The quote, “The first casualty, when war comes, is truth,” is commonly attributed to Hiram Johnson a Republican politician from California in 1917. Johnson died on August 6, 1945, the day the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
The ARCADE: Artillery Crater Analysis and Detection Engine is an effort to make it possible for anyone to rescue bits of the truth, even during war, at least with regard to the use of military ordinance.
From the post:
Destroyed buildings and infrastructure, temporary settlements, terrain disturbances and other signs of conflict can be seen in freely available satellite imagery. The ARtillery Crater Analysis and Detection Engine (ARCADE) is experimental computer vision software developed by Rudiment and the Centre for Visual Computing at the University of Bradford. ARCADE examines satellite imagery for signs of artillery bombardment, calculates the location of artillery craters, the inbound trajectory of projectiles to aid identification of their possible origins of fire. An early version of the tool that demonstrates the core capabilities is available here.
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The software currently runs on Windows with MATLAB, but if there is enough interest, it could be ported to an open toolset built around OpenCV.
Everyone who is interested in military actions anywhere in the world should be a supporter of this project.
Given the poverty of Western reporting on bombings by the United States government around the world, I am very interested in the success of this project.
The post is a great introduction to the difficulties and potential uses of satellite data to uncover truths governments would prefer to remain hidden. That alone should be enough justification for supporting this project.