Mapping the visual magnitude of popular tourist sites in Edinburgh city

There is value in being able to automatically measure and visualise the visual exposure of city sites (monuments and buildings, tourist sites) - for example, in urban planning, as an aid to automated way finding, or in augmented reality city guides. Here we present the outputs of an algorithm able to calculate visual exposure - both as an absolute measure of the facade area and in terms of a building's perceived size (its lesser importance with distance). Both metrics influence the photogenic nature of a site. We therefore compared against maps showing the locations from where geo-located Flickr images were taken. The results accord with the metrics and therefore help disambiguate the meaning of Flickr tags.