GEOINT · SYNTHETIC CASE
Geolocating a photo from shadow angle and a manhole pattern
One street photo, no EXIF, no landmarks in frame. We pivoted from sun azimuth + a municipal manhole casting to a three-block radius — then killed two false positives by hand.
2026-03-12 · 8 min read · EXIF denial · SunCalc pivot · Infrastructure OSINT · False-positive cull
Outcome: City district confirmed; exact building narrowed to two candidates pending ground truth.
Investigation log
Step 01 — Triage
Stripped metadata — intentional OPSEC or re-upload chain. Treat as visual-only.
Dead end: Automated geo-AI guessed Rome. Wrong continent.
Step 02 — Shadow vector
Measured shadow length vs. object height. Cross-checked solar azimuth for Q2 Europe → afternoon, ~240°.
Step 03 — Infrastructure
Manhole pattern matched EN 124 Type B common in northern Italy municipalities — not unique, but shrinks corpus.
Step 04 — Pivot
StreetView sweep on candidate comuni. Two matches on grate pattern + curb paint.
Step 05 — Human cut
Discarded Match B — wrong tree species for that latitude. Match A retained with medium confidence.
This case is synthetic and declassified for training purposes. Methodology reflects how WolfEye analysts work; identifiers and locations are fictional.
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