Geograph Blog ::

Beauty of Outdoor Places of London

By Barry Hunter

Many moons ago, My Society created ScenicOrNot, an online project to rate images sourced from Geograph. Asking users to rate them for subjective beauty, collecting over 1.5 Million votes. LinkExternal link

Fast forward to 2017 and 'Artificial Intelligence' systems have progressed, so much so that researchers at University of Warwick have trained a computer algorithm to do something similar LinkExternal link . Trained with data from ScenicOrNot, the algorithm can estimate a scenicness rating of its own. Can read the paper here: LinkExternal link (no idea the sum total of computing power it took!)

... so to test it out the same researchers then ran the algorithm on a large batch of images from Geograph in the London area; producing a interesting dataset of the 'beauty' of London (Because geograph has many photos, over 240,000 when processed, offers a highly granular breakdown. Available here: LinkExternal link )

To that end we have produced a map plotting these predictions, available here: Link .
shows the aggregate prediction on scale of 1-10, getting more detailed as zoom in.

We also have a map of just the most scenic photos: Link

Finally some images from the thousands processed with high predicted 'Beauty':
TQ0889 : Low Water in the Lido by Des Blenkinsopp TQ0960 : The lakes, Painshill Park by Alan Hunt TQ2782 : Oranamental Lake Regent's Park by Sheila Madhvani TQ2877 : Lake in Battersea Park by Peter S
TQ2176 : River Thames at Barnes by Marathon TQ2074 : Richmond Park by East Sheen Gate by Christine Johnstone TQ2680 : The Long Water and Kensington Gardens by Jim Osley TQ4179 : Sunrise over The Thames Barrier by Ian Dalgliesh


When
Mon, 14 Aug 2017 at 12:00
Chosen Photo

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