Guides

Understand what you’re looking at.

Short explainers for anyone who opens the map without a background in traffic engineering or webcams. No jargon lists — just the questions people actually ask.

• Sources · 4 min readWhere opencam’s camera data comes fromEvery camera on the map is published by its operator: road agencies, weather services and webcam owners. Here is what kind of cameras they are and how the map shows them.Read more
• Troubleshooting · 3 min readWhy a camera shows a still image or no image at allMost public cameras are snapshots that refresh every few seconds, not video. Here is how to tell a snapshot from a stream, and the usual reasons a camera goes dark.Read more
• Cameras · 4 min readHow traffic and road cameras workWhat road agencies point their cameras at, why the pictures are small and how often they change — the basics of the cameras that make up most of the map.Read more
• How-to · 3 min readChecking road and weather conditions with live camerasA practical way to use public cameras before a drive, a hike or a day at the beach — and what a camera can and cannot tell you.Read more
• Privacy · 3 min readIs it legal to watch public cameras? Privacy and opencamWhat it means for a camera to be public, what opencam does and does not do with the pictures, and how an operator can have a camera removed.Read more
• How-to · 3 min readUsing the map: 2D and 3D, previews, drawing areasA quick tour of the live map — switching between the flat map and the globe, live previews, the camera viewer, drawing areas and sharing a view.Read more