VisionMap 🗺️

A Visual Positioning System (VPS) pipeline. Upload geolocated images to build a reference database, then query with a new photo to determine where it was taken — the same approach that powers AR localization in Pokémon GO.

Tech: Python · FastAPI · PyTorch (ResNet18) · PostgreSQL + pgvector · Docker

Architecture

           ┌──────────────┐
           │  POST /ingest│
           │  POST /localize
           └──────┬───────┘
                  │
           ┌──────▼───────┐
           │   FastAPI     │     asyncio.to_thread()
           │   (async)     │─────────────────────────┐
           └──────┬───────┘                          │
                  │                          ┌───────▼────────┐
                  │                          │  ResNet18       │
                  │                          │  Feature        │
                  │                          │  Extractor      │
                  │                          │  (512-d output) │
           ┌──────▼───────┐                  └───────┬────────┘
           │  PostgreSQL   │◄────────────────────────┘
           │  + pgvector   │
           │  (HNSW index) │
           └──────────────┘

Quick Start

docker compose up --build -d

API at http://localhost:8000 · Docs at http://localhost:8000/docs

Demo

Screenshots

Ingest (Golden Gate)	Ingest (SF Tower)	Localize

Reference Images Used

Golden Gate	SF Tower

Ingest — Store a geolocated image

POST /ingest (form-data)

Field	Value
file	golden-gate.png
image_name	golden_gate
latitude	37.8199
longitude	-122.4783

{
  "status": "ok",
  "id": "828d1c60-f886-4ad4-8922-bfa7914146ce",
  "image_name": "golden_gate",
  "embedding_dims": 512,
  "timing": {
    "inference_ms": 101.0,
    "db_insert_ms": 5.8,
    "total_ms": 106.8
  }
}

Localize — Find where a photo was taken

POST /localize (form-data)

Field	Value
file	query image
top_k	5

{
  "status": "ok",
  "matches": [
    {
      "image_name": "golden_gate",
      "latitude": 37.8199,
      "longitude": -122.4783,
      "similarity": 1.0
    },
    {
      "image_name": "sf_tower",
      "latitude": 37.7946,
      "longitude": -122.3999,
      "similarity": 0.656
    }
  ],
  "timing": {
    "inference_ms": 145.0,
    "db_search_ms": 14.1,
    "total_ms": 166.3
  }
}