Mobile Tour Planning Using Landmark Photo Matching and Intelligent Character Recognition

The functionalities of smart phones have extended from basic voice communication to gaming, multimedia entertainment, information retrieval and location-based services. In this paper, we attempt to design a mobile application to assist visitors to have better understandings of popular tourist destinations and related routing information while on tour. The users can obtain descriptions of a specific attraction by simply taking the picture of a landmark photo often shown in the travel booklet using their mobile devices. This is achieved by matching the landmark picture with an image database containing popular tourist spots to locate the interested destination. The location information is further confirmed using techniques in intelligent character recognition. Upon successful identification of the interested location, tourist information regarding this destination, along with the routing details will be delivered using location-based service. We anticipate the proposed mobile application to effectively assist foreign visitors by bringing comprehensive, up-to-date tourist information and promoting better travel experience.

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