Goals

This project investigates social multimedia for geographic discovery. Specifically, community-contributed ground-level images and videos are used to map what-is-where on the surface of the Earth in much the same way that overhead images taken from air- or space-borne platforms have been used for decades in the traditional field of remote sensing.

The overarching premise is that georeferenced social multimedia data can be considered a form of volunteered geographic information. Further, it can enable geographic discovery not possible through traditional means.

The framework, termed proximate sensing, is applied to a number of challenging geographic discovery problems including land cover and land use classification; mapping scenicness; mapping public sentiment; mapping pet ownership; and mapping human activities.