The following is the abstract of a talk I will be giving at the Ricoh California Research Center on Monday (11-Jun-07)<\/p>\n
What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in a place: Using geotagged images to explore the world<\/strong> The idea behind the data analysis is simple: by taking a photo, photographers essentially express their interest in a particular place, and implicitly \u00e2\u20ac\u0153vote\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in favor of that location. This gives us a set of highly representative tags associated with each map location. The World Explorer visualization is facilitated by placing these representative tags on a map (\u00e2\u20ac\u0153a Tag Map\u00e2\u20ac\u009d). We augment the Tag Map with photos that represent each tag at its specific location. Together, World Explorer effectively provides a sense of the important concepts and attractions embodied in each map area and zoom level, and allows users \u00e2\u20ac\u201c tourists planning a trip, virtual world-discoverers or just some bored individuals \u00e2\u20ac\u201c to explore the world via photos. <\/p>\n
\nCan we automatically create an “attraction map” of the world from Flickr geotagged images and their associated tags? We performed an analysis of Flickr data and developed a visualization technique called Tag Maps to do exactly that. Using the analysis and the Tag Maps visualization, we created an exploration tool called World Explorer<\/a> that allows one to, well, explore the world like never before. <\/p>\n