We present the Virtual City Explorer (VCE), an online crowdsourcing platform for the collection of rich geotagged information in urban environments. Compared to other volunteered geographic information approaches, which are constrained by the number and availability of mapping enthusiasts on the ground, the VCE uses digital street imagery to allow people to virtually explore a city from anywhere in the world, using a browser or a mobile phone. In addition, contributions in VCE are designed as paid microtasks—small jobs that can be carried out without any specific knowledge of the local area or previous mapping expertise in exchange for a fee. We tested the VCE in two cities to map points of interest (PoIs) in transport and mobility, using FigureEight to recruit participants. We were able to show that our platform enables crowdworkers to submit PoI location seamlessly, cover almost all of the tested areas, and discover several PoIs not reported by other approaches. This allows the VCE to complement existing approaches that leverage experts or grassroot communities.

中文翻译：

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通过街景图像和付费众包绘制兴趣点

我们展示了 Virtual City Explorer (VCE)，这是一个在线众包平台，用于在城市环境中收集丰富的地理标记信息。与其他受地面测绘爱好者数量和可用性限制的自愿地理信息方法相比，VCE 使用数字街道图像让人们可以使用浏览器或手机从世界任何地方虚拟探索城市. 此外，VCE 中的贡献被设计为付费微任务——无需任何当地特定知识或以前的地图专业知识即可执行的小型工作，以换取费用。我们在两个城市测试了 VCE，以绘制交通和移动领域的兴趣点 (PoI)，使用 FigureEight 来招募参与者。我们能够证明，我们的平台使众包工作者能够无缝提交 PoI 位置，覆盖几乎所有测试区域，并发现其他方法未报告的几个 PoI。这允许 VCE 补充利用专家或草根社区的现有方法。