A citizen science toolkit to collect human perceptions of urban environments using open street view images

M Danish*, SM Labib, B Ricker, Marco Helbich

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Street View Imagery (SVI) is a valuable data source for studies (e.g., environmental assessments, green space identification or land cover classification). While commercial SVI is available, such providers commonly restrict copying or reuse in ways necessary for research. Open SVI datasets are readily available from less restrictive sources, such as Mapillary, but due to the heterogeneity of the images, these require substantial preprocessing, filtering, and careful quality checks. We present a method for automated downloading, processing, cropping, and filtering open SVI, to be used in a survey of human perceptions of the streets portrayed in these images. We demonstrate our open-source reusable SVI preparation and smartphone-friendly perception-survey software with Amsterdam (Netherlands) as the case study. Using a citizen science approach, we collected from 331 people 22,637 ratings about their perceptions for various criteria. We have published our software in a public repository for future re-use and reproducibility.

Original languageEnglish
Article number102207
JournalComputers, Environment and Urban Systems
Volume116
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Mar 2025

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 The Authors

Funding

This work received funding ( BMD 3.1fb220215 ) from the Faculty of Geosciences, Utrecht University , as well as from the FAIR Research IT program at Utrecht University . Neither of the funders had any role concerning the study design, data collection and analysis, interpretation, or dissemination. Maarten Zelymans Van Emmichoven helped with early conceptualization, and the Nederlands translation of the app.

FundersFunder number
Faculty of Geosciences, Utrecht University
FAIR
Universiteit Utrecht

    Keywords

    • Citizen science
    • Environment
    • Human perception
    • Open source
    • Street view
    • Toolbox

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'A citizen science toolkit to collect human perceptions of urban environments using open street view images'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this