Ashland Estate Historical GIS & Archaeological Analysis Platform

Machine Learning Spatial Alignment & Historical Analysis | Henry Clay Estate, Lexington, KY

A standalone web-based archaeological GIS analysis platform comparing historical maps and aerial surveys against modern satellite orthophotos for Henry Clay's historic Ashland Estate and Ashland-on-Tates-Creek in Lexington, Kentucky.

Credits

Research and field discovery: B.P. Thompson, PhD student, University of Kentucky Department of Anthropology, from her dissertation proposal defense Historic Anarchaeology of Henry Clay's Ashland Estate (she describes herself as the Commonwealth's first Black historical archaeologist). The 1865 curtilage map, the Bean 1980 plat, the vector reconstruction, the 1949/1965 aerial registrations, the 2024 baseline and the 1337 Cooper Drive headstone discovery are her work; this site only aligns and presents them. The defense deck itself is not included in this repository pending her permission to host it (the extract_assets.py step that renders it is therefore not reproducible from the repo).

Archival cartography: Library of Congress Geography & Map Division (D.G. Beers & Co. 1877 Fayette County atlas, Plate 30, LCCN 2005627107); U.S. Geological Survey aerial photography (1949 GS-JS 2-10, 1965).

Alignment pipeline, QA and viewer: Jack King, King Analytics (Lexington, KY).

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1. Project Overview & Architecture

Unlike generic GIS software, this application is a dedicated standalone analytical comparative viewer designed to study specific historical maps from B.P. Thompson's research and Library of Congress master scans.

                                  CANONICAL COORDINATE SPACE
                             (1600 x 900 Standardized Grid, 16:9)
                                              │
                    ┌─────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────┐
                    ▼                                                   ▼
         Modern Satellite Layer                             Historical Survey Layer
   (public/maps/2024_orthophoto_raw.png)               (public/maps/aligned/<map>_aligned.png)
                    │                                                   │
                    └─────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────┘
                                              ▼
                             Interactive Comparison Viewer
                     ├── Before / After Curtain Split (0–100%)
                     ├── Cross-Fade Opacity (0–100%)
                     ├── Spyglass Lens Mode
                     └── Interactive Hotspot Pins & Archaeological Evidence

Key Technical Specs

• Modern Basemap Coordinate System: Standardized $1600 \times 900\text{ px}$ canvas ($16:9$ aspect ratio), aligned to B.P. Thompson's dissertation reference slide (Slide 7).
• Hotspot Pin System: Relative percentages pixelX: [0..100], pixelY: [0..100] defined in src/data/analysisChapters.ts.
• Transformation Pipeline: scripts/ml_align.py executes OpenCV spatial transformations and outputs directly to public/maps/aligned/.
• Frontend Stack: React 18, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS, Lucide Icons, Vite (100% client-side static build, ready for GitHub Pages).

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2. The 7 Comparative Chapters

Tab	Chapter Title	Historical Source	Aligned File	Transformation Method & Accuracy
1	1865 Ashland Farm	1865 Curtilage Survey (Bean / Thompson)	1865_ashland_farm_aligned.png	6-DOF Planar Affine via Slide 5 vector composition + 3-road fit (8.28 px RMSE)
2	1877 Beers Master Map	LOC Plate 30 Master TIFF (ca000030, 31.1 MB)	1877_beers_ashland_aligned.png	13-Point Dual-Turnpike 6-DOF Planar Affine on Richmond & Tates Creek Pikes (11.04 px RMSE)
3	1949 Aerial Survey	USGS Flight GS-JS 2-10 (Pre-subdivision)	1949_usgs_aerial_aligned.png	Sobel Street-Grid Correlation + 14-Landmark NCC-Verified Planar Affine (2.76 px RMSE)
4	1965 Aerial Survey	USGS / ASCS Mid-Century Flight	1965_usgs_aerial_aligned.png	Sobel Street-Grid Correlation + 14-Landmark NCC-Verified Planar Affine (3.50 px RMSE)
5	Cemetery Discovery	1865 Survey + 1337 Cooper Dr GPS	1865_ashland_farm_aligned.png	Cadastral & Perimeter Wall Overlay ($38.014495^\circ\text{ N}, -84.479273^\circ\text{ W}$)
6	Vector Model	Slide 5 Master Reconstruction (754x844 raw)	master_archaeology_recon_aligned.png	SIFT + RANSAC 4-DOF Similarity on 22 Inliers (1.03 px SIFT RMSE / 0.42 px landmark RMSE)
7	Land Purchases	R.M. Bean 1980 10-Deed Plat (Slide 4)	1800_1900_clay_purchases_aligned.png	90° CCW True-North Rotation + 15-Point Multi-Road 6-DOF Planar Affine (9.83 px RMSE)

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3. Mathematical Alignment Pipeline (scripts/ml_align_v2.py & scripts/update_pins.py)

Why Planar Similarity & Affine Transforms Replaced Thin-Plate Spline (TPS)

• Radial Divergence in TPS: Earlier iterations used scipy.interpolate.Rbf with radial basis kernel $U(r) = r^2 \ln(r)$. Because historical control points were clustered in the interior, unconstrained outer boundaries diverged, creating spherical "bubble" distortion on historical plats and engravings.
• Strictly Planar 4-DOF Similarity & 6-DOF Affine Solution: Every historical layer is solved via least-squares planar similarity (ls_similarity) or planar affine (ls_affine) transforms across multi-road control networks, SIFT + RANSAC feature matches, and multi-scale Sobel street-grid correlation. This guarantees zero non-linear warping, preserving straight road trajectories, parallel fence lines, and authentic 19th-century typography.

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4. Directory Structure

HenryClayEstateProject/
├── public/
│   └── maps/
│       ├── 2024_orthophoto_raw.png            # 1600x900 Modern basemap (Slide 7)
│       ├── 2024_orthophoto_annotated.png      # 1600x900 Modern basemap annotated
│       ├── 1865_ashland_farm_raw.png          # Raw scan of 1865 farm survey
│       ├── 1877_beers_fayette_county_plate_30.jpg # LOC Plate 30 scan
│       ├── archival_masters/                  # Full-resolution uncompressed master TIFFs
│       │   ├── 1877_beers_fayette_county_plate_30_ashland.tif (31.1 MB)
│       │   ├── 1877_beers_lexington_plate_26_wards_1_4.tif    (31.8 MB)
│       │   ├── 1877_beers_lexington_plate_24_wards_2_3.tif    (31.6 MB)
│       │   ├── 1949_usgs_aerial_GS_JS_2_10_master.tif         (8.2 MB)
│       │   ├── 1965_usgs_aerial_lexington_master.tif          (4.3 MB)
│       │   └── 1865_ashland_farm_survey_master.tif            (1.2 MB)
│       └── aligned/                           # Output of scripts/ml_align_v2.py
│           ├── 1865_ashland_farm_aligned.png
│           ├── 1877_beers_ashland_aligned.png
│           ├── 1949_usgs_aerial_aligned.png
│           ├── 1965_usgs_aerial_aligned.png
│           ├── master_archaeology_recon_aligned.png
│           └── 1800_1900_clay_purchases_aligned.png
├── scripts/
│   ├── ml_align_v2.py                         # SIFT + Sobel + Multi-Road alignment pipeline
│   └── update_pins.py                         # Re-derives hotspot pins & WGS84 coordinates
├── src/
│   ├── App.tsx                                # Main application entry point & layout
│   ├── components/
│   │   ├── InteractiveComparisonViewer.tsx    # Split slider, opacity, spyglass viewer
│   │   ├── AnalysisPanel.tsx                  # Historical narrative & ML telemetry
│   │   └── PresentationModals.tsx             # Archival downloads & field photos
│   └── data/
│       ├── analysisChapters.ts                # Chapter metadata & hotspot percentages
│       ├── hotspotPins.json                   # Derived hotspot coordinates
│       └── mlAlignmentData.json               # Exported algorithm telemetry & RMSE
└── package.json

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5. Development & Build Instructions

Prerequisites

• Node.js (v18+)
• Python 3.10+ with opencv-python and numpy

Commands

# Install frontend dependencies
npm install

# Run Vite dev server (port 3000)
npm run dev

# Regenerate all aligned maps, QA overlays, telemetry, and hotspot pins
python scripts/ml_align_v2.py
python scripts/update_pins.py

# Production TypeScript check & bundle build
npm run build