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Geolocating a random island using geometry and CUDA programming

yassa9.github.io

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Re: Geolocating a random island using geometry and CUDA programming

#81

Post by voidUpdate »

StilesCrisis wrote: post #35
yassa9 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yea thank u, that's another part, but mainly it would hard although knowing that, because you need to know elevation of the drone or the camera, which is also extremely difficult (I already mentioned that in the blog)

The camera make and model wouldn't tell you the lens parameters. The EXIF would, but that was already covered in the triplet.

It does if you google the make and model to find out the lens parameters (assuming it isn't a fancy camera with interchangeable lenses)

Re: Geolocating a random island using geometry and CUDA programming

#83

Post by ohyoutravel »

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #71
ohyoutravel wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great content too generally. Without the disclaimer I find myself less engaged with the content knowing it could be an LLM hallucination and am ready to eject at any moment. btw Micronesia is _not_ a country!

Micronesia is, too, a country. Referring to the Federated States of Micronesia as "Micronesia" is just as legitimate as referring to the USA as "America".

I’ve been to Marshall Islands, Kiribati, and FSM but never heard FSM called “Micronesia;” usually when people refer to Micronesia they’re referring the cultural region inclusive of FSM and the other two I mentioned, among others.

That’s cool, didn’t realize that slang existed, today I learned, thanks!

Re: Geolocating a random island using geometry and CUDA programming

#84

Post by speedstyle »

john_strinlai wrote: post #72
mattpk wrote: post #67

> NOTE: this is a genuine human work, didnt use LLM generation. I'm sorry, but I don't believe this. The article reads like LLM text post-edited by an AI prompted to "write like a non-native English speaker, replace you for u, make errors, etc". The other pages on your site are cough, "the smoking gun". For instance, your "Suckless, single binary, zero-dependency CUDA/C++ inference engine for NVIDIA's DVLT. Reconstru…

errors = llm, no errors = llm, any word from a list of hundreds = llm, absence of any llm-words = suspiciously like an llm instructed not to use those words, declare no llm was used = llm. there is no winning. if you post something in 2026 or beyond, someone is going to exclaim "llm!". i feel badly for aspiring bloggers or writers. it's also getting rather annoying that 50% of comments on hn, regardless of the topic…

It's not because of the errors, it's clearly written by Claude. Although I doubt if they prompted it to make errors, just generated the majority and edited/wrote some parts themself.

I find it rather annoying that so many submissions on hn are LLM writing, but yes I don't generally find it worth discussing. except that this one explicitly claims not to be

Re: Geolocating a random island using geometry and CUDA programming

#85

Post by ponector »

openasocket wrote: post #43
bmurray7jhu wrote: post #14

For drones and missiles, this technique is known as Terrain Contour Matching . If terrain contour are measured optically, navigation is independent of RF jamming, unlike GNSS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TERCOM

It’s an effective a surprisingly old technique, being used on cruise missiles as early as the 1960s. It actually precedes GPS and satellite navigation by several decades. Im continuously blown away by what engineers were able to do in that era with such limited computing power. Take a look at SAGE, for example. Fun fact: the usage of TERCOM in the tomahawk missile actually limited its ability to be used in Operation…

Soviet space shuttle had autopilot based on the computer with 130kb of RAM.

Re: Geolocating a random island using geometry and CUDA programming

#86

Post by grumbelbart2 »

openasocket wrote: post #43
bmurray7jhu wrote: post #14

For drones and missiles, this technique is known as Terrain Contour Matching . If terrain contour are measured optically, navigation is independent of RF jamming, unlike GNSS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TERCOM

It’s an effective a surprisingly old technique, being used on cruise missiles as early as the 1960s. It actually precedes GPS and satellite navigation by several decades. Im continuously blown away by what engineers were able to do in that era with such limited computing power. Take a look at SAGE, for example. Fun fact: the usage of TERCOM in the tomahawk missile actually limited its ability to be used in Operation…

Memory on the first cruise missiles was so sacred though that they it could only store the pre-planned flight terrain data. So they not only loaded target coordinates, but full flight plans and had to launch from the programmed position. Desert was difficult as it has too few features.

Re: Geolocating a random island using geometry and CUDA programming

#87

Post by Intermernet »

dwa3592 wrote: post #33

This is awesome. I worked on something similar a few months ago. It is a general purpose navigation system based on TERCOM and dead reckoning - https://github.com/deepanwadhwa/anumaan

Weirdly enough, I'm working on a similar system for position tracking in canyons. It's hybrid, uses a combination of Kalman filters, particle filters and GPS (EDIT: and LIDAR based DEM) and is based on the obvious (in hindsight) realisation that the view of the sky to get an accurate gps fix is inversely proportional to the constraints of the terrain. If you have a low field of view of the sky, you can use sensor data to constrain your likely position. I should have hardware samples for testing in the next month or so. Hopefully my theory stands up!

Re: Geolocating a random island using geometry and CUDA programming

#88

Post by dwa3592 »

Intermernet wrote: post #87
dwa3592 wrote: post #33

This is awesome. I worked on something similar a few months ago. It is a general purpose navigation system based on TERCOM and dead reckoning - https://github.com/deepanwadhwa/anumaan

Weirdly enough, I'm working on a similar system for position tracking in canyons. It's hybrid, uses a combination of Kalman filters, particle filters and GPS (EDIT: and LIDAR based DEM) and is based on the obvious (in hindsight) realisation that the view of the sky to get an accurate gps fix is inversely proportional to the constraints of the terrain. If you have a low field of view of the sky, you can use sensor dat…

Love it. Position tracking in canyons is a much needed use case. Is there a link where I can follow your progress?

Re: Geolocating a random island using geometry and CUDA programming

#89

Post by arboles »

GaryNumanVevo wrote: post #31
lexlambda wrote: post #5

OpenStreetMap data really is a godsend for such OSINT purposes. Works much better in populated areas too, with more features like roads, shops, electric lines that can be used to search.

Claude / Gemini + OSM Turbo is a crazy you can do natural language queries like "find me a bus stop in germany that's surrounded by more than 5 three story buildings"

*Only works reliably in Germany

Re: Geolocating a random island using geometry and CUDA programming

#90

Post by Intermernet »

dwa3592 wrote: post #88
Intermernet wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weirdly enough, I'm working on a similar system for position tracking in canyons. It's hybrid, uses a combination of Kalman filters, particle filters and GPS (EDIT: and LIDAR based DEM) and is based on the obvious (in hindsight) realisation that the view of the sky to get an accurate gps fix is inversely proportional to the constraints of the terrain. If you have a low field of view of the sky, you can use sensor dat…

Love it. Position tracking in canyons is a much needed use case. Is there a link where I can follow your progress?

Not yet. I currently have one private repo with everything in it (hardware design, firmware, experiments, notes etc.). Want to clean it up before I release anything.
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