Dynamic Cartograms for Navigating Geo-referenced Photographs
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When we attempt to recall a past event, location is one of the strongest memory cues. Recent technological advancements such as GPS and cellular technology have made it possible to annotate digital photographs with the exact coordinates where each photo was taken. This location information can be extremely helpful in organizing and presenting image collections, from a global library of digital photos to a single user's personal collection. |
The World-Wide Media eXchange system allows map-based browsing of geo-referenced photo collections. |
A variety of systems have been developed that automatically organize geo-referenced photo collections, in order to facilitate efficient search and browsing for specific photos or for photos of particular events. Most of these systems allow users to browse their photo collection using a map; clusters of dots on the map correspond to the locations in which the photos have been taken, and the user can scroll or zoom around the map to find the photos he is looking for. This interface works reasonably well on large, high-resolution displays, but does not adapt well to small screens, such as those on mobile devices or on the camera itself, because maps tend to use screen real estate in an extremely inefficient manner. In many cases, especially in personal photo collections, pictures are broadly dispersed in some areas and highly concentrated in others. Having to pan and zoom a map to the correct low-level location is cumbersome on a small-screen device. Limited input mechanisms, such as cell-phone controls or voice activation, exacerbate the problem.
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We propose a system that mitigates these problems by replacing standard maps with dynamically generated cartograms. Cartograms are a well-known technique for showing geography-related statistical information, such as population demographics and epidemiological data. The basic idea is to distort a map by resizing its regions according to a statistical parameter, but in a way that keeps the map recognizable. In this case, maps would be distorted based on the locations of photographs to give greater prominence to areas with more photographs, and decrease the overall screen resolution required to display the map. We plan to compare a system using cartograms for geo-referenced photo browsing to one using traditional maps, and determine if cartograms allow users to locate specific photos or photo collections more efficiently. |
This world population cartogram distorts each country based on its population. |
Contact: Dan Maynes-Aminzade (monzy at stanford dot edu)
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