Next, I would like to show you a very powerful map that could help you to geo locate pictures easily.
And this is a customized map that were made by Bellingcat, and OpenStreetMap is a free open source
map that could be used by anyone.
And the coolest thing about this map is that you can customize all, tell the map the features that
you would like to find in a specific area, which I will show you in a moment.
So the first thing you want to do is to go to the link that you will find in the resources of this lecture,
which is the Bellingcat OpenStreetMap search.
And then you want to sign in with your Google account.
And after you sign in, you will be redirected to this page.
And right here you can select what features you would like to find in a specific area.
For example, we can say that we are looking for a public transport stop, as well as a church and a
hospital in the same area.
So to show you an example, let me scroll down a little bit.
Here we have the maximum distance between features.
So if we have specified, for example, that there is a public transport stop in the picture and near
this public transport stop, there is, for example, a church, then we can drag this and drop it in
here.
And then the maximum distance between these two features has to be 100.
Now of course we can make it 500m, but I think that 100 is enough.
Another important thing that you want to do is to specify where you want to search.
For example, in this case I would like to search for coal in Germany.
So this is colon which is a wonderful city in Germany.
And then I'm going to scroll down.
I can specify what view I would like to see.
For example, I can click on Google to see a Google View or Terrain or satellite.
Now in my case I like to use OSM.
And now I'm going to scroll up and remove all of these features.
And now we are going to do a practical example.
Our goal is going to be to Identify where this photo has been taken.
So this is a screenshot that I have taken from Google Maps.
And what we are going to do is to identify all the features that we can find on this picture, and then
add these features to the billing card.
Awesome.
So the first thing we can identify is the type of buildings.
Each country has a different type of buildings.
So the buildings that you are going to find in Germany are different than the buildings that you are
going to find in France or Greece.
So knowing how the buildings look like in a certain country will help a lot to identify the country.
The second thing we can notice is the railway.
So here we can see a tram and it seems to be like a stop station, because if we zoomed in, we can
see here that there are two chairs, and here we can see people that are waiting or buying tickets from
this machine.
So it's probably a train stop station.
Now let's zoom back.
The last thing we can identify is a house number which is 44, which we can also add to the OpenStreetMap
to identify a house with the number 44.
That is, against a train or metro stop station.
Here we can see the map.
So we have specified the area that we are searching in Köln.
And then I'm going to scroll up.
And from here you can specify a custom feature.
For example, I can say that I'm searching for a building, for a highway for a house number and scroll
down more to find more information.
Now I always like to use this page, which I will put its link in the resources of this lecture and
if you scroll down, you will see all the features that you can use along with a picture.
For example, let me say house number like this and this will give me a description of this feature
or this key along with a photo and how this looks like, which I think is amazing.
So we are going to use this key.
Let me come back to the map and say house number.
And the House number that we were able to find on the picture was 44.
So I'm going to say equal and then 44, and then I'm going to add this custom feature.
And then I'm going to add another OSM key which is going to be railway like this.
Because we have seen a railway in here and the railway is near the building and the value is going to
be a tram stop.
And then I'm going to click on add and then scroll down and then click on search.
And as you can see here are all the buildings with the house number 44 that are beside the railways.
So I'm going to scroll down.
And here we can see the house number 44.
But the railways are right here and it has to be very close to the railways.
So I'm going to scroll down a little bit.
And this seems to be the one that we are looking for because the house is on the right side and the
railways are on the opposite side like here.
So I'm going to click on this one.
And this will open Google Maps.
And then I'm going to scroll down and then drag this little person to the map.
And here is the railway.
And as you can see here is the picture that we have searched for.
So we can see the house number and we can see the tram stop station.
Now I highly recommend that you play with this map because it's going to help you a lot to find or geo
locate pictures.
In addition to that, I would like to show you an article that were made by Bellingcat on how to use
this map, so you can scroll down and watch the videos and have a look at the examples that they have
demonstrated.
So this is how you can geo locate a picture just by identifying features on a certain picture.
So you might be able to find a bus station, railway house number, building color, roof color, etc.
and all of these information could be used to geo locate this picture.