The Daily Render by Nikolas R. Schiller » Google Maps

A T-Rex Google Map On My Neighborhood Via Twitter

Nikolas Schiller — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 04:23:05 +0000

The other day I allowed Twitter to track my location. Much to my chagrin, the map that was created looks awful. At first I thought it looked like PacMan and now I’ve come to the conclusion that it looks like T-Rex, and that ‘T’ stands for Twitter.

Washington Monument Quilt #2

Nikolas Schiller — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 21:22:04 +0000

: rendered at 9,000 X 6,000 :

When the 2005 USGS aerial photography was released to the public in the spring of 2007 there were a few places that were censored through pixilation. On this blog I documented how the White House was censored. I documented how the U.S. Capitol was censored. And I even experimented with a QR-Code to show that the Washington Monument was censored. After doing some exploration within the newly obtained 2008 Washington, DC orthophotography, I discovered that the White House and the U.S. Capitol are STILL censored.

However, now that the construction of the new visitors center at the Washington Monument has been completed, which is the reason, I am told, why the Washington Monument was originally censored in the 2005 imagery, the imagery of the monument is now available without pixilation. Moreover, its the exact same imagery that is being used on Google Maps. While I expect to showcase the censorship of the White House & U.S. Capitol in some future entries, I decided to make make my first map of this new dataset of the Washington Monument because I wasn’t able to make it using the last batch of imagery.

To construct this map, I first rendered a full-size Hexagon Quilt Projection map using the original imagery, then sampled a portion of the resulting map, and used the sampled portion to create this derivative map. I chose to sample the portion in the first map because of two underlying aspects of the map. First, I really liked the way the shadows of the Washington Monument combined together. Secondly, I liked the way the apex of the Washington Monument was combined (see detail below) to create a pyramid. Over the years I have enjoyed playing with the notion of aerial & architectural chiaroscuro, as in, using shadows generated by buildings within the original aerial photography to create a new, larger shadow. This map embodies this ongoing design element perfectly.

View the Google Map of the Washington Monument on the National Mall in Washington, DC.

: detail :

View the rest of the details:

: detail :

: zoom to center :

Related National Mall Entries:

Related Censorship Entries:

Google Maps: Add the Contour Interval to the Legend of your Terrain maps

Nikolas Schiller — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 19:56:51 +0000

Nearly every printed topographic map I’ve ever looked at has the contour interval, otherwise known as the distance between contour lines, listed in the legend. Depending on the scale of the map, the contour interval ranges from 1 foot to hundreds of feet between each successive contour line. The contour interval allows the map reader to instantly know the relative steepness & flatness of the topography in the map at one quick glance. Because of this crucial information, a topographic map is considered incomplete when it does not disclose this information to the reader.

Enter the Terrain feature of Google Maps. Released to the public in November of 2007, the contour lines were subsequently added in April of 2008. I hadn’t really given the feature much use until last week when I was planning my weekend excursion to the Shenandoah mountains. I was trying to figure out the altitude variation on my friends property by finding where their property line started & ended and calculating the elevation change. Since their property lies on the side of a mountain, I wanted to know the altitude at the bottom of the property and the altitude of the highest portion of the property, and subtract the difference to find the total elevation variance.

What I found out instead was that Terrain function of Google Maps was lacking the contour interval declaration in the legend. As with all their maps, the lower left-hand corner showed the units of distance on the map, but was missing the topographical information provided by the contour interval declaration.

In lieu of ever getting a response from Google Maps after previous queries, I decided to send a tweet to Google Maps:

I wasn’t really expecting a response, but a couple hours later I received this response on Twitter:

Well duh. I knew that! But that is not how a topographic, err, Terrain map should operate. The user should not have to zoom all the way in, count the number of contour lines between the bold contour lines, and figure out the difference. This information should be visually presented to the user in the legend, just like how the spatial distance is shown. This is not about dumbing down the maps for users, rather, its about offering users a complete map that includes all the basic information that should be there in the first place. I responded to their tweet:

I still have yet to receive a reply…. So I have gone one step further and made some mock-up maps of how the contour interval declaration might look like.

Unlike the Satellite (and Aerial!) option on Google Maps, which allows users to zoom in as far as the imagery allows before pixillation (which is contingent on the spatial resolution of the aerial & satellite imagery), the Terrain feature has fewer zoom in levels for users to navigate. If you look closely at a URL from Google Maps, somewhere in the URL you’ll find “z=X,” where z equals Zoom (scale), and X relates to how close to the surface of the earth the map show, where a z=5 is far away and z=15 is close to the surface. The Terrain feature only shows the contour lines at 3 scales, x=13, x=14, and x=15, which means there does not need to be a complete overhaul of the Terrain maps.

Below are six Google Maps of the Continental Divide in Rocky Mountain National Park showing three different scales and how the contour interval could be shown on the maps. Of note, I am not using the bold contours as the interval, but the individual contour lines. I was able to figure out the contour interval by counting the number of intervals (5) between the bold contour lines and dividing the difference from the elevation listed on the bold contour lines.

:: Terrain Map at Z=13 ::

:: Terrain Map at Z=13 with the contour interval declaration at the bottom ::

I found this map to be the hardest to decipher the contour interval because the individual contour lines are so lightly drawn

Continue Reading:

:: Terrain Map at Z=14 ::

:: Terrain Map at Z=14 with the contour interval declaration at the bottom ::

:: Terrain Map at Z=15 ::

:: Terrain Map at Z=15 with the contour interval declaration at the bottom ::

While my use of the Geneva font with a 2 pixel white stroke might not look the best on these maps, I believe that the interface designers & programmers at Google Maps can easily implement this basic information to the legend of their Terrain maps. Yes, there will be a minor difference in the contour intervals on the maps that use meters instead of feet, but overall I don’t think it will make a large difference. The real issue is still providing users with the best & most useful maps on the internet, and until Google Maps includes this basic information, their maps will still be cartographically incomplete. The question is, will the maps be updated?

Before & After Aerial Photographs of Ground Zero in Nagasaki, Japan

Nikolas Schiller — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 00:15:48 +0000

I was looking at the Wikipedia entry on Aerial Bombing of Cities and came across the World War Two aerial photograph above. It shows the absolute destruction of the Nagasaki, Japan after the atomic bomb known as “Fat Man” was dropped from the sky and detonated in the heart of the city. Below is a screen grab from Google Maps showing a contemporary view of ground zero:

…from life to death to life… Its rather amazing how much development has taken place since the war ended over 60 years ago. I just hope this type of bombing never happens again.

Dear Yahoo! & Navteq, it’s not the National Msm of the American Indian!

Nikolas Schiller — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 19:49:41 +0000

Back in March of 2008 I discovered that Google Maps was incorrectly displaying the official title of the National Museum of the American Indian on their maps. They had truncated the word museum to MSM. A friend of mine who works at Navteq, the supplier of the data, confirmed that the length of the title was too long, so they shaved off a few characters by truncating the word museum to msm. This lexical error was eventually corrected on Google Maps….

However, last night I had someone in India do a Yahoo! search for National Msm of the American Indian and ended up visiting my page. Upon closer inspection, I discovered that Yahoo! Maps was also doing the same type of truncation with Navteq’s data. I think NavTeq should to change it’s dataset so all the museums names are spelled correctly.

Note: the links in the images in this entry go to the Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden because it was the closest result for my query “National Msm of the American Indian”

The aerial photography of the area around the Metro crash site contains a Metro train

Nikolas Schiller — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 16:10:11 +0000

Like the highway collapse of I-35 in Minneapolis, the partial collapse of the MacArthur Maze, the destruction of Hurricane Katrina, and the Columbine shootings, I’ve decided to make a map of the area around yesterday’s Metro crash site. Earlier today I downloaded the imagery of the site and found something I wasn’t expected. Not far from the actual crash site there is a Metro train on the tracks. While its not as interesting as the Ghost Cars on the I-35 bridge, I found it interesting that of all the locations for the Metro train to be when the plane flew over in March of 2005, the Metro train happens to be VERY close to the actual site of the tragedy.

Note: Google Maps currently uses the same USGS imagery that I am using.

Google Map Mashup: The Qibla Locator

Nikolas Schiller — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 15:54:09 +0000

Following up on yesterday’s posting, I stumbled across this interesting Google Map mashup. The Qibla (or Kiblah or Qiblah or Quibla) is the Arabic word for the direction that should be faced when a Muslim prays, otherwise known as the direction of the Kaaba in Mecca. For obedient muslims, the Salah, or formal prayer, is performed five times a day: at dawn (fajr), noon (dhuhr), in the afternoon (asr), at sunset (maghrib) and nightfall (isha’a). The Qibla Locator is a simple Google Map that is designed to automatically orient Muslims toward the direction of the Kaaba. Simply enter your location and the red line that is generated shows the shortest distance to the Kaaba. In the case of the screen grab above I decided to show what direction a Muslim would pray if they were in the White House in Washington, DC. I chose this location because I’ve read about some nutty folks who actually think president Barack Obama is a Muslim. Frankly, I don’t care what religion he practices and to take issue with anyone’s religion is a sign of intolerance and veiled ignorance. What I find most interesting about the Google Map is that the rhumb line toward the Kaaba can be somewhat deceiving. I’m not blaming the author of the mashup, rather, I think the nature of how the Quibla is found is unique. Since its based on the shortest distance to Mecca, sometimes the fastest way seems counter-intuitive, as in, I was thought the path from the White House (above) would be facing South-East instead of North-East. If you have a moment, try it out.

A couple interesting notes from the Wikipedia entry:

• The head of an animal that is slaughtered using Halal methods is aligned with the Qibla.
• Muslims are buried with their faces in the direction of the qiblah. Thus, archeology can indicate a Muslim necropolis if no other signs are present.

A short history of the Qibla:

Originally, the direction of the Qibla was toward Masjid al-Aqsa, Jerusalem (and it is therefore called the First of the Two Qiblahs). At least since Mishnaic times (AD200), Jews face the Temple Mount in Jerusalem while praying. The Mishnah speaks about this in Berakhot (Talmud) chapter 4, Mishnahs 5 and 6 and this practice is even found as early as I Kings 8:35-36. In Islam, this qiblat was used for over 13 years, from 610 CE until 623 CE. Seventeen months after Muhammad’s 622 CE arrival in Medina, the Qiblah became oriented towards the Kaaba in Mecca. According to accounts from the prophet Muhammad’s companions, the change happened very suddenly during the noon prayer in Medina, in a mosque now known as Masjid al-Qiblatain (Mosque of the Two Qiblahs). Muhammad was leading the prayer when he received revelations from Allah instructing him to take the Kaaba as the Qiblah (literally, “turn your face towards the Masjid al Haram”). According to the historical accounts, Muhammad, who had been facing Jerusalem, upon receiving this revelation, immediately turned around to face Mecca, and those praying behind him also did so.

Related Mecca Entries:

Related Interactive Entries:

Thomas Jefferson’s Map of Washington from March 31st, 1791

Nikolas Schiller — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 18:30:04 +0000

Map courtesy of the Library of Congress

Throughout the week I watched the Senate debate on the District of Columbia House Voting Rights Act of 2009. This bill (which I’ve written about before in its different forms) will give DC residents a token vote in the House of Representatives, while denying us representation in the Senate. (Taxation Without 2/3′s Representation!!) Thursday afternoon the Senate passed the Act after they also voted to add a bogus amendment written by the National Rifle Association to weaken/remove the District of Columbia’s gun laws. The vote showed clearly that the District of Columbia is still Congress’ little colony and even with the Act’s passage, DC residents are no better off than before, except of course, we’ll be governed by 536 unelected officials, instead of 535. Hurrah for continued tyranny masked as progress!

There were two words I heard over and over again during the Senate debate: Founding Fathers. Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, is revered as one of America’s founding fathers and after looking at his map that he drew in 1791 (and attempting to read his nearly illegible text), I’ve come to the conclusion that the Seat of Government that the Constitution gives Congress exclusive jurisdiction over (Article I, Section 8, Clause 17), is also nearly the same geography that was defined as the National Capital Service Area [link to Google Map] when DC statehood was proposed. This area is basically all the federal government buildings around the National Mall and is what I feel Congress should have exclusive control over. So why was the Seat of Government expanded to include the entire District of Columbia when Jefferson clearly drew a smaller vision 218 years ago? I don’t know, but fixing one of the Founding Father’s faux-pas should involve giving DC residents full equality that citizens of the rest of America receive, which means representation in both the House and the Senate.

Related Colonist Entries:

Related Found Maps:

Related Antique Entries:

Hey Google & YouTube, those are not my Senators! I have no Senators!

Nikolas Schiller — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 23:26:08 +0000

In continuance of yesterday’s posting, recently Congress changed their rules to allow Senators and Representatives to utilize YouTube to share information with their constituents. Today I noticed a secondary tragic flaw in their layout. Since the residents of Washington, DC are denied representation in the Senate, the coders at YouTube are using the state of the District of Columbia to show videos from different congressional committees. Instead of incorrectly listing DC as a state, they should include a link to “Committees.” Moreover, as you can see above & below, Google maps remove the words District of Columbia at different scales. This further shows how little YouTube/Google cares about the half a million disenfranchised residents of the District of Columbia.

Notice that the District of Columbia is listed in the map above, but the box is in the wrong place…

Related Colonist Entries:

Hey Google & YouTube, that is not my Representative or Delegate!

Nikolas Schiller — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 22:21:55 +0000

Recently Congress changed their rules to allow Senators and Representatives to utilize YouTube to share information with their constituents. Today I noticed a tragic flaw in their layout. Since the residents of Washington, DC are denied representation in Congress, the coders at YouTube are using the state of the District of Columbia to show videos from different congressional committees, not from my elected “Shadow” Representative Mike Panetta or Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton. Moreover, as you can see below, the Google maps remove the words District of Columbia at different scales. This further shows how little YouTube/Google cares about the people of the District of Columbia:

Related Colonist Entries:

Google FINALLY updates the imagery of Washington, DC and now you can kinda see the message on my rooftop

Nikolas Schiller — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 21:30:49 +0000

Back in July of 2007 I found that Google was censoring the imagery of downtown Washington, DC. This discovery lead to an article that was featured on the front page of the Metro section of the Washington Post. In the time since, Google has not updated the imagery, even after the release of Street View for Washington, DC.

The other day they finally decided to update the imagery of Washington, DC. I believe they did this because there were millions of people coming to Washington for the inauguration and they would have been showing them outdated imagery on their maps. Now that the imagery has been updated, you can almost see the message on my rooftop that I installed in the summer of 2006. Since the imagery has a somewhat low spatial resolution, its slightly difficult to make out the words “No War,” and it kinda looks like “No W@R.” Below is the photograph that appeared on the front page of the Style Section of the Washington Post in March of 2007 which shows me standing next to the now-visible rooftop sign.

“The mapmaker on his Washington roof with a message that he hopes will someday be reflected in both government aerial photography and the art he creates from that imagery.” (Photo by Michael Williamson — The Washington Post)

Google Street View of Washington, DC suffers from out-dated imagery

Nikolas Schiller — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 21:53:37 +0000

As a cutesy election day surprise, Google announced the release of their Street View feature for the Google Maps of Washington, DC. For the last year and a half I’ve been waiting for Google Maps to include the city I live in, while at the same time planning my next installment of my geopolitical art project Google Street View IED , the first google bomb for Street View.

In June of 2007, around the time Street View was first released, Washington, DC’s imagery was “updated” with newer aerial photography from 2005. However, the central business district of Washington, DC continues to this day being shown using out-dated imagery from 2002, and the rest of the District is being shown using the newer imagery from September 2005. In the time since this”update”, even after I assisted in exposing this passive censorship in the Washington Post, the imagery has not been updated and because of this the new Street View feature suffers.

In the screen grab above you are being shown the massive parking lot known as City Center which was the site of the former convention center. The old convention center was imploded in December of 2004, which makes a gross mismatch. By using outdated imagery the convention center is still being shown on the Google Map, but the Street View imagery shows a completely different temporal view. The disturbing part of all of this is that the USGS imagery is completely available to anyone in the world to download. It’s already being used by Google Maps for the rest of Washington, DC and I’ve been using in my maps as well.

So, Google, when are you going to update your imagery? If its for security reasons, why release Street View? This provides far more “on the ground” information the aerial views profide. Please tell your content providers that the imagery of Washington, DC deserves an update so you can better serve your customers. Maybe you can use your new satellite?

Related Google Maps Entries:

Related Google Street View Entries:

Related Censorship Entries:

My New York Map Society Presentation at the New York Public Library

Nikolas Schiller — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 00:03:33 +0000

Below are the “slides” used in my presentation for the New York Map Society. Culled from the last four years of entries on this website, the selected maps show the range of my cartographic endeavors. What is missing, however, is my explanation of why I chose each slide.

The presentation was was supposed to go for about 45 minutes and have about 15 minutes of Q&A, instead it went for about 75 minutes and had about 15 minutes of Q&A. In all, I felt it was a very successful presentation and I deeply grateful for the New York Map Society for inviting me and the wonderful staff at the New York Public Library for their assistance.

Sensor Spatial Analysis

Park Circle Quilt – Quicktime Virtual Reality

North, South, East, Westminster – Outdoor Installation

View the entire presentation:

Early Interactive Maps

E Street Risk Analysis – My final project for the GWU Geography Department

U Street Safety – Version 1

U Street Safety – Version 2

The Inaugural Map

â€¢ View Statistics â€¢

The Lenz Project(ion)

The Lenz Projection is based on 4 simple items:
- Aerial or satellite image
- Torus (a donut)
- Transparent glass sphere
- Light source

The Lenz Projection was setup as follows:
- A light source is created to illuminate the scene
- The aerial or satellite image was placed in the direct center of the scene (the square peg)
- The Torus placed at the center of the scene and reduced so that the image fits exactly in the center (the square peg in a round hole)
- The transparent glass sphere was place at the center of the scene enclosing the image and half the diameter of the torus (Lenz)

By adjusting the the Z dimension (depth) of the transparent glass sphere over the square image in the circle, the Lenz causes the imagery to refract and fill the space of the circle.

The Lenz Project – Version 2

The Star Series

The Memory Series

The First Quilt Projection Map: Ivan Memory (A Square Quilt Projection Map)

Charleston Quilt #2 – A Diamond Quilt Projection Map

Indianapolis Quilt – A Hexagon Quilt Projection Map

San Diego Quilt #2 – A Octagon Quilt Projection Map

Harvard Quilt NE- A Dodecagon Quilt Projection Map

The First Derivative Tessellation Map: Jefferson Mandala

Jefferson Mandala was printed over a million times

New York Public Library Quilt – A Fractal Octagon Quilt Projection Map

Federal Triangle Quilt #3 – A Fractal Diamond Quilt Projection Map

The Geospatial Alphabet

Ball of Destruction

Salt Lake City Quilt With Clouds

New OrLincoln

Taxation Without Representation Google Map

Pentagon Quilt

Lower Manhattan Quilt

You Are Here #1

Israel / Palestine 1993

Temporal Stereography [watching time bend]

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:

Generic GIS Map

Cathedral Quilt with Arabic Signature

Lost in America’s Last Colony

American Stereography #3

Interactive Inequality #3

The White House Is Off Limits to the Public

LOLmaps

Streetview I.E.D.

Socio Ditata Labore

A New Map of the Terraqueous Globe : according to the the Ancient discoveries and most general Divisions of Geospatial Art

America As A Cloverleaf

NOVA ET ACCVRATISSIMA TOTIVS TERRARVM ORBIS TABVLA [2007 Remix]

A New & Arabesque Map of the Hirshhorn Museum

1880 Street Railway Map of the City of Washington

Within Sight of the White House [Overlay of Hookerâ€™s Division]

Maps: Finding Our Place in the World

5, 10, 60, & 101 Quilt

Terra Fermi

A new change in Washington, DCâ€™s imagery on Googleâ€™s servers

2008 Urban America Calendar

Thank you for your time! If you have any questions, please feel free to ask them either here or by e-mail:
INFO AT Nikolas Schiller DOT com

Wasilla, Alaska is literally off the map, the Google Map that is

Nikolas Schiller — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 00:34:32 +0000

The Republican Party’s vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin is the former mayor of Wasilla, Alaska. Tonight this website had a visitor from Wasilla, Alaska who looked at this statehood-related map. Upon looking at the city on Google Maps, I found out that Wasilla is a border city where the imagery of the geography shows only a portion of the city using new high-resolution imagery. In some ways, this map proves that Republican Party’s vice-presidential choice was literally off the map.

UPDATE – Due to the presidential election, Google has updated their imagery of Wasilla, Alaska.

Related Google Map Entries:

Related 2008 Elections:

Democratic National Convention 2008 – Photos from Day One

Nikolas Schiller — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 03:15:10 +0000

I decided to go to Denver to help a friend shoot video for some different websites.

Below are the photos I took today:

View the rest of the photographs:

I started the day off by going to the park near the state capital building.

Protesters teabagged a fountain

Google Maps came to Denver with a booth to show off their voting maplet. After I took this photograph I was warned by a security guard that it was illegal to take photographs on the private property.

Anti-Abortion Activists on the 16th Street Mall

Gun Show!

Ironic placement of the fliers…..

Final stop of the night was to film an interview here:

Related Photography Entries:

Related Election 2008 Entries:

Streetfilms comes to Washington, DC and checks out SmartBikeDC

Nikolas Schiller — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 00:30:40 +0000

I stumbled on to this short video because I trying to find a Wikipedia entry on SmartBike DC (there isn’t one yet). I was originally going to post two Google Maps (see below) showing the number of stations in DC compared to the number of VÃ©libâ€™ stations in Paris. The point of the two maps was to show that Clear Channel, which was beat out in Paris by JCDecaux, went a little skimpy when planning and implementing DC’s SmartBike program.

VÃ©libâ€™ was launched just about a year ago on July 15, 2007, with 10,000 bicycles and 750 automated rental stations each with 15 or more bikes/spaces. This number has since grown to 20,000 bicycles and 1,450 stations, about 1 station every 300 m throughout the city centre, making VÃ©libâ€™ the largest system of its kind in the world. Washington, DC, on the other hand, started with 10 stations, about 120 bikes, and is the first program of its kind in North America.

While Paris is a much larger city, I am disappointed that with all the hype surrounding the SmartBike program, the planners were not as Smart as they could have been. Had they placed racks at *ALL* DC-based Metro stations before launching I would have bought my SmartBike pass immediately and I bet more would-be bicycle riders would have as well. Until then, I don’t see myself purchasing a pass because I can get to all the current locations on my own bike.

Washington, DC’s natural topography features a hill that surrounds the “Federal City,” or the old part of the city below Florida Ave, which was once called Boundary Street because it was the natural line of demarcation. This hill is what stops me from going to some places on my bike versus taking the Metro. Yet the locations of all the SmartBike stations are located below the hill, so why bother using the bikes when mine works fine for this area? For example, I’d rather take the Metro to Tenleytown, hop on a bike there, and take it down the hill to Georgetown.

Anyways, I still want to make a video called “Doing Dumb Things On A Smart Bike,” but I guess I am going to have to wait…

For a comparison of scale, check these two Google Map screen grabs featuring the locations of the VÃ©libâ€™ stations and the SmartBikeDC stations:

VÃ©libâ€™

SmartBike DC

Related Bicycle Entries:

One year later and Google Maps has still not updated DC

Nikolas Schiller — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:41:34 +0000

One of the little plugins I installed on this WordPress blog was a link at the bottom of each post which shows what I had posted the year before. The other day I noticed that my research related to censorship of Washington, DC on Google Maps, which culminated into the lead article in the Metro section of the Washington Post had appeared. I decided to check out Google Maps to see if there had been any updates and to my non-surprise, there hadn’t been. All I can say is: “what gives?” DC residents are still looking at downtown Washington, DC from 6 years ago. People visiting the MSM of the American Indian are still seeing it under construction, the newly built dorms on GWU‘s campus are still not being shown, and the list goes on….. So when will the imagery be updated? When will DC residents get to enjoy the benefits of Street View? Google has office in DC to lobby elected officials, but they’ve chosen to keep imagery of their own office outdated. This doesn’t make sense to me.

Related Censorship Entries:

Related Google Maps Entries:

What the Artomatic 2008 venue looked like in March of 2005

Nikolas Schiller — Tue, 06 May 2008 20:34:08 +0000

My next map will feature the area around the 2008 Artomatic venue. On Google Maps, which currently shows the geography in April of 2002, the location is still a parking lot. Since the venue is located within the 12 mile perimeter of passive censorship on Google Maps you don’t see the construction or completion of the office building.

Visual Trace Route – I’m 42 hops from Google

Nikolas Schiller — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 22:00:09 +0000

For nearly four years (May 2004 to March 2008) this website was a digital experiment how people find content on the internet. By withholding the contents of this website from search engines I was able to create my own digital island that could be found only by those who knew me or when I would selectively release specific content. Last month, exactly one year after an internationally syndicated article was published about me and my website, I concluded the experiment by lifting the electronic Berlin Wall that prevented search engines from accessing the content on this website. For the last month or so, I’ve begun to watch how people are able to find my content through search engines, and frankly its been nothing short of amazing. In the not-so-distant future I will have a more detailed pre & post search engine analysis posted here.

While this website was unlisted and before the article was published, I used to look at my website IP logs every morning. I would manually trace the IP addresses of every visitor to this website and obtain a decent guesstimate of how the person found my website. This IP analysis would give the location and hosting provider of the visitor, but what it did not give is the digital path that my content traveled.

Data does not travel through the internet in a geographic path of least resistance (like as the crow flies), rather data bounces around the world from server to router to user in a path that can go in multiple directions and routed through multiple servers before finally reaching your computer. A trace route is a means to see what servers the content passes through before reaching you. By clicking on the image above you can explore how content travels to your computer using the Google Maps interface to see exactly where the content travels. For example, data from www.Google.com makes 42 unique hops before finally reaching my computer. A fun experiment would be to trace how content from this website arrives on your computer screen.

Watching the route trace itself looks much like a sped up version of “The 21 Steps by Charles Cumming,” which is a cartographically interactive story told through the Google Maps interface. Each stop becomes a new chapter in the information’s delivery. How many stops did this blog entry take to get to you?

Related GIS:

Related Google Maps:

The first Artomatic prints have arrived

Nikolas Schiller — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 16:30:14 +0000

Federal Triangle Quilt #3 with Chinese signature

Using some of the funds from my DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities 2008 Young Artist Grant, I purchased the first set of prints that will be shown at next month’s Artomatic exhibition.

One of Kodak’s newest products is their fleece blanket, which is 100% polyester, machine washable, and frankly, are a very good deal at about $45 each. I’ve been waiting a long time to print my maps on large media cost-effectively and fortunately the size of these blankets match the aspect ratio of my maps (3:2) so I can upload my 9,000 x 6,000-sized maps (one half the original rendering size) without any extra image manipulation. Or so I thought.

Today’s delivery included my first three prints shown here in this posting (above & below). They all feature my name written in Chinese script written on modified aerial photography of downtown Washington, DC that currently being withheld on Google Maps, but available to download by the public.

Today many people equate censorship with the Chinese government, yet there is censorship taking place within America’s capital city on one of the most popular mapping services in the world. By not showing imagery that is newer and has already cleared by the government for public viewing, Google Maps is censoring downtown Washington, DC and the maps that I printed out show this temporal terra incoginita.

Disappointing, however, was that the printings were all defective in one way or another. The Kennedy Center Quilt has a two inch, purple-colored, chemical burn in the upper right-hand corner of the print and the other two were off-center by about a half inch- nearly cutting off the end of my name. It was a nice way of being reminded that perfection is never delivered. They’ll be sent back to the ether from which they came. Symmetry is integral to my maps and if they are off-center they look amiss and are disposed of.

This Saturday I am going to the Artomatic space for the site selection and after seeing the space I am going to be dealing with, I’ll start ordering more prints. Depending on the space I am allotted at Artomatic, I would like to hang as many of these tapestries as possible. I have nearly 400 quilt projection maps to choose from and right now I’ve been thinking of using Chinese script, Arabic script, and Latin maxims to decorate, or add to, my previously made maps to make the prints unique to the exhibition.

Kennedy Center Quilt with Chinese signature

State Department Quilt with Chinese signature

Post-Script
I don’t want to focus strictly on Chinese script for these next prints and I hope my next batch will include some Arabic script or hopefully some Farsi written in the Perso-Arabic script. Its fortunate that I live in a city where I have access to friends that can provide me with such cultural, linguistic, and typographic bounty. The Arabic script I found most recently is translated from the Latin phrase Veritatem temporis filiam esse dicitur, which means “the truth is the daughter of time.” (Portuguese: A verdade Ã© filha do tempo, French: la vÃ©ritÃ© est la fille du temps, Spanish: la verdad es hija del tiempo) When searching the internet, I’ve found this phrase to be mostly attributed to a quote from Empiricist philosopher & scientist Francis Bacon’s in his work “Novum Organum” or “New Instrument” published in 1620 in England. Bacon wrote: “Recte enim Veritas Temporis filia dicitur, non Authoritatis” or “For truth is rightly called the daughter of time, not authority”.

#UPDATE# Saturday May 20th, 2pm

I decided to place these on the ground in my Artomatic exhibit space.

National MSM of the American Indian on Google Maps; Why truncate the word Museum?

Nikolas Schiller — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 17:55:45 +0000

Last night I was using Google Maps and discovered that the label for the National Museum of the American Indian has been truncated to be “National MSM of the American Indian.” This raised alarm because the shorthand for MSM is more recognized as “MainStream Media” not museum. Native Americans have been shortchanged for hundreds of years by the American government, and I found it downright rude that the museum’s name has been cartographically shortchanged as well. So why shorten the name?

I’d like to think its proximity is a joke; a spurious correlation at best. The museum is across the street from America’s propaganda headquarters known as Voice of America. Many people believe that the MSM is one of the means to convey propaganda domestically through the use of cable news, radio programming, and general entertainment. However, what is unique is that Voice of America is explicitly forbidden by Congress from broadcasting in America.

This juxtaposition finds a building dedicated to showcasing the history of North America’s native population being written using shorthand used to describe the building across the street, which is not allowed to broadcast to the contemporary population. There is also a internal (native) / external (foreign) disconnect in their proximity and labeling. VOA is America’s contemporary external voice to the world and the Native American Indians are the internal voice of America’s past.

But Museum to MSM? Maybe it’s because it’s because the entire name is too long. There is only one building nearby on the National Mall that has had its name shortened in a similar fashion: US Dept of Housing and Urban DVLPT.

Some of the nearby labels:
[36] Hirshhorn Museum & Sculptural Garden
[35] National MSM of the American Indian
[35] National Museum of American History
[34] US Dept of Housing and Urban DVLPT
[34] National Museum of Natural History
[31] US Department of Transportation
[31] Dept of Health & Human Services
[X] – indicates the number of characters {including white space}
(not all locations in screen grab above)

Without the truncation of MSM, the museum’s label would be the second longest if DVLPT was also written out. However, as it is written now, the Hirshhorn has the longest name. Summarily, I don’t think the addition U EU would cause too many issues in the amount of space dedicated to labels. Maybe Sanborn, NAVTEQ should just up the character length value when exporting their raw data to the Google Maps interface? Then they could correct this error. I wonder if this would revision would make the MSM? ha.

This brings me to the lexical practice of disemvowelment, where words are stripped of their vowels to partially censor people’s on-line comments. I read the discussion on BoingBoing.net the other day, yet while it might be a new practice to moderate people’s comments, today I realized that it’s currently being used poorly to moderate the amount of information on maps.

Lastly, since Google is withholding the newer public domain imagery of the museum, the current imagery of the museum shows that the building is still under construction— it was finished years ago! Nearly 9 months after this was discovered, DC has not been updated to show the rest of the city. A continued disservice to tourists, residents, and government employees.

Washington, DC Foreclosure Google Map Mashup

Nikolas Schiller — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 13:42:24 +0000

If you are looking for some hot real estate deals, do I have the map for you. As many financially strapped people are unable to pay off their poorly written mortgages, they are being forced into foreclosure. This Google Map Mash-up shows the locations of homes for sale due to foreclosure around the Washington, DC area and beyond. To use, type in the intended geography and select “Foreclosure” from the drop down box in the section “Property Type”. [Via Anything Geospatial]

The history of the word: Mortgage

The great jurist Sir Edward Coke, who lived from 1552 to 1634, has explained why the term mortgage comes from the Old French words mort, â€œdead,â€ and gage, â€œpledge.â€ It seemed to him that it had to do with the doubtfulness of whether or not the mortgagor will pay the debt. If the mortgagor does not, then the land pledged to the mortgagee as security for the debt â€œis taken from him for ever, and so dead to him upon condition, &c. And if he doth pay the money, then the pledge is dead as to the [mortgagee].â€ This etymology, as understood by 17th-century attorneys, of the Old French term morgage, which we adopted, may well be correct. The term has been in English much longer than the 17th century, being first recorded in Middle English with the form morgage and the figurative sense â€œpledgeâ€ in a work written before 1393.

[via Bartley]

The 21 Steps by Charles Cumming – A story told through Google Maps

Nikolas Schiller — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 18:57:49 +0000

The 21 Steps by Charles Cumming is an interactive story that is told through the use of Google Maps. Readers can watch & navigate the story as it unfolds across a map of the world. About six months ago I tried making a Choose Your Own Adventure story using Google Maps, but I ultimately gave up because I didn’t want to code it all! I look forward to reading this story, and more importantly, seeing how people are able to further mash-up this concept of taking a work of fiction (or non-fiction) and putting it on a map. [via Metafilter]

Pentagon Bans Google Map-Makers

Nikolas Schiller — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 18:01:52 +0000

What a poorly written lead by the BBC. It should say something like “Pentagon Bans Google Street View from Military Bases.” Saying “Google map-makers” are banned implies that people who use the service of Google Maps are also banned. But that is not the case; I can zoom into many military bases, but what I cannot do, and the point of the story, is to use the Street View feature within a military base.

Of course they shouldn’t be making a Streetview dataset of any military bases in the first place. Call this a very stupid mistake on behalf of Google. How is this helpful? Knowing where the F-14′s are housed is not information that can be used by the general public. Just like I don’t need to know how DC’s steam pipe network is laid out (a dataset that is withheld from the public last time I checked). Basically, its one thing to do Street View on public streets in innocuous cities, but its an entirely different story when they map out the inside of a military base.

I’ve had quite a few military personnel visit my Street View Improvised Explosive Device animation since I put it on-line last year in June (it was created about a week after Street View was released to the public). I would like to believe that the military is aware of how people can exploit Street View, but nearly 9 months later it doesn’t look like some of the military brass has taken any warnings seriously.

Also, I truly wonder if and when Google will release Street View for Washington, DC. With Google and National Geospatial Intelligence Agency already censoring downtown DC, I doubt that they would release DC’s Streetview imagery without some significant modifications (aka redactions). However, if Google does release DC Street View I already know exactly where I plan on making the next digital IED…. [you will just have to wait & see]

From Here to There in Google Maps

Nikolas Schiller — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 20:02:18 +0000

Screen grab of Google Map’s directions

Technically it’s the directions from HÃ©rÃ© to ThÃ©rÃ©, but lets just forget about the four accent Ã©gues as they are lost in translation. —via Haha.nu

Concentric Development Dissected

Nikolas Schiller — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 20:58:18 +0000

the intersection of 4 St. N and 62nd St. N. near Mystic Lake north of Saint Petersburg in Pinellas County, Florida.

View Larger Map (using older imagery)

The next five maps will be from this dissected concentric development. I found it when I was in Florida tracing the route my family took to go to the beach. The aerial photography was captured in 2004 and released in 2006 through the USGS. This imagery is about 6 inches per pixel, which is better than the current satellite imagery being used above by Google. This series of maps will be filed accordingly.

I made five tessellations, one of each quadrant, and one tessellation from the entire development at 1/2 spatial resolution reduction (6″ to 12″ per pixel). I used the Square Quilt projection for each rendering for series consistency. I hope to learn the story behind who and why this development was created.

Related Florida Entries:

How to design a better user interface for geographic information?

Nikolas Schiller — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 13:58:42 +0000

aka “How do we show this data better?”

I normally don’t comment on the hundreds of YouTube videos I watch each week, but I couldn’t pass up this video. In my opinion, I don’t think anyone in this video studied geography extensively. The way they approached the creation of a User Interface for geographic information did not seem to be well formed as if it came from the mouths of those who have learned the fine art of coding. Great psuedocode, but no without the geographic insight to present the information effectively.

“Neighborhood data” is census data, which has coverage throughout America. A local business wants priority placement on nearby google searches. If anyone searches for a plumber the nearest plumber’s contact yellow page ad should appear as the first result. Followed by a sponsored ad from SC Johnson Inc. for Draino. Its not so much how the business is listed, but how the business is found.

I see how the video is really about the creative process in teamwork at google, and how it doubles as recruitment material, but those answering the questions fail to comprehend the freely available demographic data availble to Google from their own personal information profiles to the published geographic data, and most importantly the means to present spatial information on a Google map, or even doing so with a more elaborate User Interface.

The woman in the green shirt, Nina, a software engineer, jokes about knowing the data, but if the user already has a google account quite a bit of information is known about the user- like where they are located. Yet, she seems to be the only one with a sense of how a UI might be redesigned.

Suggestions: YouTube commercials of local businesses, different icons for categorical data, nearby blogs, User comments, Similar User searches, a sponsored link to Draino for the plumber search, and more geographers.

And maybe these shades of color might make a better location-based UI when using aerial or satellite imagery. Unless of course the imagery is outdated.

1880 Street Railway Map of the City of Washington

Nikolas Schiller — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 21:28:26 +0000

Using map #10 from 1880 Statistical Map of the City of Washington, I was able to make this unique, interactive, antique map mashup.

View the Google Maplet

Unlike the previous antique map mash-ups, the map above was created after I started working on an interactive Google Mapplet. The idea behind it was to show a “then & now” perspective on mass transit in Washington, DC. The Wikipedia article on streetcars in Washington, DC explains quite well the long history of DC’s mass transit system. The second reason this map was created was to help solicit support for the construction of new street car lines. This map shows the street railway system in it’s infancy, less than 20 years old, and not at the height of DC’s streetcar railway system in 1963 (the year it was literally scrapped). If I could wave a magic wand and have the DC Department of Transportation begin building a new line, I’d start with where the Columbia Line was. The gentrifying H Street Corridor could use a street car line from Union Station to Bladensburg Road, (which is about half the length of the original Columbia Railroad Company line) to help spur development along the corridor.

Below is the first draft of the My Google Map (the difference between Mapplet & My Google Map is that Mapplets are standarized “Google Gadgets” made for public dissemination while My Google Maps mainly designed for personal use). Up next I plan on publicly releasing this map as a Google Mapplet that allows people to turn off and on the street railway layer.

The map is not 100% perfectly drawn. There are a few places that it looks a bit off. If you would like to make modifications to the source KML you can download the souce file here.

Bibliographic Data:
From the Library of Congress Geography & Mapping Division:

City of Washington, statistical maps / compiled by Lieut. F.V. Greene, assistant to the Engineer Commissioner, July 1st 1880 ; compiled by Lieut. F.V. Greene, U.S. Eng’rs … to accompany the annual report of the Commissioners of the District of Columbia for the year ending June 30th 1880 ; Wm. T.O. Bruff, del., Eng’r Dept., D.C.

Greene, F. V. 1850-1921. (Francis Vinton),

CREATED/PUBLISHED
[Washington, D.C.] : The Commissioners, [1880]

NOTES
Covers city within the old limits (Florida Av. etc.) and Georgetown.

Relief shown by contours and gradient tints on map 2.

Title from accompanying title sheet.

Common title on map sheets at upper right: City of Washington.

Titles of contents from accompanying title sheet. Individual titles on the map sheets differ from those on the title sheet (are longer).

Some maps include statistical table.

No. 1. Valuation of property — No. 2. Established grades — No. 3. Pavements — No. 4. Shade trees — No. 5. Gas lamps — No. 6. Water mains — No. 7. Sewers — No. 8. Public schools — No. 9. Police and fire stations — No. 10. Railroads — No. 11. Telegraphs — No. 12. Street sweeping.

LC sheets mounted on cloth backing. Title sheet brittle and torn.

Scale [ca. 1:12,000].

Related Antique Map Mash-ups:

Embedded Google Maps

Nikolas Schiller — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 13:20:27 +0000

View Larger Map of the Los Angeles Interchanges Series

Ever since Google Maps became available and I created my first mash-up, I’ve been trying to get the maps to display properly in my blog. It’s currently why the two mash-ups of America & DC sit outside the confines of this WordPress blog. But not anymore! As you can see above, I can easily add Google Maps anywhere on my blog! In the near future I am probably going to redo these two mash-ups and port them back into the confines of this blog. I know it’s going to take awhile to do this task, and I am not looking forward to it.

==UPDATE==
There is one critical flaw in the Embedded Google Maps I’ve noticed so far. And it’s kinda problematic…. When clicking on the images within the information window, instead of loading a new webpage, they load within the area that map was embedded. Thus the links to their respective blog entries are pretty much useless…. hmmm…

==UPDATE==
It’s been fixed

MyGoogleMaps : Google’s Censorship Perimeter

Nikolas Schiller — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 20:42:06 +0000

&ie

Links to the MyGoogleMap:

Download the KML file

I previously made a few static maps of the area but today I decided to make a MyGoogleMap so that others may interactively explore the area of Google’s censorship. I tried my best to be within 50ft of the line throughout the roughly 12 mile perimeter. As I stated yesterday, the area matches up with Google’s 3D buildings and I still feel that Google should update the entire downtown area with the most recent imagery.

3D Buildings at the expense of newer imagery?

Nikolas Schiller — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 19:59:33 +0000

After conducting some more analysis concerning Google’s censorship of Washington, DC, I discovered a possible reason as to why the older imagery is being used….. 3D Buildings

Continue reading:

Google has another feature they invested their money into: LIDAR. LIDAR allows for 3D models to be created of the built environment. While I am not 100% sure that Google used LIDAR to create the models, but it would probably have been the easiest route. I have scoured the net for conclusive evidence that Google used LIDAR to create the 3D buildings but have not found a conclusive website that says so.

Regardless of this lack of citation regarding LIDAR, in Google Maps, when looking at Washington, DC using the basic map (without aerial or satellite imagery) the buildings in the 2002 imagery show up as 3D models:

Thus the area that has not been updated is the same area where the 3D buildings are shown. Notice the area north of S street features the new imagery, while the area south of S street features the old imagery.

This means that Google chose to keep the old imagery in place because building models would not have matched up….

Screenshot from Google Earth:

Yet this simple conclusion is not good enough for me. The area that features the buildings is one that does not change much over time. Many of the buildings and landmarks have not changed in over 100 years (the screenshots feature the Westminster neighborhood which was developed in the 1890s), but conversely there has also been quite a bit of construction throughout downtown Washington. So at the expense of having a few 3D models being incorrectly drawn for a couple buildings, DC residents are given outdated aerial photography to use.

Moreover, Google would be doing a secondary service if they decided to update their servers. Instead of just showing the most recent imagery of Washington, DC they would also be giving DC residents an opportunity to see the change in the built environment in the last 3 years.

Screenshot from Google Earth at an oblique angle:

Regardless, I still feel that Google is censoring DC by not updating the imagery. The 3D buildings are not as important as the newest available imagery.

Google’s View of D.C. Melds New and Sharp, Old and Fuzzy – Washington Post

Nikolas Schiller — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 20:39:25 +0000

Today my analysis concerning Google’s censorship of downtown Washington, DC made it into a story on the front page of the Metro section of the Washington Post.

Here are two snippets from the article by Jenna Johnson titled, “Google’s View of D.C. Melds New and Sharp, Old and Fuzzy”

The older images frustrate cartographer Nikolas Schiller, 26, who takes an artistic approach to mapmaking and is working on an atlas. Schiller, who lives in the U Street area, said that too much of the District is represented using the older photos, diminishing the amount of information — and thrill — that aerial photos can provide.

“Maps are about power,” he said. “Maps decide what gets developed, who lives where, how people get around.”

Schiller said he thinks Google should just use the 2002 map for the small spots the government has censored rather than the whole downtown area.

And he said he’s puzzled that any level of blurriness is needed by anyone — even the government — especially because he recently took a detailed tour of a nuclear reactor south of Detroit via Google Earth.

“Where is the concept of national security in this?” he asked.

By random chance, tomorrow’s map is the nuclear reactor mentioned in the article.

Read the entire article:

Personally, I am not happy with how the story was written, I wish there had been more fact checking. But ultimately the story was heard by a larger audience, which I am happy about. I guess I am most disappointed that the story does not link to my website. The author had asked for my permission to, and I had given it, but it looks like there might have been a ‘digital cover-up’ – a link denial to my maps. Had the link been included the internet readership would have been directed to the maps that had inspired me to write the press release in the first place. Maps that show a 12 mile perimeter of temporal redaction around Washington, DC.

Google’s View of D.C. Melds New and Sharp, Old and Fuzzy

By Jenna Johnson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 22, 2007; Page C01

As you take a bird’s-eye tour of downtown Washington, compliments of Google Maps’ updated satellite feature, you hit a haze over the Mall.

Suddenly, instead of crisp, yellow taxis, white buses and red pickup trucks, the vehicles look like little blobs. Foggy Bottom gets really, well, foggy. People casting distinct shadows walk out of the Lincoln Memorial and into a blur of fuzzy steps.

Rub your eyes and look again. Maybe your computer is slow. Perhaps on the day these images were taken, it was really smoggy in that part of town.

Wait. This wouldn’t have anything to do with national security, would it?

Well, kind of.

When Google updated its satellite maps of Washington in June, it had two options: Use the newest, most detailed aerial photos from a government agency that blocks such top-security spots as the White House and the U.S. Capitol, or continue to use older, less-detailed images from a private company that doesn’t block out anything.

The compromise? Google chose the new maps for most of the city but spliced in the older, fuzzier ones for about one-sixth of the District to include an unblocked view of the president’s home and the Capitol.

But the area in the older images also includes most of Ward 2: the Mall, the State Department, George Washington University, Union Station and several neighborhoods, including Dupont Circle, Shaw and Chinatown. That means the convention center that was demolished in 2004 appears intact and the National World War II Memorial that was completed in 2004 appears under construction.

The older images frustrate cartographer Nikolas Schiller, 26, who takes an artistic approach to mapmaking and is working on an atlas. Schiller, who lives in the U Street area, said that too much of the District is represented using the older photos, diminishing the amount of information — and thrill — that aerial photos can provide.

“Maps are about power,” he said. “Maps decide what gets developed, who lives where, how people get around.”

The newer photos on Google’s map of Washington are from 2005 Geological Survey satellite images released in March. Those photos were updated from images released in 2002 and are much more detailed. Vehicles have structure. People have shadows. Buildings have shingles. Trees have branches.

But in the 2005 Geological Survey images, the White House is blocked out by a white rectangle, and when you zoom in on the Capitol and the Washington Monument, they become a flurry of dots. Rather than use those photos, Google used uncensored images of the area, including the White House and Capitol, from a commercial vendor.

To obtain permission to fly over the District and take photos, the Geological Survey promised the Secret Service that as soon as the plane landed, images that could “jeopardize national security” would be deleted or edited, Geological Survey spokesman Doug Spencer said.

“When you think about it from a military perspective or a terrorist perspective,” he said, “you don’t want to put that information out there.”

Soon after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the agency took aerial photos of 133 urban areas across the country; it repeated the process in 2005 for many of the cities. Each city could determine which sites needed protection and, therefore, less clarity on the map — some picked water treatment plants, military bases, power plants or government buildings, but there was no consistency.

“It was really at their discretion,” Spencer said.

In June, Google Maps http://(maps.google.com) and Google Earth http://(earth.google.com/) updated their satellite images of Washington and several other cities using the 2005 Geological Survey images, and Schiller began to explore. He selected the District, changed the setting to satellite, zoomed in as tightly as he could and began touring the city.

He soon realized that some parts were much clearer than others. He checked the source of the images, noted on the bottom of the map window, and concluded that the District was made up of images from different sources and years.

Google receives its photos from government agencies and commercial imaging companies. Imagery managers decide which sources offer the best resolution and most up-to-date information. For the map of Washington, Google opted for the highest-quality photos available rather than the newest information.

Schiller said he thinks Google should just use the 2002 map for the small spots the government has censored rather than the whole downtown area.

And he said he’s puzzled that any level of blurriness is needed by anyone — even the government — especially because he recently took a detailed tour of a nuclear reactor south of Detroit via Google Earth.

“Where is the concept of national security in this?” he asked.

source:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/21/AR2007072101296.html

A new change in Washington, DC’s imagery on Google’s servers

Nikolas Schiller — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 13:42:12 +0000

For the last 3 years I have followed how the aerial & satellite imagery of Washington, DC has been released, redacted, and remixed. This entry marks another important observation and a new discovery in Google Maps.

Last week I discovered the extent to which Google has updated their servers with the 2005 USGS aerial photography. My findings suggest that Google has censored much of downtown Washington, DC by not using a substanial amount of newer imagery.

Continue reading:

When Google Maps was first released, Washington, DC was displayed using USGS aerial photography taken in April of 2002. This is the same aerial photography that I’ve used for most of my DC maps. I am under the impression that public input requesting the White House be redaction-free forced Google to change the imagery for Washington, DC.

This resulted in slightly new imagery of Washington, DC from Sanborn. When I state “slightly newer” I mean, only a couple months at most. The construction of the World War Two Memorial and the Mandarin Oriental Hotel show that the two were taken only months apart. Google kept both sets of imagery on their servers, which explains the nature of the two toned diamond of the Washington, DC metropolitan area. The brown edge was 2002 imagery and the central diamond was 2002 imagery from Sanborn.

Screenshot from 8/17/2005

: Imagery Analysis :

It was like this until June 2nd, 2007 when Google added the USGS 2005 imagery. I had been beating google to the map since March of 2007 when the imagery was first released to the public. I made a total of 8 maps in before Google got around to updating their servers.

Screenshot from 7/2/07

: Imagery Analysis :

There were four known areas of redaction by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
â€¢ the White House
â€¢ the U.S. Capitol
â€¢ the Washington Monument
â€¢ the U.S. Naval Observatory

But now you can see below much of DC’s central business district has been purposely outdated by Google. This method of keeping the old imagery and surrounding it by new imagery Google is actually censoring MORE than the NGIA! This is a de-facto form of censorship being done by Google.

Close-Up of 2007 imagery

The three areas below in yellow are already redacted in the 2005 aerial photography dataset by the NGIA. The area in red is the outline of the area which Google is censoring, which, as you can see, is larger.

The perimeter of censorship is roughly 12 miles around:

….How I discovered the censorship….
On June 28th DCist had a feature on someone who was caught joyriding in a field on Google Maps. I had a pretty decent idea of when the imagery was taken and wrote a comment that I never posted. Later that evening the blog entry was covered by the Fox News affiliate in Washington, DC. It wasn’t until last week when I was about to start to publishing the new Adams Morgan maps did I discover that Google had updated their servers. As I was zooming into Adams Morgan for the blog link I noticed that the imagery was now the same for Adams Morgan, but not for the entire DC area…..

I had read before that Google Maps had an easter egg that allowed users to zoom-in even further than what the built-in zoom feature allows. This is done by adjusting the zoom level in the link to the google map (below).

Example at the line of redaction at 16th & S Street, NW, Washington, DC:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=washington,+dc
&ie=UTF8&t=h&om=1&ll=38.914083,-77.036259&spn=0.001029,0.002489&z=19&iwloc=addr

By adjusting the “z=19″ to “z=20″ one can see the line of redaction because the old imagery becomes blurry:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=washington,+dc
&ie=UTF8&t=h&om=1&ll=38.914083,-77.036259&spn=0.001029,0.002489&z=20&iwloc=addr

What I discovered was that Google has kept the original .16 meters per pixel imagery on their servers! The difference between the USGS 2002 & 2005 imagery is of spatial resolution at .3 meters per pixel and .16 meters per pixel, respectively (roughly 1 foot vs 6 inches per pixel, a 4X increase).

I believe this change in spatial resolution is why Google has chosen to censor parts of Washington, DC, but I don’t understand the extent. The censorship is more than what should be required for national security- like the White House, U.S. Capitol, Washington Monument, or the U.S. Naval Observatory.

The 2005 USGS aerial photography is available for anyone in the world to download, which Google had to do to in order populate their servers. Yet a large portion central Washington, DC is being withheld by Google. Thus Google is placing priority over old proprietary imagery instead of public domain government sponsored imagery.

Questions:
1) Is it okay for Google to censor Washington, DC?
2) If National Security is the reason for the censorship, why are some areas still available to be viewed in .16m resolution?
3) Will the central business district of Washington, DC be updated soon?
4) Could Google have redacted Washington, DC to highlight the historical nature of DC’s maps by moving the line up censorship north to the area historical defined as the Federal City? (this is the area south of Florida Ave, once known as Boundary St. This area contains most of the historic homes of Washington, DC.)
5) Since I can obtain the imagery that Google has withheld from the general public, will the maps I make in the hidden area be more valuable?

This blog entry has made it’s way to the Washington Post:
“Google’s View of D.C. Melds New and Sharp, Old and Fuzzy”

####UPDATE – 7/29/07 #####

– The area that was not updated is also the exact same area that shows the 3D buildings:

– I made a MyGoogleMap of the 12 mile perimeter that shows the 2002 imagery:

####UPDATE – 1/21/2009 – The imagery was finally updated in January of 2009.

Google StreetView I.E.D. – Blowing Up The Spot

Nikolas Schiller — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 16:40:53 +0000

So the other day I mentioned I was working on a mash-up for Google’s new Street View feature.

The result is the first google bomb for Street View— an improvised explosive device, with a message called Street View I.E.D..

Check it out: www.StreetViewIED.com
Tune up the volume!

new project with Google’s Street View

Nikolas Schiller — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 10:24:47 +0000

Last week Google released “Street View” for Google Maps. It’s based on georeferenced panoramic photographs within the Google Maps interface. Read more about how it works here. Right now I am working on mashing it up. I think I’ve made a pretty good prototype thus far.

Fun with MyGoogleMaps…

Nikolas Schiller — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 02:51:10 +0000

Yesterday I noticed that Google had added a new feature to Google Maps which allows users to create their own mash-ups. After already learning the basics of the API to create a couple political mash-ups and a couple geospatial art mash-ups, I wasn’t too overtly excited at the prospect of what took me hours of learning now being released so that anyone can make them. But as with all innovations, I’ve learned to have fun with it.

Tonight I made my first two mash-ups using their new interface and as usual I decided to get slightly creative with it. Above is a reference to the fact that DC residents are denied representation in Congress and after the fold is a map that features the number 51, as in D.C. being the 51st state.

Worst march route ever…

Nikolas Schiller — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 07:00:01 +0000

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

official march route:

what is should be:

Its going to be VERY interesting, nay one of the worst marches ever.
I hope i am wrong. I don’t want to see what it looks like when a snake eats it’s tail.

===
Update
The optimized route was used. The original route was impossible afterall. The Police Commander at the Capitol said that a call from Maxine Waters was required to move the buses. It’s as if they wanted something bad to happen. Testing peace?

â€¢ See Rabbit Fever Map

via ufpj

MARCH ROUTE
After an arduous and long process of negotiating with the U.S. Capitol Police, a final route for the march on Jan. 27th has been agreed to. Here are the details:

1 pm — March steps off from 3rd Street and Jefferson Drive, NW. We will take 3rd Street north to Constitution, the east on Constitution to 1st Street, NE, then south to East Capital Street. At that point we will make a U-turn in the street and head north on 1st Street to Constitution. The march will proceed west on Constitution to 1st Street, NW, where we will head south, passing between the Reflecting Pool and the West Lawn of the Capitol. The march will pick up Maryland Ave., heading west until it intersects with Independence and then going west to 4th Street. We will then turn north on 4th and end up back on the Mall.

Yes, the march will double back on itself. This means that unlike other marches, most of us will have a chance to see and be inspired by the stream of contingents from all over the nation. We will be on three sides of the Capitol building sending our message loud and clear: This war must end now!

Gimmicky Green Party Google Maps

Nikolas Schiller — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 16:58:41 +0000

Tonight’s creation….

Jon Q. Voter: “What does the Green Party stand for?”
Me: “Well there are 10 Key Values…”
Jon Q. Voter: “Environment right?”
Me: “Well, I prefer ‘ecologicial wisdom,’ but that is one of them.”
Jon Q. Voter: “What are the rest?”
Me: “Well I made a nifty google map to help you.”

“10 Key Value Google Map” – click image to be taken to the map

Taxation Without Representation Google Map

Nikolas Schiller — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 03:07:43 +0000

Happy Flag Day!

This google map plots 51 DC flags around the U.S. Capitol. When the flags are clicked a random fact about America’s last continental colony pops up. You can open the source HTML to read them all quickly. I obtained some of the facts and figures from DC Vote and I sent the list out to the members of the DC Statehood Green Party for feedback. The result is what I think is one of the first political google map mashups. Have fun!

Google Map Blog Entry Mashups – DC & America

Nikolas Schiller — Mon, 17 Apr 2006 17:42:33 +0000

After hours of coding & geocoding, my first Google Map Mashups are ready… for some reason it only works with Firefox…Â I’ll try to fix this!

DC Blog Entry Google Map Mashup

Quilt Project Blog Entry Mashup

Change in DC imagery in Google’s servers

Nikolas Schiller — Wed, 17 Aug 2005 23:35:03 +0000

After finding out about Google Earth’s change to Baghdad, Iraq, I discovered that they also changed the imagery for Washington, DC. Notice the new diamond mosaic of DC.

: Screen Shot :

: Analysis :

Continue Reading:

The area around DC is aerial photography from the USGS from April 2002. This is the same imagery I’ve been using for all of my Washington, DC renderings.

In order to find out whether the imagery is newer or older, I have taken the liberty of snagging a screenshot of the close-up of the World War II memorial. I found this location to be the easiest to identify the approximate date. Below is a screen shot from Google Earth and from MSN’s Virtual Earth.

May? 2002 Sanborn imagery : via Google Earth :

: April 2002 USGS Aerial Photography via Virtual Earth :

After spending some time looking at the imagery, I believe that the Google Earth imagery is actually newer. For it to be newer, this goes against my initial suspicion that Google Earth was changing their imagery to older imagery to prevent it to be used for terrorism. Ohh, I just realized that in the USGS imagery the Mandarin Oriental Hotel is under construction as well.

Baghdad Imagery change in Google Earth

Nikolas Schiller — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 23:02:12 +0000

I heard about this news last week…
Via NBC

Troops Worried About Popular Google Feature
Soldiers Worry About Insurgents Using Information

POSTED: 9:48 pm PDT August 11, 2005
UPDATED: 9:58 pm PDT August 11, 2005

SAN DIEGO — A popular new feature on Google’s Web site has troops in Iraq upset, NBC 7/39 reported on Thursday.

The “Google Earth Program” has satellite maps from around the globe, where people can zoom in on their houses — or a military base in Iraq.

The pictures are a year old, but troops say many things have not changed, such as aircraft that are in the same locations.

The program can show people the latitude and longitude of any spot. Troops said they fear insurgents can use all of the information to aim mortar rounds.

A local retired Marine said he does see some risk in the site.

“Clever and devious people can come up with any number of ways to use this and keep themselves out of harm’s way while doing significant damage to U.S. forces or any of the coalition,” said retired Lt. Col. Thomas Richards.

Google said the images are all publicly available; the program just puts them in one place.

Last night I decided to do some “research” and found that Google has actually changed their imagery in Baghdad, Iraq. I know this because when Google Earth came out I visited Baghdad and it had the same Digital Globe imagery that I downloaded to make some of my Baghdad renderings with. Look at the imagery below. Notice at big hole around downtown Baghdad? That contains the Greenzone as well as most of the important buildings in the Iraqi government.

It looks like Google has taken some heat and put in some older imagery… I don’t know for sure if it’s older or not, but I’ll have to check. If I remember correctly, I downloaded some pre-illegal-invasion imagery from Digital Globe, but I’ll have to check…

Related Censorship Entries:

Related Google Earth Entries:

Google’s Gone “Hybrid”

Nikolas Schiller — Sat, 23 Jul 2005 19:36:25 +0000

Hybrid = Aerial & Satellite Imagery + Roads + Placenames

Anyone who has used GIS software before know that this isn’t special, but for those new to the game of spatial information, Google Maps inclusion of both the road layer and aerial photography layer is pretty nifty. I personally like it better than looking at only the roads layer & only the imagery layer (how it was before). Oh hybrid, you are so cool. I wish there were more cars like you….

Google Maps!

Nikolas Schiller — Wed, 09 Feb 2005 20:37:31 +0000

Google has come up with a great mapping tool that is easier to use than the old stalwart, MapQuest. I really like the ability to pan across the map and have the content loaded in realtime. MapQuest does not have this interactive feature built in yet, but I imagine that with this new competition MapQuest might have to adapt or be left in the annals of old mapping technology. If you get a minute, check out Google Maps!

The Daily Render by Nikolas R. Schiller » Google Maps

A T-Rex Google Map On My Neighborhood Via Twitter

Washington Monument Quilt #2

Google Maps: Add the Contour Interval to the Legend of your Terrain maps

Before & After Aerial Photographs of Ground Zero in Nagasaki, Japan

Dear Yahoo! & Navteq, it’s not the National Msm of the American Indian!

The aerial photography of the area around the Metro crash site contains a Metro train

Google Map Mashup: The Qibla Locator

Thomas Jefferson’s Map of Washington from March 31st, 1791

Hey Google & YouTube, those are not my Senators! I have no Senators!

Hey Google & YouTube, that is not my Representative or Delegate!

Google FINALLY updates the imagery of Washington, DC and now you can kinda see the message on my rooftop

Google Street View of Washington, DC suffers from out-dated imagery

My New York Map Society Presentation at the New York Public Library

Early Interactive Maps

The Lenz Project(ion)

Thank you for your time! If you have any questions, please feel free to ask them either here or by e-mail: INFO AT Nikolas Schiller DOT com

Wasilla, Alaska is literally off the map, the Google Map that is

Democratic National Convention 2008 – Photos from Day One

Streetfilms comes to Washington, DC and checks out SmartBikeDC

One year later and Google Maps has still not updated DC

What the Artomatic 2008 venue looked like in March of 2005

Visual Trace Route – I’m 42 hops from Google

The first Artomatic prints have arrived

National MSM of the American Indian on Google Maps; Why truncate the word Museum?

Washington, DC Foreclosure Google Map Mashup

The 21 Steps by Charles Cumming – A story told through Google Maps

Pentagon Bans Google Map-Makers

From Here to There in Google Maps

Popular GIS Slideshow by Chris Hammond-Thrasher [March 07]

Concentric Development Dissected

How to design a better user interface for geographic information?

1880 Street Railway Map of the City of Washington

Embedded Google Maps

MyGoogleMaps : Google’s Censorship Perimeter

3D Buildings at the expense of newer imagery?

Google’s View of D.C. Melds New and Sharp, Old and Fuzzy – Washington Post

A new change in Washington, DC’s imagery on Google’s servers

Google StreetView I.E.D. – Blowing Up The Spot

new project with Google’s Street View

Fun with MyGoogleMaps…

Worst march route ever…

Gimmicky Green Party Google Maps

Taxation Without Representation Google Map

Google Map Blog Entry Mashups – DC & America

Change in DC imagery in Google’s servers

Baghdad Imagery change in Google Earth

Google’s Gone “Hybrid”

Google Maps!

Thank you for your time! If you have any questions, please feel free to ask them either here or by e-mail:
INFO AT Nikolas Schiller DOT com