Scenic routing navigation using property valuation.

ABSTRACT

Extensive prior work has provided methods for the optimization of routing based on weights assigned to travel duration, and/or travel cost, and/or the distance traveled. Routing can be in various modalities, such as by car, on foot, by bicycle, via public transit, or by boat. A typical method of routing involves building a graph comprised of street segments, assigning a normalized weighted value to each segment, and then applying the weighted-shorted path algorithm to the graph in order to find the best route. Some users desire that the routing suggestion include consideration pertaining to the scenic-architectural quality of the path. For example, a user may seek a leisure walk via what they might deem as visually attractive architecture. Here, we are proposing a method to quantify such user preferences and scenic quality and to augment the standard routing methods by giving weight to the scenic quality. That is, instead of suggesting merely the time and cost-optimal route, we will find the best route that is tailored towards the user's scenic quality preferences as an additional criterion to the time and cost. The proposed method uniquely weighs the scenic interest or residential street segments based on the property valuation data.