A 3D Reconstruction of a Crime Scene

In October of last year Iraq's security forces violently cracked down on protesters in Baghdad and southern Iraq. In Baghdad the security forces used lethal military-style tear gas and smoke grenade launchers against civilians which resulted in a number of gruesome deaths.

In order to show how the security forces were deliberately using these grenades to maim and kill protesters Amnesty International has created an amazing 3D map of the area near Baghdad’s Tahrir Square. This map has then been used to show eyewitness videos of the atrocities carried out by the Iraqi government against its own people.

As you scroll through Amnesty International's Smokescreen you are taken on a tour of the area from Jimhouriya Bridge to Tahrir Square on an incredible 3D map. Eye witness videos of the security force's attacks on protesters have been superimposed on top of this map to provide an incredibly forensic picture of the deliberate attempts to kill and maim civilians.

Smokescreen is an amazingly evocative reconstruction used to convey the lethal use of force by the Iraqi government against protesters in Baghdad. To create the map high resolution satellite imagery of the Iraqi capital was used. Amnesty International then used eye witness videos to identify and position on the map the locations of the security force barricades and the locations of the protesters. Motion tracking algorithms were applied to over 70 videos to accurately map the videos onto the 3D map.

You can read more about how Smokescreen was made on Smokecreen: Behind the Scenes.