2007 // The Daily Render by Nikolas R. Schiller

The Daily Render

A Digital Scrapbook for the Past, Present, and Future

|| 1/2/2007 || 11:07 am || Comments Off || ||
new year, new direction?

After recapping last year’s maelstrom of maps, I am wondering if I should continue on the path of remapping America/DC or if I should head into a new direction for 2007. I’m not sure yet, but as with everything, time will tell. I have some tessellated aerial photography ready to use for at least 5 more maps, but until I do a substantial backup of the maps created in the second half of 2006, I’d rather hold off until I’ve caught up with the past. I guess that poster I used to have hanging in my bathroom summarizes my feelings perfectly, “The Past Holds The Future Hostage,” ….but I am ready to negotiate.

|| 1/8/2007 || 11:03 am || Comments Off || ||
the future past

I found this quote from 1931 and was suprised by it’s timeless nature…

â€œOur fine arts were developed, their types and uses were established, in times very different from the present, by men whose power of action upon things was insignificant in comparison with ours. But the amazing growth of our techniques, the adaptability and precision they have attained, the ideas and habits they are creating, make it a certainty that profound changes are impending in the ancient craft of the Beautiful. In all the arts there is a physical component which can no longer be considered or treated as it used to be, which cannot remain unaffected by our modern knowledge and power. For the last twenty years neither matter nor space nor time has been what it was from time immemorial. We must expect great innovations to transform the entire technique of the arts, thereby affecting artistic invention itself and perhaps even bringing about an amazing change in our very notion of art.â€

Paul ValÃ©ry, PiÃ¨ces sur Lâ€™Art, 1931
Le Conquete de lâ€™ubiquite

|| 1/13/2007 || 11:23 am || Comments Off || ||
Austin Quilt

: rendered at 18,000 X 12,000 :

“Keep 2007 Weird” is the secondary title given to my first two maps of 2007. It’s play on Austin’s “Keep Austin Weird” slogan that I felt was somewhat relevant to my feelings toward what I predict to be a very interesting year ahead. While no one has asked for my 2007 predictions, I’ll give one that relates to the weather, which is actually where the idea behind the secondary naming came from: I think 2007 will feature the weirdest weather patterns in my lifetime.

View the Google Map of Austin, Texas.

View Rendering Details:

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|| 1/14/2007 || 12:25 pm || Comments Off || ||
Austin Quilt #2

: rendered at 18,000 X 12,000 :

View the Google Map of Austin, Texas.

View Details:

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|| 1/18/2007 || 4:27 pm || Comments Off || ||
Polar Coordinates of Austin, Texas [square]

8 tiled map

I recently read through the work of Dr. Andrew Hudson-Smith (located at the Center for Advanced Spatial Analysis in London). I was intrigued by his use of Polar Coordinates to create panoramas and synthetic planets. I had been shown how to make the panoramas before, but I hadn’t actually figured out how I could incorporate my current work with this design technique. After some experimenting I figured out some interesting new methods to display tessellated aerial photography using the Polar Coordinates filter. The results are quite amazing and show definite promise for further research…

For this experiment I used the “zoom” of Austin Quilt #2 (a square quilt projection) as my test tessellation to begin working with. I could have used any zoom from any previously made map, but since it was snowing in Austin yesterday, I thought it would be ironic to use the Polar Coordinates filter.

The process to create the panorama planets is relatively simple:
- Stitch together series of photographs
- Reduce the panorama (by default a rectangle) to a square
- Apply Polar Coordinates filter in Photoshop

What makes my experiments unique is that instead of stitching together a photograph, I am I am stitching together perfectly symmetrical square tiles (composed of tessellated aerial photography) to create a rectangle. Moreover, I am maintaining perfect ratios throughout: 1:1, 2:1, 3:1, 4:1, 5:1, 6:1, 7:1, and 8:1. For example, the source tile is 800×800 and for each polar coordinate created (below) I merely added one more tile to rectangle ([1600, 2400, 3200, 4000, 4800, 5600, 6400]x800).

For each ratio there are three images shown below:
- Rectangle with number of tiles
- Conversion of the Rectangle to Square
- Application of Polar Coordinates filter

Note: The first image of each ratio below appears to reduce in size after each tile has been been added. In order to maintain a constant width on my website, I’ve chosen to reduce each rectangle to 800 pixels in width (otherwise this entry would be 6400 pixels wide right now!). When originally manipulating the rectangles they were not reduced in size. Essentially, it was done to show the scale of the panorama at a fixed width of 800 pixels.

1 : 1

:Original:

:Converts To:

2 : 1

:Rectangle 2 Tiles Wide (reduced from: 1600×800):

:Rectangle reduced to a Square:

:Converts To:

3 : 1

:Rectangle 3 Tiles Wide (reduced from:2400×800):

:Rectangle reduced to a Square:

:Converts To:

4 : 1

:Rectangle 4 Tiles Wide (reduced from: 3200×800):

:Rectangle reduced to a Square:

:Converts To:

5 : 1

:Rectangle 5 Tiles Wide (reduced from: 4000×800):

:Rectangle reduced to a Square:

:Converts To:

6 : 1

:Rectangle 6 Tiles Wide (reduced from: 4800×800):

:Rectangle reduced to a Square:

:Converts To:

7 : 1

:Rectangle 7 Tiles Wide (reduced from: 5600×800):

:Rectangle reduced to a Square:

:Converts To:

8 : 1

:Rectangle 8 Tiles Wide (reduced from: 6400×800):

:Rectangle reduced to a Square:

:Converts To:

I am excited about what directions this technique might take my cartographic activities :) My next experiment will be to see how the application of the Polar Coordinates filter will effect each geometry of the quilt projection. This experiment was conducted using the square quilt projection, up next with be the diamond. The results should be interesting.

|| 1/19/2007 || 10:03 am || Comments Off || ||
Polar Coordinates of Charleston, West Virginia [diamond]

3 tiled map

8 polar coordinate maps using a zoom of Charleston Quilt #2.

Read more about the process involved to make these here.

View other maps of Charleston, West Virginia.

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|| 1/20/2007 || 9:15 am || Comments Off || ||
Polar Coordinates of the Super Dome in New Orleans, Louisiana [hexagon]

6 tiled map

8 polar coordinate maps using a zoom of Superdome Quilt.

Read more about the process involved to make these here.

View other maps of New Orleans, Louisiana.

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|| 1/21/2007 || 9:24 am || Comments Off || ||
Polar Coordinates of the George Washington University [octagon]

5 tiled map

8 polar coordinate maps using a zoom of GWU Quilt #3.

Read more about the process involved to make these here.

View other maps of the George Washington University.

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|| 1/22/2007 || 9:31 am || Comments Off || ||
Polar Coordinates of Harvard University [dodecagon]

4 tiled map

8 polar coordinate maps using a zoom of Harvard Quilt – NW.

Read more about the process involved to make these here.

View other maps of Harvard University.

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|| 1/23/2007 || 8:38 am || Comments Off || ||
Polar Coordinates of the Delmar Loop in University City, Missouri [icositetragon]

7 tiled map

8 polar coordinate maps using a zoom of Infinite Delmar Loop.

Read more about the process involved to make these here.

View other maps of the Delmar Loop in University City, Missouri.

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|| 1/27/2007 || 2:00 am || Comments Off || ||
Worst march route ever…

The national park & u.s. capitol police really screwed UFPJ…

official march route:

what is should be:

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|| 1/31/2007 || 12:20 am || Comments Off || ||
Cities & Nature – My first book cover

Detail of Central Park Quilt – North

Today I received the payment from Routledge for the cover of a book titled “Cities & Nature” by my former professor Lisa Benton-Short and John Rennie-Short. It’s scheduled to be published on 11/28/07.

Details (w/o graphic)

Cities and Nature
Author(s) – Lisa Benton-Short, John Rennie-Short
Series: Routledge Critical Introductions to Urbanism and the City

Introducing the reader to the city as part of the environment and so subject to environmental constraints and opportunities, this timely book is based on the claim that to fully understand the city we need to understand both the physical and social elements of the urban environment. Reintroducing a social science perspective to the examination of the city and its physical environment, the book is organized into three sections:

- urban environment in historical perspective
- issues in urban-nature relations
- realigning urban-nature relations.

Illuminated throughout with thematic and place based cases from across the globe, the authors skilfully critique the dominant academic discourse that ignores the environmental base of urban life and living, and considers the urban natural environment as subject to social influences.

You can preorder the book here and here. I get a couple for free :)

|| || 2:08 pm || Comments Off || ||
Submitted Today: Park La Brea Quilt #3 [New Media Art Competition]

Links to Interactive Geospatial Environment powered by Zoomify

Detail of Park La Brea Quilt #3

Flashpoint call for entries ends today.

===
Submission was not accepted. Quite disappointing.

Text:

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|| 2/1/2007 || 11:24 am || Comments Off || ||
a psychogeographical experiment in neogeography

My website has been on-line for nearly 1,000 days.
The experiment is going to end soon…

This:

meta name=”robots” content=”noindex,nofollow,noarchive”

Will change to:

meta name=”robots” content=”index,follow”

…good ol’ robots.txt will also be a changin’ too….

===

I’ve decided to maintain the electronic Berlin Wall…

===

The contents of this website were released on 3/14/08.

|| 2/2/2007 || 2:42 pm || Comments Off || ||
Over 500 Maps in 1000 days…

For the last few weeks I’ve been spending my extra time cataloging all the maps I’ve placed on my website since it’s been on-line. Today I finished compiling my maps of 2004 and was quite surprised that I ended the year with about 106 documented maps. Adding those to the 122 maps from 2005 and the 206 from 2006, I currently have 434 maps. Yet if I include all the maps I made last month (52), I now have 486 maps on-line. Add that to the maps that I have not put on-line (like various mixed media maps and yet-to-be-hung hitchhikers I have in my basement) and my total to over 500 maps in 1000 days. I should probably take a break soon.

The Daily Render By

A Digital Scrapbook for the Past, Present, and Future.