CAREER: Social Multimedia as Volunteered Geographic Information: Crowdsourcing What-Is-Where on the Surface of the Earth Through Proximate Sensing

该项目研究地理发现的社会多媒体。具体而言，社区提供的地面图像和视频被用来绘制地球表面的地图，其方式与传统遥感领域几十年来使用从空中或空间平台拍摄的高空图像的方式大致相同。首要的前提是，地理参考的社会多媒体数据可以被认为是一种形式的自愿地理信息。此外，它可以实现通过传统手段不可能实现的地理发现。该框架被称为近距离感知，适用于两个具有挑战性的地理发现问题：1）土地利用分类，2）映射公众情绪，例如特定地理位置的风景如何。土地使用分类是一个重要的问题，但由于遥感不记录活动，因此往往无法利用高空图像进行分类。该项目将图像理解方面的最新技术应用并扩展到地面图像和视频，以绘制土地使用图。绘制公众情绪的动机是类似的。更广泛的影响包括通过社区服务团队的工程项目开发K-12空间识字课程，该团队的客户是默塞德县教育办公室。加州大学默塞德分校最近被列为西班牙裔服务机构，使其成为全国仅有的少数几所具有此称号的研究型大学之一。来自代表性不足群体的本科生将参与开发一个GeographUSA项目，志愿者可以上传美国地理上具有代表性的照片。将通过项目网站（http：//vision.ucmerced.edu/projects/socialmultimedia/）提供结果、数据集和其他项目工件。

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 two challenging geographic discovery problems: 1) land-use classification, and 2) mapping public sentiment such as how scenic a particular geographic location is. Land-use classification is an important problem but is often not possible using overhead images since remote sensing does not record activities. This project instead applies and extends state-of-the-art techniques in image understanding to ground-level images and videos to map land-use. The motivation is similar for mapping public sentiment.The broader impacts include developing K-12 spatial literacy curricula through an Engineering Projects in Community Service team whose client is the Merced County Office of Education. University of California-Merced was recently classified as an Hispanic Serving Institution, making it one of only a handful of research universities with this designation nationwide. Undergraduate students from underrepresented groups will be involved in developing a GeographUSA project whereby volunteers can upload geographically representative photos of the United States. Results, datasets, and other project artifacts will be made available through the project website (http://vision.ucmerced.edu/projects/socialmultimedia/).