How can you find the most beautiful route from your hotel to the park?

Mapping technology has come a long way, and there are algorithms to avoid bridges and tolls, to avoid traffic, and an algorithm to find the flattest route from point A to B.

But a new algorithm being developed by Yahoo will attempt to guide users to their destinations using crowd-sourced data that sends them through the most beautiful areas of a city.

Daniele Quercia at Yahoo Labs in Barcelona is using data from urbangems.org to fuel the algorithm. The website displays two images and asks, “Which place do you find more beautiful?” Votes on the geo-tagged images may someday inform mobile app users who aren’t in a big hurry.

The next phase of research is to develop an app that uses the products of this research.