Ai Powered Geolocation Searches From Landscape Photos

[GotAU?]

Well it’s here and probably here to stay so people need to understand and live with its abilities.  Not only is AI great at programming and writing, it has become advanced enough to find locations by matching landscape photos that people post online to Google Earth images and others, and with fairly good accuracy. This does not depend on the GPS tag location information that is also stored on your smartphone photos, it is actually an image search and analysis of the horizon features shown in the photo that it is doing.

I am into Geography and GIS, and use a publicly available locating program to help with my wife’s historical archaeology work to find locations where old photos were taken (it only works if there hasn’t been too much development of the area in the meantime) and it has been fairly accurate.  

Anyways, just a heads up if you like to post landscape photos online but also want to keep your locations safe, as it is no longer just those people who are familiar with an area that can recognize where your landscape photos were taken, AI can now do it for for anyone almost as well as long as there’s a horizon shown with some features in the skyline (mountains and valleys and other unique items in the skyline).

[Northeast]

Wow!  That is very interesting to know.   There will be very few camera shots of landscapes appearing in photos or on YouTube from now on.  

Thanks for the heads up   👍

[GotAU?]

1 hour ago, Northeast said:

Wow!  That is very interesting to know.   There will be very few camera shots of landscapes appearing in photos or on YouTube from now on.  

Thanks for the heads up   👍

Sure, hope it helps others out there to be careful about sharing too much online. It’s also amazing how many people forget to turn off their location sharing option (GPS tag) when texting or sending photo files- the GPS tags can be useful for personal use but they do pinpoint the location very well for anyone who was given a copy. One of my buddies was good at doing it until I showed him what he was accidentally sending out.

It’s good that this website does not keep the EXIF data (GPS tags or location information) on any of our posted photos, so it’s safe to post other types of photos or those that don’t show too much of the horizon.

[JCR]

We are entering that Brave New World, like it or not.

[Taz]

How about many of the new cars these days. They track everything, where you go, for how long, how long it took to get from point a to point b, how much fuel you have in your tank even. They say its harmless info being sent back to the manufacturer to help you. Yeah sure it is. A guy here had a hassle getting his deposit back on a Toyota Hilux that has it after he found out itd track his every movement and driving habits. 

[Jin]

Shrubs, trees, and geological features also help identify some areas. 

[GotAU?]

2 hours ago, Jin said:

Shrubs, trees, and geological features also help identify some areas. 

Yeah, it’s pretty obvious when you see Joshua trees or sagebrush, and some show certain types of pines as well but plants can only really show a region. I’m sure it’s the same for those in other places of the world like in Australia.  The AI programs do use large geologic features that are shown in Google Earth, but not smaller ones - local rocks or outcrops that are unique enough that someone familiar to an area knows.  I have to admit it is sort of fun trying to figure out where photos were taken, that’s why I’m volunteering to do it from my wife’s company. It just got a lot easier to do these days.