Kind: captions
Language: en
did you know you can use shadows in an
image to find the location of where that
photo was taken in this session we're
going to look at this image and by using
both the features in the background as
well as the Shadows of the aircraft that
we see in here we're going to identify
the exact location of where this photo
was taken let's take a
look hi everyone and welcome back to
Let's de locate I'm Ben and this is
round four so settle in and get your
Maps ready and let's get
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started first up we're going to answer
some relevant questions about this image
you can see this is a tweet or a link on
X and I'm actually going to link to that
in the description below so you can
follow along with this video step by
step first of all you can see that
there's an account posting this it's in
Arabic and we have a and time as to when
it was posted the first thing I'm going
to do is translate this post and it
gives a little bit of context as to what
might the image be about and maybe even
a bit of geographical information for me
when I look at these images I always
like to get other sources of where this
image might be on the internet to try
and find extra information we can easily
do that by clicking on the image right
click and searching Google with the
image when I run a Google image of
search you can see that there's a number
of pages that have used this image or
the exact same image before and some of
these articles might have information
that might help me at least get a rough
understanding of the location of where
this photo was taken or a idea of a
location or geographical information as
to where the event took place as well so
I can go through some of these articles
and you'll notice that there might be
extra information in this one we have
the exact same picture a bit larger but
we also have another picture of what
appears to be the same UAV
system and a very similar looking
location with those mountains in the
background but even a different person
and a slightly different angle as well
you can see with the Rocks right there
and some of the power lines in the
background and even some of the tie
markings on the road and this photo
appears to be far more accurate so we
can see even more clearly the etchings
in the sides of the
mountains um and and some of the
markings on the road and some of those
bushes as well this could really help
when we come to combing through
satellite imagery for geolocation
purposes I'm also going to translate the
article because I can't read Arabic so
I'm going to use my Google translate
plugin that I have here and this will
help us get a little bit more
information about potentially what
happened and where it happened obviously
if I was going to rely on this
information I get a local speaker to uh
help me with this but given the machine
TR translation appears to have a few
results mentioning a place called MIP I
don't know if that's correct
pronunciation but there seems to be a
few results of those so I'm actually
going to have a look for that in Google
maps and it looks like that might be in
Yemen as well so I'm going to head to
Google Maps and look for that cool so we
got a pretty big area but don't forget
we have a mountain range and what we can
see is that this photo appears to be
showing the mountain range on the left
of what the of where the UAV is and
don't forget we've got these power lines
as well and these are pretty big and if
we combed around on satellite image for
a fair bit around this region we might
even find those and then match a power
line uh a mountain on the left of those
power lines as well but I'm going to
take this a bit easier because I think
it might be in this region I could go
through all of this mountain range to
see if it fits but first of all I'm
going to start with my angle of how I
should be looking at these mountains and
there's a really cool way that you can
do that by thinking about the
Shadows so we have shadows on the
fighters which are more prominent than
what we have on the UAV on the ground
the Shadows appear to be pushing in this
direction towards the mountains in this
one again same thing they don't appear
to be going this way they appear to be
going almost towards the mountains so
what I'm going to use is an application
called sunal again all of this will be
linked in the description below so you
can easily follow it for sunal I'm going
to type in my location name that I
looked for before which is m in Yemen
okay so that's the same location that we
have on Google Maps there I'm going to
stay quite zoomed out over the area M um
I'm going to go back to when roughly
this might have occurred it appears to
be May
2021 again that's not completely
reliable information but that that's
only for the purpose of identifying the
Shadows I've selected May 5 as a date of
course that's not the exact date and
that would be lucky if it was however
I've selected that date just for the
purpose of looking at the shadows I'm
also going to increase my shadow uh or
my object height just so I can get very
big obvious Shadows because all I really
want to know is the direction that it
would have been pointing I have to zoom
in a bit more so I'll make that much
bigger great so this is what my shadow
would have looked like uh in the evening
and this what it would have looked like
in the
morning so if we think about this what I
have here is a mountain range here and I
have shadows going towards that mountain
range almost same as down here as well
they appear to be going to kind of the
the left top of the image up there
and same but a bit more further up there
so I want a shadow if I'm looking at
these mountain
ranges I wonder if it could be this one
well it could be there because we have
shadows pointing towards that direction
quite early in the
morning I wonder if we have any other
locations so we have this area over
here uh does this look like it could
have been it no not
really there's no time that the Shadows
would have been pointing towards the top
of that mountain range this really helps
me get an indication as to what
mountains uh I should be focusing on as
well if I go over
here I can see that there's some a fair
few Shadows from between 6 to
10 and same as this one over here uh
there's a fairly heavy window of time as
to when sh could have been pointing
towards the mountains over there I might
try this one over here or I might try
actually both of them just to see which
ones fit the best so what I'm going to
do is I'm going to safely collect the
images um I don't want to take them just
in case there's any extra file
information so I'm just going to make
screenshots of these images for
now just so that I can zoom in I can
manipulate the images
and I can even draw some funky lines and
colors and boxes on them should I need
to because this image appears to be so
much more detailed Than This original
image I'm actually going to use this one
as reference and then we'll have the
location of this one at the
end so I'm going to use this image now
that I've made a screenshot of that and
match up the mountains to see if they
match any of the mountains that we have
around that muddy area so I'm going to
go marib in Yemen okay so it's a pretty
big area but there's two main mountain
regions or even three if we wanted to
include this one but I think because of
sunal we've kind of ruled out that so we
have two main mountain regions we have
this one over here and we have this one
over here with Google Earth don't forget
the mountains are pretty good so you
have terrain switched on on the bottom
left of Google Earth which you can see
down here
and it allows me to view mountain ranges
in 3D of course not all of these are
perfect and not all of these are
completely accurate and you can even see
some of the Jags and crevices where the
3D meshing just hasn't been fully
applied there but at least we get a
rough idea of how they look the bridge
lines and how the mountains are
shaped so let's start with this mountain
range which I have a sneak feeling it
might not be this one just because it's
not as tall and prominent as what we see
over here and there appears to be some
forward facing chunks as well as some in
the background for this one I don't
really see that too well over here and
also I don't see the sand Junes that we
have in the foreground over here and
this kind of yellow I'm also looking for
the roads this low mountain range and
these power lines as well so let me have
a quick look around for
those I don't seem to see those and what
I do see a lot of sand Junes and if we
were looking at the mountain range these
sand Junes would be quite obvious in the
kind of middle to background uh in
between the foreground and the
background there so I'm pretty confident
I can roll that one out I'm actually
going to go up to this mountain range
which has some dark features which to me
means that there might be some pretty
heavy and deep lines
there that's a pretty big mountain
range
it almost makes me think that this might
be the kind of mountain range where
after so let's first of all try and make
that shape this mountain range has some
unique shapes you can see over the top
right over here we've got this kind of
Chunk coming out and then it goes down
gradually slowly let's have a look if
that
applies this one seems to have a top
chunk and then goes down gradually
slowly what we have over here are some
unique pieces at the front and then a
bit of a mountain in the background you
can see that darker shading in the front
here and and then the kind of mountains
in the
background this is really synonymous
with what we're seeing on Google Earth
here with these ones in the front and
this one in the back if we move over a
bit more to the profile that we have
over here we have a slow rise up here we
have a steady plateau and we even have
like a little path where people may have
walked up the top of the mountain there
may be a regular Trail or something
carved into the side of the mountain
like a path or something
so I'm going to make that shape I'm
going to zoom in on an
area I'm pretty convinced that that
looks like the slow rise but then also
I'm even more convinced that we can see
some sort of a line over here we can see
a kind of zigzag up to the top and then
even a line over the front of this
mountain I don't know where that line
might just be the top of the mountain
with a little bit of f Summit or whether
it's actually a walking path but let's
have a look so we can see the Mountain
close up and don't forget some of these
mountains are never perfectly formed but
what we can see is a kind of path that
goes up the side here like a little zig
zag we have that one there then we have
a little line at the front and this
looks like it might be like a like a rim
like it's almost like a like a volcano
with a hole in the middle and there
might be a path on there what we can
also see is some Jagged bits that go
down here so kind of a bit crevice there
and then goes down and that might
actually fit that one too but again this
could be a false positive so I'm going
to match up some of the other features
that we see in this image to try and
find and work from our way from the back
to the front to see if we can find
exactly where this image was
taken so the next thing I want to rule
out uh just in case I'm getting too
focused on this location is obviously is
there the presence of power lines if
they weren't there I'd probably say this
is fairly indicative of not being the
location so now I'm going to look for
power lines
first of all I can find this one so
maybe there might be a few and you can
start to see some power line Trails or
what might be lines in here uh on on the
imagery you can even see Shadows of them
along this sand here as well we can
trace some of these and actually find
the the locations of these power lines
if I was doing this geolocation and I
found it a bit tougher I'd probably
start pinning these power lines and when
you identify power lines it's always
nice to pin them on Google Maps because
sometimes especially in desert areas
like this they really stand out quite
well and you and are a good reference
point for satellite imagery When
comparing them with photos or videos on
the
ground so we can see that there's a
fairly straight line of power lines and
that's kind of what we were looking out
over here we can even go into detail to
make sure that these are correct power
lines by matching up the types that they
are these are three or what I like to
call Triple Tower power lines because
they have the three arms some of them
appear higher or maybe they're not
higher maybe that's a higher Ridge and
that this drip dips down a
bit so we can see that there's three
arms on these not exactly on the power
line itself but we can see in the
reflection of the power line 1 2 3 level
power line and we can verify that with
some of the others as well like this
one and this one and this one what we
can also see is that these power lines
actually make a turn so if you can see
this quite well there's a consistent
line of power lines and then they make a
sharp turn we don't notice a sharp turn
over here this might indicate that what
we're seeing is a photo taken from
perhaps this location around here where
we just see the straight line of power
lines and not actually the turn of the
power lines for me this might indicate
something starting to be a bit more of a
reference point of where we could find
an exact location what we also have is
this kind of yellowing around here with
some bushes and then fairly dry kind of
crusty sand over
here but again we don't really see too
much of that and so I'm not too sure if
we can exactly identify where that dry
crippling patch might begin and where
the sand and shrub might be as well but
there appears to be some areas around
here that have kind of empty areas and
then they also have the shrub what we
also see in one of these images are the
rocks that we can on the left over here
and there are indications that there
seems to be a line of what could be
rocks over here or other areas like that
as well it's also worth noting uh just
for observation points
that in some of these images when you
zoom in there are also some hidden
characteristics when you get familiar
with picking up things in images you can
also identify minute details that might
indicate a human pattern or a human
existence for example power lines yet
again we can see a tower there if that
was a thing on its own I'd rule it out
but we can see a pattern of these even
here and here maybe one there I can't
really see anymore and if I did I Pro I
could be just seeing something in an
image but it's fairly clear that we have
at least three or possibly four along
here as well so what we could do is we
could actually go from our location that
we had and just try and investigate and
see if they are present
there I would say that these are power
lines and generally power lines are
built right next to a road so I'm going
to go to the road over here I'm going to
have a closer look and I can start to
see some power lines because of the
Shadows that they're
emitting so we can see some of these
over
here here
here and we can see them all the way
along it seems to be joining up to the
road
here and then we have more consistent
power Lin so that might explain uh that
that Unique Kind of little little
feature in there and this is the beauty
of GE location as once we get to a
certain point we can really start
matching up a lot of different
things so now that we have our power
lines on here we can actually just count
these ones as well and see that we've
got four possibly uh one here which
means we might have the the corner uh
but if we don't have the corner I think
these are are quite kind of stable and
and well sized to be coming closer
towards us and we also have to check out
the ground that we're looking at as well
uh but with these four power lines it
might be useful to just double check
since we know that this image uh was
taken around
2021 at the moment I'm looking at
imagery from
2023 so what I can do is I can actually
scroll back in time on Google Earth to
May 2021 yes the power lines are still
there and we can see that that ground
there and that's actually interesting to
look at the ground as well because if we
go back to our image what we can see is
the difference in the in the kind of
ground right we can see this yellowy
type of ground and then this kind of
dark less less uh grass covered ground
with this kind of spin effects or desert
type of dry grass and those rocks as
well so it could even be the case that
it was around here because we have the
buildup of that we don't really see this
line anywhere across here so we could be
looking across here um and could be
witnessing an image from from this kind
of of
angle um to to match that sometimes it's
really useful to make a uh a little
mountain line just to try and see if
we've actually got the exact range and
if it matches up that well and we can
see this one's pretty pretty spot on for
what we've got I think the the mountain
range could be a little bit bigger here
but we can see that it matches up quite
well especially some of these grooves
and and ridges uh and that location with
the power lines and everything even that
road over there with the power lines as
well uh of course that might be at a
different angle we also have further
matches of these uh little lines going
across here so we can say with a fairly
heavy heavy level of certainty uh that
the location was around this area um um
I could even draw a box I'm not too
accurate on exactly where uh this
location was but I could definitely
perhaps even draw a kind of indicative
box as to where it might have been taken
from and I could really have a good
guess to say that this might have been
from from around this location I think
the the power lines were the the vision
of the power lines in front of this were
not too close so i' I'd keep out the
scope of some of those power lines and
even go so far as to say that we could
be looking at an angle like like this
and sometimes that's really helpful as a
as a kind of display to at least
indicate what you don't know as much as
what you do know with that view so I
hope you enjoyed this session on using
Shadows to help us identify location and
that was using Shadows along with other
features uh to identify an accurate as
possible location of where this UAV was
when it was picked up or identified by
militia Fighters thank you so much and
I'll see you in the next
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session