2023-02-01 | 2023-02-12 | 2023-02-13

2023-02-12

Humbled in God's Own County

Lower Barden Reservoir (Oasis 3D and Openstreetmap)

When Daniel Jefferson posted an image I immediately recognised it as somewhere in Yorkshire. I was in no way helped by knowing this is where Dan lives and works.

Since I was already working on Ladybower (a reservoir in South Yorkshire) I thought I would head North to try and re-create Dan's image.

Lower Barden Reservoir (Daniel Jefferson)

I pride myself on being able to work out where an image is taken from, but it turns out there are actually quite a few reservoirs in Yorkshire (who knew!) - so obviously my 'instinctive' approach failed and I had to ask Dan (twice) for clues.

Clue #1 An approximate location and time:

2023-01-31 08:03 Upper Barden near Skipton

The Skipton part was redundant. Everyone knows Upper Barden is near Skipton. I created a site (S000724 'Upper Barden Reservoir') and started driving around the reservoir.

Notice I said 'drive'. Since I have just spent the best part of a week smoothing roads (documented elsewhere) I took this as an opportunity to inspect my roads while scouting for Dan's location. I had already decided Dan was in a vehicle from what looked like part of the A-Pillar (top-right of image) and the dirty window. Wind it down next time Dan!

My 'drive' round the Barden reservoirs

My 'drive' drew a total blank. I couldn't even see either reservoir from anywhere on that route. However, on the plus side, the roads looked great! Smooth, very smooth.

I adjusted the time to 08:01 on 31st January 2023 (for an accurate sun location) and took to the air. Irritatingly, I kept being dazzled by the sun so I set it to noon and made a mental adjustment for dawn. How hard could it possibly be? There are only two Barden reservoirs so all I have to do is orientate myself by the sun and fly up and down until everything aligns.

I could not do it.

I spiralled around the reservoirs, going further and further out. I considered the (ludicrous) possibility that Dan had lost track of time and had taken the image at sunset instead of sunrise. I also considered the possibility that despite driving there he didn't know where he was and it was a totally different reservoir. You'll notice on my 'drive' I did deviate to Embsay Reservoir.

Time to ask for another clue.

Clue #2 The actual location:

Thank you Dan for showing me exactly where you were

Ah! It was between the reservoirs!

It all makes sense now. Dan wasn't on a public road, he was on an access track. The image wasn't taken with a 90 degree field of view, it was zoomed in so he was closer to the reservoir than I thought.

Lower Barden Reservoir from a considerable altitude

At noon - less dazzling

These are all the AS30 (30 arc second) segments in the images. The circle near the site was my initial search area. After I (finally) located the site I created a 90 degree wedge for my version, even though the actual FOV (Field Of View) is closer to 45 degrees.

600+ AS30 segments

Facts and figures:

• 683 AS30 segments
• 1,244 other meshes (half of them water) covering the rest of the UK
• 2 'World' meshes (the rest of the world)
• Time to create site S000274 'Upper Barden Reservoir': Three minutes
• Time wasted while failing to identify the location of the image: Two hours (yes, really!)

Because the World isn't flat

Download

You can Download Oasis 3D and use the guest user credentials: Username Guest and Password Password. The site ID is S000724.

More information at www.lopolyworld.com.

Oasis 3D World - The Basics is also useful.