Abstract. The interdisciplinary research group on four-dimensional research and communication of urban history (Urban History 4D) aims to investigate and develop methods and technologies to access extensive repositories of historical media and their contextual information in a spatial model, with an additional temporal component. This will make content accessible to different target groups, researchers and the public, via a 4D Browser and an Augmented Reality app for mobile devices. One goal is to improve the accessibility of media repositories and develop suitable solutions for data preparation and information research, making extensive use of visualizations. An interdisciplinary approach is taken to ensure that visualizations for research are comprehensible and meet scientific standards. The investigation of spatial visualizations of image repositories and their visual representation in a coherent context includes frequencies, directions, and perspectives within the image material, which can be grasped through quantitative methods. This paper introduces two main investigations into (1) quantitative data visualization with photography and (2) the plausibility and perception of 3D reconstructions.