3D lines of sight for three countersniper teams and the would-be assassin

The New York Times (22 July 2024) How the Trump Rally Gunman Had an Edge Over the Countersnipers

The Times recreated, in 3-D, the lines of sight for three countersniper teams and the would-be assassin.


The New York Times Methodology

The Times flew a drone on July 16 over the site of the attempted assassination of Mr. Trump in Butler, Pa., and used the imagery captured by the drone to create a 3-D model of the scene.

The Times also used measurements collected on the ground, satellite imagery and references from photos and videos posted on social media to corroborate the dimensions in the model.

The positions of the gunman, countersniper teams and the victims were based on sites The Times located from social media videos.

To determine the lines of sight of each countersniper team in the 3-D model, The Times conducted a viewshed analysis — a spatial technique used to calculate what areas would be visible from a specific location in 3-D, taking into account obstructions.

The Times used a 1,000-foot radius from the position of the countersnipers for this analysis, which encompassed both the Butler Farm Show grounds and the AGR warehouse complex.

The Times placed cameras in the 3-D model at the approximate locations of the gunman’s and the countersniper teams’ elevations to show what their views might have looked like from those vantage points.

The gunman’s exact location in the renderings is based on the position where his body was found after he was shot. The specifics of the scopes used by the gunman or the countersnipers on their rifles are not known, and the 3-D renderings are approximate.

Source: The New York Times