Making Maps From Photographs

Using 35 million geotagged photographs from Flickr, David Crandall and a team from Cornell University have created accurate global and city maps from the data alone. Plotting the raw data from the photos (geotags, text descriptions, key visual features) onto a blank canvas revealed the planet’s familiar landscape, as well as  where in the world people were placing their attention. They also discovered some interesting facts from the experiment, such as: New York is the world’s most photographed city (12 million images), and the midtown Apple Store is the fifth most photographed location in the city.

[New Scientist via The Morning News]