ThemExplorer: Finding and browsing geo-referenced images

The growing amount of geo-referenced image collections facilitates the enrichment and adaptation of existing geographic thesauri to image retrieval and their exploitation in map-based interfaces (Google Map and Earth, Yahoo! Map, etc.). Most large scale systems for visualizing pictures of geographic entities are weakly structured (unless for commercial entities), with inhomogeneous coverage; they also make little or no use of image processing techniques in search and retrieval. In this paper, we tackle with these problems by introducing an enriched version of a geographical database and a content-based facility in a new map-based visualization tool, called ThemExplorer. We present the system and evaluate different dimensions, proving its usefulness for browsing geo-referenced images.