揭示街景影像在城市环境中的覆盖盲区与偏差,提醒研究者谨慎使用。
Coverage and Bias of Street View Imagery in Mapping the Urban Environment
- 结合位置关系与遮挡影响,量化街景对城市要素的覆盖程度。
- 伦敦案例显示仅62.4%建筑有街景,平均每栋建筑可见12.4%立面。
- 非住宅建筑被高估,建议采样间隔50-60米以提升覆盖质量。
街景影像(SVI)已成为城市研究的重要数据源,但其代表性、质量和可靠性仍存疑。本文提出一种新方法,评估街景在城市环境中对具体要素的元素级覆盖情况,综合考虑街景与目标要素的位置关系及物理遮挡影响。构建涵盖完整性和频率维度的指标体系,以伦敦为案例,通过三项实验分析街景对建筑立面等环境要素的覆盖偏差。结果显示,尽管街景在道路网络上广泛存在,但仅覆盖了研究区域62.4%的建筑,平均每栋建筑可见立面比例仅为12.4%。街景更倾向于覆盖非住宅建筑,可能引发分析偏差,且覆盖程度受位置影响显著。研究还发现不同采集策略导致覆盖率差异,并提出50-60米为最优采样间隔。结论指出,街景虽具价值,但不可盲目依赖,城市研究需关注数据覆盖与要素代表性以确保结果可靠。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Street View Imagery (SVI) has emerged as a valuable data form in urban studies, enabling new ways to map and sense urban environments. However, fundamental concerns regarding the representativeness, quality, and reliability of SVI remain underexplored, e.g. to what extent can cities be captured by such data and do data gaps result in bias. This research, positioned at the intersection of spatial data quality and urban analytics, addresses these concerns by proposing a novel and effective method to estimate SVI's element-level coverage in the urban environment. The method integrates the positional relationships between SVI and target elements, as well as the impact of physical obstructions. Expanding the domain of data quality to SVI, we introduce an indicator system that evaluates the extent of coverage, focusing on the completeness and frequency dimensions. Taking London as a case study, three experiments are conducted to identify potential biases in SVI's ability to cover and represent urban environmental elements, using building facades as an example. It is found that despite their high availability along urban road networks, Google Street View covers only 62.4 % of buildings in the case study area. The average facade coverage per building is 12.4 %. SVI tends to over-represent non-residential buildings, thus possibly resulting in biased analyses, and its coverage of environmental elements is position-dependent. The research also highlights the variability of SVI coverage under different data acquisition practices and proposes an optimal sampling interval range of 50-60 m for SVI collection. The findings suggest that while SVI offers valuable insights, it is no panacea - its application in urban research requires careful consideration of data coverage and element-level representativeness to ensure reliable results.
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