115 replies to this topic

[Hans van der Maarel]

Copied from another board that I'm on, I figured this one would go down well here...

We'll start a guess-that-location game with satellite/aerial photography.

Rules:

- The questioner will post a satellite photo of a specific place or object or building.
- The place or object or building must be on the earth.
- The satellite photos may be taken from any common source of satellite photography (Google Earth recommended).
- The place or object or building must be famous for some reason. This is relative, but don't make it the playground of the school down from your house. When choosing a place the questioner should keep in mind whether, after the answer is known, the other players will be temped to find out where he lives and burn his house down for picking such a stupid location. It does not have to be universally recognizeable but must at least be famous for something. As the photos zoom out, its location can be the best clue for objects that are not instantly recognizeable.
- The first photo should be at least identifyable to someone who lives nearby or is familiar with the area. No zooming in on a single tree in the first picture.
- If the the answer in question is a single building or structure or object within the photo, that is ok but it must be stated when the initial photo is posted. For example, if you post a photo of Disneyland, you cannot later claim that the only acceptable answer is the Materhorn roller coaster in the upper left corner unless you desceribed the object in question in the beginning.
- Each day, the questioner must return to the thread and post another satellite photo at lesser lesser zoom level.
- Each subsequent picture must contain the area shown in the previous picture. The picture may be somewhat panned, in other words the area from the previous picture does not have to be centered in the next one, but it must be included and identifiable.
- The round of play will continue until someone has guessed the place, object or building from the original picure.
- The questioner may, but is not required to, give clues or answer any questions except whether the answer has been given yet.
- The next questioner will be the person who first answered the question from the last round correctly.
- The questioner may designate a different person to take the next round. That way no one is discouraged from guessing becuase he does not want to be a questioner.
- If a questioner is going to be absent from Cartotalk, resulting in a missed photo, he must give the photo to another member to post when the time arrives. The questioner can resume posting his own photos when he returns if that round is still going.

Guidelines:

Questioners:
- You should create and save all your photos before the round begins. Don't try to go back to the satellite photos and recreate a new higher zoom level each day because you wil be unlikely to get the zoom levels and locations just right from the prior one.
- You should not upload all of your photos at once at the beginning of the game into the same directory online, since players will quickly learn to link directly to photos which have not yet been revealed. Best is to use the attachment feature of Cartotalk.
- Make enough photos so that you they eventually zoom out to show at least one entire continent, if not the entire earth.
- It's okay to edit out details that would give the answer away immediately (such as the lat/lon readout in Google Earth and the compass rose)
- It's not necessary to have the image oriented north-up.

Players:
- There is no penalty for incorrect guesses, but there is a limit of one guess per day per round of play. If you guessed already today, you may not guess again until the next photo has been posted.
- You may use any outside materials as research for your guess. You may go to any maps or satellite web sites of your own choosing in the attempt to find the solution.
- As a tip, keep in mind that shadows on the ground can help reveal the height and shape of tall buildings and objects.

Having said all that, let's have a go at the first one, shall we?

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Where is this?

[Rick Dey]

Well I thought this would be impossible after reading all the rules but using the phenomenal ablities of a co-worker we sat and looked at this for several minutes and thought what about Gibraltar?

Sure enough...the Gibraltar, Spain border.

[Rick Dey]

The process of elimination was this, Airport appeared abandoned (no planes and a road running across the runway), the Subatantial waves showed an ocean (sea) to the east, and the real give away was the shadow. Well done on cropping the bottom of the shadow and hsowing only the top.

[Hans van der Maarel]

We have a winner (and I hadn't even thought of cropping the shadow...)

Your turn

[Rick Dey]

OK a word of warning here people, the down side of guessing correct is that you have to come up with a location to show.

So after probably too little consideration, here's the next location.

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[Hans van der Maarel]

This one's easy... In fact, I've recently been there...

But I'll give somebody else a chance to answer first.

[Martin Gamache]

Dumbarton bridge, Menlo Park to Fremont?

[Rick Dey]

Yeah, Hans was right, pretty easy.

Now its your turn Martin.

[Martin Gamache]

Hopefully this is a little tougher.

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[DaveB]

No answer here. I think I'm out of my league with you guys.

There used to be a site that had a similar game which used parts of various maps with all labels removed, but I lost the name/location long ago.

[Martin Gamache]

A barren land somewhere in N. Am.

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[Hans van der Maarel]

Found it. The area just north of Mt Isto, Alaska.

[Martin Gamache]

It's ANWAR, the great barren land of America..

[Hans van der Maarel]

Martin,

Absolutely gorgeous to see on a satellite photo. The mountain ranges to the south are just stunning.

Anyway, next one:

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[Matthew Hampton]

That looks like a spitting image of the Netherlands. GE shows that it's in a part of the Netherlands called "Gelderland," but I thought it must have a more proper name - so I looked at WorldWind and found Gemeente Arnhem (Elden, Malburgen, Praets, Arnhem, Oosterbeek, Vredenburg and Da Pas).
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Matthew Hampton