Is there a way to identify a location from a picture taken from a plane?

[ChrisSergent]

I recently notice somebody posted a picture that they took from a plane that they were flying on, but did not know where they were taking a picture of. Are there any tools for matching of pictures with geography by maybe using the altitude of the plane if available, or even an estimate of the flight path?

[ChrisSmith7]

GPS should work if you can get a window seat (and you are allowed to use it)! I've heard a few people tell me GPS doesn't work at those altitudes/speeds, but the munitions restriction is at a much higher altitude/faster speed as far as I understand.

[ChrisSergent]

I was hoping there might be a patter matching tool or something like that.

[IanMurray]

A pattern matching tool to me sounds a bit farfetched considering most of your stock global imagery is taken from overhead view, while one taken by hand from a plane is likely to be oblique.  Combine that with the amount of area that has imagery coverage and the fact that places can change greatly over time, it could be like finding a needle in a haystack for a pattern matching tool.  Crowdsourcing could be a good way to try and have someone identify where a picture was taken if they know an approximate area the plane was over when it was taken.

Got a link to the photo?

[ChrisSergent]

I would have to review mine or ask the person if it's okay if I use there photo. But I think they would find it interesting if possible. I was thinking along the lines of Bird's eye from Microsoft since those are at an angle, but it would be more ideal if there were an Esri tool.

[ChrisSmith7]

That would be really cool - something like a reverse image search. I think it would be really difficult since you'd have lots of different parameters to make matching difficult (like oblique angles, etc.), but I'm betting someone with lots of computing power and data could pull it off. It would be easier if it were vertical aerial imagery, as far as a pattern analysis, I'm thinking.

I think you'd have better luck trying to find something by estimated flight path - I wonder if it could be pulled from FlightAware, so you could get the time of the photo from metadata, then pull a lat/long from FlightAware based on the same time.

[IanMurray]

Sites like FlightStats  keep track of flight stats, paths, locations in time, etc.  If the picture had a time stamp it might be possible to corroborate with the flight tracking record to get an approximate location of where the picture would have been taken, then corroborated in Google Earth or something similar.  If they knew their flight information, they should be able to get the flight path information.