15-05-2015, 01:22 PM
Drew Phipps Wrote:You should go to this link and check out this 2009 work:
http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/farid/downlo...s/tr10.pdf
[size=12]A 3-D Photo Forensic Analysis of the
Lee Harvey Oswald Backyard Photo
[/SIZE]Hany Farid
[size=12]Department of Computer Science
6211 Sudiko Lab
Dartmouth College
Hanover NH 03755
603.646.2761 (tel)
603.646.1672 (fax)
farid@cs.dartmouth.edu
[/SIZE]Abstract
More than forty-five years after the assassination of U.S. President Kennedy
theories continue to circulate suggesting that the accused assassin, Lee Har-
vey Oswald, acted as part of a larger conspiracy. It has been argued, for
example, that incriminating photographs of Oswald were manipulated, and
hence evidence of a broader plot. We describe a detailed 3-D analysis of the
Oswald photos to determine if such claims of tampering are warranted.
Keywords:
Photo Forensics, 3-D Photo Analysis
1. Introduction
United States President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on Novem-
ber 22nd, 1963. Shortly afterwards, Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested and
charged with the crime. Because he was killed before his trial many ques-
tions surrounding the assassination remained unanswered. Since this time,
numerous theories have circulated suggesting that Oswald acted as part of a
larger criminal conspiracy involving a variety of government, international,
or criminal groups. Many of these theories point to purported inconsisten-
cies in the events of November 22nd and in the evidence collected against
Oswald. One such example is a photograph of Oswald in his backyard hol-
stering a pistol and holding a rie in one hand and Marxist newspapers in
the other, Figure 1. Oswald claimed that this photo was fake
[size=12]1[/SIZE]. In addition,
many have argued that the photo is riddled with multiple inconsistencies,
including inconsistent lighting, shadows, geometry, and proportions.
The Warren Commission [1] and the House Select Committee on
Assassinations [2] investigated claims of photo tampering and concluced that
they were unwarranted. Building on this earlier work, we describe a 3-D
photo forensic examination that allows for a quantitative analysis of these
scene properties. While only applied to this historic and controversial photo,
this 3-D modeling methodology is applicable to a broad range of photo foren-
sic situations.
2. 3-D Model
Well established techniques from photogrammetry [3] and computer vi-
sion [4] are often effective in making metric measurements from photographs.
When presented with only a single image, however, these techniques face fun-
damental limitations in terms of what can be measured. A 3-D model of a
scene records a richer representation and expands the range of measurements
that can be made. To illustrate this idea, we describe the construction and
subsequent analysis of a 3-D model of the Oswald backyard photo, Figure 1.
This model is constructed from five main parts: Oswald's head, Oswald's
body, the ground plane, portions of the surrounding building, and the posi-
tion of the light source (i.e., the sun).
In [5], the authors describe a 3-D morphable model for the analysis and
synthesis of human faces. The model was derived by collecting a large set of
3-D laser scanned faces and projecting them into a lower-dimensional linear
subspace. New faces (geometry, texture/color, and expressions) are modeled
as linear combinations of the resulting low-parameter linear basis. The model
parameters can be estimated from a paired prole and frontal image or from
only a single frontal image.
We are fortunate to have access to contemporaneous prole and frontal
views of Oswald in the form of a mugshot taken shortly after his arrest,
Figure 2. These photographs provide the ideal input for constructing a 3-
D model from the commercially available implementation of [5] (FaceGen,
[size=12]1
[/SIZE][size=12]We focus our analysis on only one of the three backyard photos, each of which show[/SIZE]
[size=12]
Oswald in his backyard with Marxist newspapers and a rie.
[/SIZE]2
Singular Inversions
). Two views of the resulting 3-D model (Figure 3) show
a good agreement with the original mugshot photo in Figure 2.
This 3-D head model was combined with a generic articulated 3-D body
[size=12]2[/SIZE],
and rendered in the 3-D modeling software Maya (
Autodesk).[size=12]3 [/SIZE]The ground
plane, fence, and post under the stairs were created from simple 3-D primi-
tives. The scene geometry, camera position, and direction of a distant light
source (i.e., sun) were manually positioned until they matched the original
photo.
Shown in Figure 4 is, from left to right, the original photo, our 3-D
rendering, and a superposition of the original photo and the outline of our
rendering. This gure shows a good agreement between the model and the
original photo. Note that in this 3-D model both the scene geometry and
lighting position are estimated, allowing for both a geometric and lighting
analysis, as described next.
3. 3-D Analysis
Once constructed, a 3-D model records a powerful representation for the
quantitative measurement of scene properties. In this section the 3-D model
estimated in the previous section is used to analyze the lighting, shadows,
dimensions, and geometry in the backyard photo of Oswald.
Because of the inherent ambiguity in constructing a 3-D model from a
single 2-D image, there are any of a number of 3-D geometries that would
be consistent with the 2-D image. The model constructed here and the
subsequent analysis simply show that there exists a consistent and plausible
3-D scene geometry, as opposed to a unique geometry.
3.1. Shadow
It may appear that the shadow cast by Oswald's body onto the ground,
and the shadow under his nose are inconsistent with a single light source,
Figure 1, and hence evidence of photo tampering. Specifically, the nose
appears to be illuminated from above, and the body seems to be illuminated
from Oswald's upper left. It has previously been pointed out, however, that
[size=12]2
[/SIZE][size=12]Alfred 1.2.0: www.creativecrash.com/maya/downloads/character-rigs/c/alfred[/SIZE]
[size=12]
[/SIZE][size=12]3
[/SIZE][size=12]A more detailed body was not constructed (e.g., [6]), because we were primarily in-[/SIZE]
[size=12]
terested in the shadow cast by the body, and the height of Oswald in the photo, for which
a generic body sufficed.
[/SIZE]3
the human visual system can be quite inept at judging inconsistencies in
lighting and shadows [7, 8, 9].
With a 3-D model of the scene geometry and lighting, it is relatively easy
to compare the shadows in the original photo and rendered scene. Shown in
Figure 5 is a side-by-side comparison of the shadows. Note that the shadows
on the nose, eyes, lower lip and neck are well matched, as are the shadow
cast by the body onto the ground plane, and the thin sliver of a shadow
from the vertical post onto the ground plane. These shadows, which at rst
glance appeared inconsistent, are in fact perfectly consistent with a single
light source.
3.2. Height
The backyard photo of Oswald in Figure 1 was considered to be partic-
ularly incriminating because the rifle he was holding in the photo appeared
to be the same as that used to assassinate Kennedy. It has been suggested,
however, that the relative size of the rifle in Oswald's hand is inconsistent
with Oswald's height. Our 3-D model can be used to determine relative di-
mensions in the 3-D scene. Most importantly, the 3-D model allows us to
remove any perspective distortions that would bias the measurements made
only from the original photo.
To begin, a cylinder was added to the 3-D model to mimic the rifle,
Figure 6. Shown in the right panel of Figure 6 is a rendering of Oswald and
the rifle where Oswald's articulated body was positioned upright and the
rifle was placed in the same depth plane as Oswald's body. In this photo,
the ratio of the length of the rifle to Oswald's height is 0:
5824. Oswald was
5 feet and 9 inches tall (69 inches), which allows us to infer the rifle length
l
as:
l
69
= 0
:5824 (1)
l
= 69 0:5824 = 40:186 inches (2)
According to the Warren Commission the rifle was 40
:2 inches in length [1],
only a fraction of an inch larger than that estimated from our 3-D model.
The rifle to height ratio measured directly from the original backyard
photo is 0
:6493 which would suggest a rifle length of 44:8 inches, several
inches longer than the recovered weapon. This type of analysis is, of course,
incorrect as it does not account for the obvious perspective and pose dis-
tortions in the photo. Our 3-D model allows for the removal of all such
distortions and, in turn, to make accurate scene measurements.
4
3.3. Posture
It has been argued that Oswald is leaning so far to the left as to be
physically implausible. Our 3-D model allows for arbitrary views of Oswald's
body and measurements of his posture. Shown in Figure 7 are four renderings
of Oswald's body taken from the front, back, and left and right sides, each of
which look qualitatively reasonable. The tilt of Oswald's body was measured
to be a physically plausible five degrees from vertical.
3.4. Chin
At first glance it may appear that Oswald's chin in the backyard photo is
too wide to be consistent with his chin in other photos (e.g., his mugshot) and
hence evidence of a photo composite. Shown in the left column of Figure 8
is a photo of Oswald from his mugshot (top) and from the backyard photo
(bottom). The yellow guidelines are drawn at the point in the top photo
where the chin meets the jaw line. Note that the chin appears to be much
wider in the backyard photo. Shown in the right column of Figure 8 are the
corresponding 3-D renderings with neutral front lighting (top) and lighting
to match the backyard photo (bottom). The yellow guidelines, of the same
width as on the left, show the same apparent widening of the chin. From these
3-D renderings, it is clear that the apparent widening of the chin is due to the
shading along the chin and jaw, and not to nefarious photo manipulation.
4. Discussion
We have described a photo forensic analysis of the historical and contro-
versial Oswald backyard photo. This analysis employed a 3-D head, body,
and scene model of our construction. This model was used to perform a quan-
titative analysis of scene geometry and lighting, each of which are shown to be
consistent and physically plausible. Previous suggestions that this photo was
manipulated or is a composite are not supported by this 3-D photo forensic
analysis.
References
[1] United States, The ocial Warren Commission report on the assassina-
tion of President John F. Kennedy, Doubleday, Garden City, N.Y., 1964.
[2] United States, Report of the select committee on assassinations of the
u.s. house of representatives (1979).
5
[3] C. McGlone, E. Mikhail, J. Bethel, R. Mullen, Manual of Photogram-
metry, 5th Edition, American Society of Photogrammetry and Remote
Sensing, 2004.
[4] R. Hartley, A. Zisserman, Multiple View Geometry in Computer Vision,
Cambridge University Press, 2004.
[5] V. Blanz, T. Vetter, A morphable model for the synthesis of 3D faces,
in: SIGGRAPH, Computer Graphics Proceedings, Los Angeles, 1999, pp.
187{194.
[6] P. Guan, A.Weiss, A. Balan, M. Black, Estimating human shape and pose
from a single image, in: International Conference on Computer Vision,
Kyoto, Japan, 2009.
[7] Y. Ostrovsky, P. Cavanagh, P. Sinha, Perceiving illumination inconsis-
tencies in scenes, Perception 34 (2005) 1301{1314.
[8] H. Farid, M. Bravo, Image forensic analyses that elude the human visual
system, in: SPIE Symposium on Electronic Imaging, San Jose, CA, 2010.
[9] H. Farid, The Lee Harvey Oswald backyard photos: Real or fake?, Per-
ception 11 (38) (2009) 1731{1734.
6
[size=12]Figure 1: Lee Harvey Oswald in his backyard.
[/SIZE]7
[size=12]Figure 2: Mugshot of Lee Harvey Oswald used to construct a 3-D model, see also Figure 3.
Figure 3: Two views of the 3-D model of Oswald's head, see also Figure 2.
[/SIZE]8
[size=12]Figure 4: Shown, from left to right, is the original backyard photo, our 3-D rendering, and
a superposition of the original and the outline of the rendering.
[/SIZE]9
[size=12]Figure 5: Shown below is the original photo and the 3-D rendering. Shown above is a
magnied view of Oswald's head. Notice that the shadows on the nose, eyes, lower lip and
neck are well matched, as well as the shadow cast by the body onto the ground plane, and
the thin sliver of a shadow from the vertical post onto the ground plane.
[/SIZE]10
[size=12]Figure 6: Shown on the left is a 3-D rendering of Oswald where the cylinder is consistent
with the size and position of the rie in the original photo, Figure 1. Shown on the right
is a rendering where Oswald and the rie are placed side-by-side and where Oswald's
articulated body was positioned upright. The yellow lines denote the measured length of
the rie and the height of Oswald.
[/SIZE]11
[size=12]Figure 7: Shown are, from left to right, side, front, back, and side renderings of Oswald's
body.
[/SIZE]12
[size=12]Figure 8: Shown along the top row are frontal views of Oswald with neutral front lighting.
Shown below is Oswald and the corresponding 3-D rendering from the backyard photo.
The yellow guidelines of the same width are drawn at the point in the top photos where
the chin meets the jaw line. Note that the apparent widening of the chin is due to the
shading along the chin and jaw.
[/SIZE]13
Had Oswald known the full contents of the backyard photo, he would not have committed political suicide by sending the picture to New York City.
We have a trail of evidence documenting Oswald's interest in Russian and socialism. While in the marines, Oswald's interest became almost fanatical. These events culminated in his ideological defection to the Soviet Union.Oswald's defection in 1959, coincided with the worldwide split in the communist movement. In nearly every country, communist parties splintered into mutually antagonistic groups supporting opposite sides in the Sino-Soviet dispute.
The Communist Parties of the Soviet Union did not split. Instead the majority fraction advocating peaceful coexistence conducted an intensive campaign against the minority factions that retained Leninist or Maoist positions. The Soviet leadership likened the minority factions to "Trotskyite bourgeois agents" and "infantile-leftists." Their campaign was so intense, that some leading Moscow publications called for a moderation. Nevertheless, the tone of the campaign was set.
Oswald attended many political meetings at the radio factory in Minsk. Without doubt an ideological defector would have been interested in the Sino-Soviet dispute. In any event, after two years of frequent meetings even the uninterested would have understood that peaceful coexistence meant repudiation of the revolutionary Leninist path.
We have evidence that Oswald understood this aspect of the Sino-Soviet dispute. On three separate occasions Oswald differentiated between Marxists and Leninists. When Aline Mosby asked Oswald in 1959 if he were a communist, Oswald replied "I am a Marxist." During interviews in New Orleans, they asked Oswald the same question he said I'm a Marxist. On November 24, 1963, Captain Fritz asked Oswald, "Are you a Communist?" Oswald answered, "No, I am a Marxist but I am not a Marxist Leninist."
Oswald subscribed to The Worker and The Militant during the spring of 1963. Both papers supported peaceful coexistence. The Worker advertised English language translations of the speeches of Khrushchev on peaceful existence. Editorials in The Worker denounced the Maoists as irresponsible infantile leftists.
The Militant diversified their editorial comments with criticism of Soviet bureaucracy and ridicule of the revolutionary "ultra-leftists." Occasionally, The Militant would advertise a work by Leon Trotsky.
Any reader of The Worker or The Militant would have understood the ideological inclinations of these publications. Oswald as a thirty-month resident of the Soviet Union would have understood the depth of the animosity between the Soviets and the Trotskyists.
Allegedly Oswald sent letters and the backyard photos to the Communist and the Socialist Workers Parties. These letters were friendly, polite and amiable. Obviously the author designed the letters to endear himself to the communists. The photographs on the other hand were surly, offensive, and antagonistic.
Showing someone they cannot keep their own house in order is the surest way to alienate them. This is exactly what the backyard photos did. By displaying newspapers from the descendants of the Stalinists and the Trotskyists these photographs reminded the advocates of unity of their first major division. After opening this old wound, the backyard photo poured salt into the injury. The backyard photo counterpoised two newspapers that supported peaceful coexistence with two guns that were the symbols of the revolutionary Leninist and Maoist factions.
If someone intended to produce the most inflammatory photograph then the backyard photo would have challenged their efforts. One photo taunted the advocates of unity that their fusion movement fissioned twice.