griping that there wasn't any. I really wondered why Niantic preferred for us to just wing it, without telling us what they want. I know people who only scan their feet near the wayspot - and are confident that it's helpful and what Niantic wants (to see what it's like around the wayspot). I'll pass this info along!
Niantic is enlisting the help of the millions of people who are playing Pokémon GO and Ingress to gather data that is the foundation of our map. Once players in Pokémon GO reach a certain level in the game, they are given the opportunity to take on AR Mapping Field Research tasks
That's cute :)
I just tested something regarding VPS. Uploading "good" scans of the actual object get added to the approved scans counter effective immediately. Seems like the AI is really just filtering out personal information and garbage scans (haven't tested that yet). Started with 46 approved Scans and after uploading 16 more the counter went up when someone checked a few minutes later.
Also, germany has way more VPS activated Wayspots now: