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Show HN: I Was Here – Draw on street view, others can find your drawings

Hey HN, I made a site where you can draw on street-level panoramas. Your drawings persist and other people can see them in real time.Strokes get projected onto the 3D panorama so they wrap around buildings and follow the geometry, not just a flat overlay. Uses WebGL2 for rendering, Mapillary for the street imagery.The idea is for it to become a global canvas, anyone can leave a mark anywhere and others stumble onto it.

35 points by mrktsm__ - 23 comments

23 Comments

qezz [3 hidden]5 mins ago

It's not very obvious which places are available for drawing. At first I thought it pulls Google street view, so I just zoomed in to some place I visited recently, but there was nothing.

So it turned out the spots on the map are actually the available panoramas, and not just a heatmap of the signatures.

Cool idea overall!

tkocmathla [3 hidden]5 mins ago

Cool idea, but of course the very first image I clicked into was a dick.

lukan [3 hidden]5 mins ago

I recently learned that in Bhutan, they are sacred smybols since a long time

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phallus_paintings_in_Bhutan

Since I know that, I am rather amused every time I see a dick painted anywhere.

eternauta3k [3 hidden]5 mins ago

First thing I saw was a Swastika. It was painted on an ex Nazi building, but still...

SanjayMehta [3 hidden]5 mins ago

A swastika or a Hakenkreuz?

mrktsm__ [3 hidden]5 mins ago

Haha yeah, can't have nice things I guess. I'm currently working on automated moderation to catch that stuff faster. In the meantime, Report button exists if you stumble into anything awful.

doctorhandshake [3 hidden]5 mins ago

It is my belief that a time may come when we can all ‘write’ on, or link information to, any person, place, or thing, based on a melange of semantic anchors, and in that world there will be fewer secrets and more experts.

pcthrowaway [3 hidden]5 mins ago

I used this one called "Gooey" in 1999 that let you have a realtime chat with people on the same page as you: https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/maker-of-goo...

abrookewood [3 hidden]5 mins ago

A long, long time ago ... there was a browser extension or maybe an iframe, that allowed you to "comment" on public websites. Of course you weren't really commenting on the actual website, just some form of overlay. Anyway, it quickly devolved into lawsuits and rude comments if I recall correctly.

JimDabell [3 hidden]5 mins ago

There have been several efforts. At one point the W3C were working on a standard protocol for it: https://www.w3.org/annotation/

Teddy_Kord [3 hidden]5 mins ago

Do you remember any details about the name of the software, or the cause of the lawsuits?

I had a similar idea, funny to hear it's been done and ended so badly.

chromakode [3 hidden]5 mins ago

I don't recall any lawsuits, but whytheluckystiff made one 20 years ago. https://ruby-talk.ruby-lang.narkive.com/buiXXTZh/what-is-hoo...

gamesieve [3 hidden]5 mins ago

Don't know if it matches with the lawsuits, but could've been Third Voice (1999-2001).

rtwk [3 hidden]5 mins ago

I believe it was https://web.hypothes.is/

FailMore [3 hidden]5 mins ago

Good fun thanks! Found a cute cat in Buenos Aires. It seems you have quite a lot of activity already, is that all from HN in the last two hours or from something else before this?

mrktsm__ [3 hidden]5 mins ago

Mostly from HN in the last 2 hours, yeah. Had some early users before but nothing like this spike. Glad you found the cat drawing!

sans_souse [3 hidden]5 mins ago

I love it until fine I'll signup and love it again but then no you pay now. My 2 cents is all I have to give.

mrktsm__ [3 hidden]5 mins ago

I hear you on the friction. I’m experimenting with the 'ink' limits right now, also the ink actually regenerates. I think I need to make it more obvious in the UI

sans_souse [3 hidden]5 mins ago

I was definitely finding it fun, responsive etc. Started to do a Simpsons-esque tag in Boston but ran out of credit. Hope to see more leeway keep up the good work

colejhudson [3 hidden]5 mins ago

How are the panoramas chosen? That is, can I select one that isn't currently on the map?

mrktsm__ [3 hidden]5 mins ago

About 2,000 locations so far. Mapillary has a lot of imagery but finding the 360 panoramas is trickier since they are a lot rarer. I'm actively expanding coverage

yukapero [3 hidden]5 mins ago

good work! this is like Wplace but in 3D

mrktsm__ [3 hidden]5 mins ago

Thanks! That was the main inspiration.