hTTi

Recently I found that I really like looking at Lidar pictures, Lidar, LIght detecting and ranging.
A brilliant technology that uses laser to detect the slightest change in hight in a landscape.
At the moment I am keeping it to Bavaria as there is so much to check out and look at.

https://geoportal.bayern.de/bayernatlas ... s=relief_t


Went for a walk looking for bomb craters, not hard to do around this neck of the woods as there isn’t exactly a dearth of bomb craters here in Germany.
Especially if you know where to look, airfields are a great place and here nearby is Oberpfaffenhofen where Claude Dornier built his magnificent flying machines.
I fired up the trusty Bayernatlas, took a lidarlook and was not disappointed. Problem is... Which crater is best, my criteria is not too far to walk, not that I mind a walk but I don’t like squelching around a wet forest.
I chose a crater that was near the road with a place to park. This had a nice looking hole and so I squelched over the spongy forest with its load of dry twigs that snapped, crackled and popped underfoot and vines that snagged my soggy canvas shoes wanting most desperately to trip me up.
I first went to the depression in the ground, it looks man made but as there is no real edge to it, it could be a place where duds were cooked off or a natural subsidence of the ground. I don´t know.
The crater was really not hard to find, at seven meters across and four deep it is a big hole in the ground.
And that is after almost eighty years since the last bombs fell.
If I were to wager I would say this was the result of a 500lb garden verity bomb, nothing too spectacular, but big enough to penetrate the top layer of forest floor, go through the layer of clay and sediments and detonate in the glacial deposits.
All in all eighty air attacks hit the area in and around Munich causing much destruction and loss of life.

And this is how the crater looks today

LiDAR Light direction and ranging is more accurate because of the higher frequencies than
RADAR Radio direction and ranging

Also some things that absorb light reflect Radar frequencies and vica versa

Of course radio and light are all just photons at different frequencies.

There is just to the south of Augsburg a widespread field of bunkers and hardened buildings at the former Fasan factory in Bobingen where the Wehrmacht mixed their explosives. When Bobingen was taken by the Americans most of the bunkers and productions buildings were blown up, some remained intact and the area was simply left for nature to reclaim.
It is a place that interests me as I lived in one of the remaining bunkers for a while.
By now the forest has overgrown the crumbling and shattered remains and the chemicals have for most part decayed.
However a few years back a team of French scientists and experts for chemical warfare arrived to take samples and what they found was disturbing.
In two of the bunkers traces of the nerve agents Tabun and Sarin were found leading to the speculation that Germany could have engaged in chemical warfare at some point.
At one end of the field I found an area that looked like it had undergone heavy shelling and was interested as to who had annoyed who in order to render the landscape looking like the dark side of the moon.
So I called the town historian in Bobingen and found out that they are in fact not the result of bombs or shells or even fighting, but so-called „Trichtergruben“ or funnel pits where metal ore has been extracted up to the early Middle Ages.
It is truly a fascinating and troubled piece of real estate.

Struggling to get the size right.

Those maps are cool and good photos, too! Thanks for sharing.

The date is the second of July, 1702, The forces of England, The Dutch republic, The holy Roman Empire and Prussia are marching into Bavaria and against the forces of Bavaria and France.
The war of the Spanish succession was in full swing.
The battle took place on the Schellenberg over looking Donauwörth a fortified town on the confluence of the Wörnitz and Danube rivers.
To win this battle would open a bridge head into Bavaria and end the war.
The fight was lead by non other than the Duke of Marlborough an ancestor of Winston Churchill and indeed Diana Princess of Wales.
The battle ended with a victory of the Grand Alliance and paving the way for the Battle of Blenheim in 1704
This is one of the pivotal battles in the war of the Spanish Succession, a war that shaped the world as we know it as it laid the groundwork for the national states we have today.
Donauwörth is a sleepy little town on the Danube, just shy of the great meteor crater of the Ries to the north.
During one of my death-scroll sessions I found a map of the battle and wondered if anything remains today.
I know that over the years artifacts from the battle have been found and are now in museums for you to look at in awe and wonder.
I took the map and overlaid it and used Affinity Photo to tile together screenshots of the area when I was satisfied I used unsharp masking and filters to bring out contrasts and to enhance the relief of the ground.
The facsimile of the original map had to be distorted to fit the contours of the modern LiDAR map and I used the Island in the Danube and the cliffs as a reference point. The old German word for island is: „Worth or wort or wert“ depending on where you live, so Donauwörth means „Island in the Danube“
Then I went looking for ramparts as seen on the old map. These ramparts were for most parts so-called „fascines“ made from brushwood and earth and although some are rumored to remain the general opinion is that the years have not been kind to these old fortifications.
I used Affinities fade function to morph between the old and new and think I may have found what remains. At least they fit the bill.
What do you think?

Pity I can´t include video