Web mining to build a landmark database and applications thereof

A system for building a landmark database, comprising:

• a web data retriever module configured to receive web data including a web page from one or more websites via one or more networks;
• a web data interpreter module configured to interpret the web data to extract landmark data describing a landmark, wherein the landmark data comprises a name that identifies the landmark and a portion of a street address where the landmark is located;
• an error checker module configured to apply one or more error checking rules to remove inaccurate landmark data from the landmark data;
• a visual model generator configured to generate a visual model using images determined based on the landmark data including the name;
• and
• a geocoding module configured to send a request with the name of the landmark and the portion of a street address where the landmark is located to a geocoding service and to receive a location of the landmark from the geocoding service in response to the request, the location determined based on the name of the landmark and the portion of the street address included in the request,
• wherein a computing device is able to, using the visual model, recognize the landmark in an image, different from the images determined based on the landmark data, and correlate the image with the name wherein the web data retriever module, the web data interpreter module, and the visual model generator are implemented on at least one computing device.

An apparatus comprising at least one non-transitory computer readable storage medium encoding instructions thereon that, in response to execution by a computing device, cause the computer device to perform operations comprising:

• receiving web data including a web page from one or more websites via one or more networks;
• interpreting the web data using at least one processor to extract landmark data describing a landmark from the web data, the landmark data including a name that identifies the landmark and a portion of a street address where the landmark is located;
• applying one or more error checking rules to remove inaccurate landmark data from the landmark data;
• generating a visual model using images determined based on the landmark data including the name;
• sending, to a geocoding service, a request with the name of the landmark and the portion of the street address where the landmark is located;
• receiving a response to the request, the response including a location of the landmark from the geocoding service, the location determined based on the name of the landmark and the portion of the street address where the landmark is located included in the request;
• using the visual model, recognizing the landmark in an image, different from the images determined based on the landmark data;
• and
• correlating the image with the name.