OldNYC historic photo viewer expanded from 39k to 49k images through AI-assisted improvements. OpenAI's GPT-4o extracted precise location details from photo descriptions for geocoding, and GPT-4o-mini improved OCR transcription from 25k to 32k images. The project migrated from Google Maps to OpenStreetMap and MapLibre, reducing costs while enabling custom cartography.
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AI helps add 10k more photos to OldNYC
OpenAI's GPT-4o and GPT-4o-mini automated location extraction and improved OCR to expand OldNYC's historic photo archive from 39k to 49k images, while a switch to OpenStreetMap eliminated proprietary mapping costs.
Tuesday, April 7, 2026 12:00 PM UTC2 MIN READSOURCE: Hacker NewsBY sys://pipeline
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