So far I’ve made two other crosses: Mount Pleasant Cross and Memphis Cross. I am pretty sure how to make these now and future maps of this type will be added to it’s own special category on the sidebar. The cross above was chosen out of about 8 different tessellations and within this map is the National Archives at the center of the cross (hence the name), the Federal Trade Commission, the Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Navy Memorial- which features a map of the western hemisphere (below), the Winfield Scott Hancock statue, the Grand Army of the Republic Memorial, and portions of the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden and the west building of the National Gallery of Art, which make the vertical and horizontal stripe.
For reference, click here to view the outdated Google Map of downtown Washington, DC.
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Render A Comment || || Posted One Year Ago: Silver Spring Quilt #2
8/2/2008 || 1:59 pm
Meridian Hill Park Hexagon Tessellation
This is the first time I’ve made a tessellation using hexagon as the basis for the pattern. Normally, I simply use a square because its the easiest to tessellate. The last map I made using Photoshop was Clayton Quilt #3, which was constructed using one square tile six times and did not exhibit radial symmetry like most of my other Qulit projection maps.
This time around I used center portion of the source tile that I used for Meridian Hill Park Quilt #4 and to switch things up a bit, I cut out a perfect hexagon from the the tile instead of using the tile’s square shape as basis for the tessellation. With one hexagon cut out, I merely duplicated it and moved it around to create the irregular tiling above. The difficulty was that I had to adjust the hexagon tiles so that they were not overlapping. It wasn’t that difficult per se, but it took awhile to get them all lined up perfectly. I am quite pleased with the result and figure that I will use this process again sometime in the not-so-distance future.
View the Google Map of Meridian Hill Park in Washington, DC.
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Render A Comment || || Posted One Year Ago: The Shanghai Map
4/23/2008 || 10:42 pm
QR Code Tessellation
While the QR-Code mistake wasn’t exactly what I was hoping to create earlier today, this design turned out exactly as I originally envisioned. The plan was to take one QR Code and plot the code as a very large tessellation. Like the Geovisual QR Code, I wanted to make the embedded code something self-evident so I chose the text to be “QR Code Tessellation by Nikolas Schiller. Created on Wednesday April 23rd, 2008 in Washington, DC.”
For this design I rotated the code 45 degrees to create a diamond shape and after the rendering was finished I cut out 4 of the squares and added an enlarged QR Code in the lower right-hand corner. In all, it’s a very simple design but at the size of a billboard it would be very interesting to see it displayed.
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|| 12:24 pm
another QR Code mistake
The other week I attempted to hack the QR-Code to see if I could visually embed a censored aerial photograph of the Washington Monument to create “Geovisual QR Code“. While I was unsuccessful, I enjoyed the process of experimenting with this type of visual code.
Today I tried to make a second QR Code design based off a QR Code tessellation. I was able to make the tessellation without a problem and when I was finished I saved the new QR Code as a GIF. When I imported the GIF into my rendering program I noticed that something was awry. Instead of being shown in black & white I was seeing bits of color. I assume that this happened because the program does not take GIF files well. This might have happened because I saved the GIF as an interlaced file and when the program was deconstructing the GIF it created some type of visual static. Instead of casting the mistake aside, I decided to see what the final result would be, and frankly sometimes even mistakes can look quite cool.
Up next will be the intended QR Code design.
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4/5/2008 || 5:52 pm
Memphis Cross
Yesterday was the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King and I decided to make a map the area around the site of the memorial. I made a similar cross a month ago using imagery from the Mount Pleasant neighborhood in Washington, DC and another cross-like map in the summer of 2005. Upon comparing the three, I feel that Mount Pleasant Cross looks more like a traditional cross because the reflection on 16th street forms the familiar shape. When preparing the imagery I adjusted the line of symmetry in the source tessellation to create a near perfect stadium reflection. In the current Google Maps imagery, which is newer than this map’s imagery, the dome of the stadium has Fedex Field printed across the top. Fortunately, the illusion of the symmetrical stadium was not ruined by corporate branding.
View the Google Map of Memphis, Tennessee.
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Comments Off || || Posted One Year Ago: Featured today in Directions Magazine's Newsletter, Fun with MyGoogleMaps...
3/28/2008 || 3:46 pm
Vassar Quilt Refraction
Using this portion of Vassar Quilt #2, I made this derivative map of Vassar College using added elements from the Lenz projection. The optics create a very unique sense of depth at the center of the map. I also added four other optical elements that create a fluvial design, almost appearing to flow toward the center.
View the Google Map of Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York.
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Render A Comment || || Posted One Year Ago: Comparative Meta-Data of the USGS Orthoimagery of Washington, DC - 2002 / 2005
3/18/2008 || 1:07 pm
Scott + Dupont Circle Quilt
Continuing my current project of mapping the portions of Washington, DC that Google is censoring, I decided use the same process that was used to create Washington + Dupont Circle Quilt. This type of digitally derived double exposure aerial photography creates some of my favorite maps as of late. While I am only touching on the germane juxtaposition of traffic circles in Washington, DC, I’ve been thinking about how I take two completely disparate geographies and create similar styled maps. One idea is to take two of the tessellations I created for the Los Angeles Interchanges Series and create a double exposure highway interchange. Another possibility is to make a Supreme Illusion Supreme by overlaying the Pentagon on to the site of the World Trade Center. I’m not sure how it would look, but I think I’ll try making one of these maps in the near future.
View the Google Map of Scott Circle in Washington, DC.
View the Google Map of Dupont Circle in Washington, DC.
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1 Comment Rendered || || Posted One Year Ago: Locations, top 100 downloaders in the last 5 days
3/17/2008 || 5:30 pm
Brownsville Spheres
: rendered at 15,000 X 10,000 :
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Brownsville is the southernmost border town in the state of Texas. Similar to my “Ciudad Paso” maps, this map features land in both America (Brownsville) & Mexico (Matamoros, Tamaulipas) and literally focuses on border issues like immigration.
Using the same elements of Charlotte Spheres, I decided to make another version of this type of Lenz-influenced map. Unlike the previous version, which featured the spheres completely centered, I chose to move the spheres around to achieve a desired result.
Specifically, I noticed that a few of the spheres (four to be precise) hovered over the border facility where cars are waiting in line (below) to cross into America/Mexico. If you look closely, you can see the border/bridge at 3 different spatial scales. This visual element is what I like the most about using the spheres in my maps because it forces your eye to move around the page to identify places where the geography is the same and where the scale is different. One drawback, however, is that I cannot accurately predict how much magnification the spheres will produce. This map, for example, was slightly overprojected (see the graininess below), but unless I am printing it at it’s largest size, its hard to tell the degree to which the imagery was overprojected. I chose to render the map at 15Kx10K instead of the normal 18Kx12K to allow for 3,000 pixels worth of magnification to take place, yet after looking at the results, I probably should have rendered it at 12Kx9K. Oh well, thats the beauty of trial & error; next one will be better.
View the Google Map of Brownsville, Texas.
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Comments Off || || Posted One Year Ago: American Stereography #3
3/13/2008 || 2:56 pm
White House Peace
: rendered at 18,000 X 12,000 :
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Similar to the Shanghai Map, this map uses Chinese characters as a decorative element. The source aerial photography of the White House was censored by the government before it was released to the public. I documented this about a year ago with my Lost Series project “The White House is off-limits to the public.” Unlike the Shanghai Map, I made a tessellation using the words for PEACE instead of placing the glyphs at the bottom. I was, however, thinking of revisiting this map in the near future and adding more text. As it is now, I think it’s somewhat plain, and deserves something else. I’m not sure what that ‘else’ is yet.
View the Google Map (which shows older imagery) of the White House.
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3/10/2008 || 9:25 pm
ordered last week: New Blaeu
Originally created last summer as “NOVA ET ACCVRATISSIMA TOTIVS TERRARVM ORBIS TABVLA [2007 Remix],” when this map was published in the December 14th issue of the Christian Science Monitor, the editors truncated the name and simply called it “New Blaeu.”
Last week I decided to update the map slightly by trimming the edges and doing some color correction. It’s being printed at 20″x16″ and preserved behind glass in in an ornate gold frame. I am also planning on framing some of the other antique maps I purchased recently to compliment this map. I think they’ll look really cool all hung together; the real old with the fake new.
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Comments Off || || Posted One Year Ago: Lost in America's Last Colony
3/6/2008 || 12:16 pm
Federal Triangle Refraction
Lately I’ve been revisiting some of the elements from the Lenz Projection– specifically in the Charlotte Spheres, Pentagon Spheres, Grand Design Lenz Quilt, and Rochester Quilt #2. Today I decided to experiment a little more with aerial refraction. Using the 3rd derivative tessellation, originally used in Federal Triangle Quilt #4, I this created a visually engaging map. I like how the bars look very similar to my polar coordinate experiments. Specifically, I like the way that they imagery is curved and refracted. What I don’t like, however, is the way the shadows present themselves within the refraction. Since like bars are angled toward the viewer, they create a darker hue due to their internal shadows. The way around this is to decrease the angle of the bars, but in response to this, the imagery bends less. I will probably revisit this type of map in the future.
View the Google Map of Federal Triangle in downtown Washington, DC.
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Comments Off || || Posted One Year Ago: The Lost Series
3/2/2008 || 11:43 am
Washington + Dupont Circle Quilt
I decided to switch things up a bit with today’s rendering. I have become very efficient with most of the processes used to create my maps, which both makes them standardized and sometimes a bit too similar to each other (while paradoxically being different geographies). This map and probably the next few maps are going to be slightly different.
In order to have the most recent maps of Logan Circle, Dupont Circle, and Washington Circle look similar to each other, I would take the first derivative tessellation and overlay it on top of the tessellation that I was constructing. By adjusting the transparency, I can overlay the circles directly on top of each other which makes the subsequent map look nearly identical.
Normally, I simply delete the original tessellation when I have the two lined up perfectly, however in today’s map I chose to not delete the other map. Instead, I adjusted the transparency of Dupont Circle to 51% to show both geographies at once. The result is something that I wasn’t expecting, but am quite pleased with the results. I can see myself using this process again. It’s like a double exposure…
View the Google Map of Washington Circle in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood of Washington, DC.
View the Google Map of Dupont Circle in Washington, DC.
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2/7/2008 || 7:57 pm
The Mount Pleasant Cross
I’ve known about the way to use an offset square quilt projection to create the cross design, but never made a full map until now. I can theoretically use this projection style on any future map— quite cool. I wonder what geography should be crucified next? {chuckle}
The street that creates the cross’s frame is 16th Street, which up until 1884 was the prime meridian on American maps.
###update– actually I found that this is not correct– not ALL maps, just some maps
View the Google Map of the Mount Pleasant Neighborhood in Washington, DC.
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2/2/2008 || 4:59 pm
Charlotte Spheres
About a week ago I noticed someone from Charlotte, North Carolina looked at my website multiple times. One time while they were exploring my website the person did a search for “Charlotte” and since I had not made a map of Charlotte yet, they didn’t find anything….
Using the same Lenz Projection elements used in Pentagon Spheres and Dupont Circle Lenz Quilt, I developed this unique map. However, unlike the Pentagon Spheres map, I arranged the height of the spheres in a different pattern and I used a diamond quilt projection for the background.
I am quite pleased with the results. Specifically, I like how the magnification varies perfectly on the left and right-hand side of the map. Below you can see a close up detail of two identical locations that were magnified differently. The magnification process is quite processor intensive which made this map take over 10 hours to render– the longest render time since I purchased my MacBook last year and I didn’t even render it at my standard size.
View the Google Map of downtown Charlotte, North Carolina.
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Comments Off || || Posted One Year Ago: Over 500 Maps in 1000 days...
1/13/2008 || 11:20 am
The Grand Design Lenz Quilt
Using the elements from the Lenz Projection I was able to magnify portions of a tessellated Messier 101 Pinwheel Galaxy (a grand design galaxy) to create this fine celestial perspective.
Read more about this project here.
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Comments Off || || Posted One Year Ago: Austin Quilt
12/14/2007 || 8:46 am
Clayton Quilt #3
This map was manually constructed and is different than most quilts. Specifically, it does not exhibit radial geometry. I find this map pleasing to the eye simply because I’ve used radial for so long that this map marks a true deviation, like the Shanghai Map. The next map will be very similar, using the exact same imagery, but will be projected radially.
Read more about Clayton, Missouri here.
View the Google Map of the Clayton, Missouri
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10/9/2007 || 2:52 pm
A New Map of the Pentagon
I was inspired by this animation of the Möbius Transformation. This “new map” is a camera perspective looking up at a mirrored sphere (the top) reflecting a hexagon quilt projection of the Pentagon (the bottom). I wasn’t sure what to call it at first. It kinda reminds me of the Death Star from Star Wars. Or a new moon on th horizon. I like the way the raster forshortening looks in the bottom half because I normally don’t overproject the imagery this way.
View the Google Map of the Pentagon
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Comments Off || || Posted One Year Ago: The end of 25 revolutions...
10/1/2007 || 9:41 pm
The Pentagon Spheres
This map combines the tessellation elements of the Shanghai Map with that of the Lenz Projection. Using a portion of Pentagon Quilt #4 as the source tessellation, the perfect spheres decrease in height from top to bottom, leaving the top half with over-magnified aerial photography, and the bottom half without magnification. The result is quite unique.
View the Google Map of the Pentagon
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9/9/2007 || 1:05 pm
A Wrinkle in Chicago
This map was made in homage of Madeleine L’Engle, who recently passed away. Her use of the word “tesseract” in a Wrinkle in Time had a epistemological effect on my curiosity for the science. This map was designed using two projections of downtown Chicago (including the Sears Tower). On the right is the Diamond projection and on the left is the Square projection. Of note is that its one of the few quilt projection maps that has visible lines of non-symmetry. Anyways, some day in the future I’d like to map the neighborhoods of Chicago. I think it would be a fun series to explore.
View the Google Map of downtown Chicago, Illinois.
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8/2/2007 || 10:13 am
The Shanghai Map
A little over a month ago a Chinese friend of mine moved from DC to Shanghai, China. While we were chatting on-line I asked her if she’d be able to send me some text in Chinese so I could use it on some maps. The first use of this text was the banners I made a couple weeks ago and today marks my first use of the text on an actual map.
The map was created from a Terra satellite image taken of eastern China on April 4th, 2004. The text simply says “map,” and with the location & text combined, you get the title, “The Shanghai Map.”
Unlike any of the quilt projection maps before this, I decided to use only one tessellation rotated 45 degrees. This switch-up is because I’ve never used Simplified Chinese before on a map and wanted this one to be completely unique. With the colors, text, and type of tessellation, I am quite pleased with this map and I look forward to using the text she supplied me for future maps!
View the Google Map of the area around Shanghai, China.
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5/12/2007 || 4:22 pm
Society is Enriched by Labor :: Socio Ditata Labore
“Antique Home”
Today I finally got around to looking through the David Ramsey Historical Map Collection. Like Archive.org, there was a lot to discover…
The above image is an assembled detail of a beautiful engraving on the title page of Atlas Nouveau, which was published in 1742 in Amsterdam (original cover after the flap). The detail contains the Latin phrase, “Socio ditata labore” and shows a scene of exploration. There is a slain dragon on the right side and on the left are soldiers bringing a woman to the new land. I couldn’t pass up this engraving! I do need a Latin translation, anyone know it? (A friend of mine was able to get a translation for me - below)
Behind the engraving is a tessellated detail from Home Quilt #5, which features the row house I’ve been living in for the last 3 years. The house was built around 1889, a 147 years after the Atlas was published. The source aerial photograph was taken in March of 2005, published in February of 2007, and revisted on March 29th, 2007, and finally today, a 265 year enrichment.
I also made a pop-art style tile that features the engraving in different colors.
From an e-mail:
Here is the report from my classicist friend in LA:
as for the latin, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense as it stands - ’socius’ is a friend, companion, (father in law in some contexts) - so it could be some sort of dedication, as in: ‘for my father in law, with enriched labor” - which, as I say, makes no sense. if, however, ’societas’ has been mistaken for ’socio,’ then it can read, as you say, ‘society is enriched by labor.’
Title Page & Notes:
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Render A Comment || ||
4/25/2007 || 9:45 am
Vermont Avenue Sprocket
The process to make this map is a bit complex but so is the result. Very pleased.
View the Google Map of the intersection of Vermont Ave and U Street in Washington, DC.
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Comments Off || || Posted One Year Ago: Rosslyn Quilt #2
4/22/2007 || 7:08 pm
San Antonio Sprocket #2
I used too much light, but I am really happy with this new creation. I can see myself using this again for other locations. The San Antonio “sunflower” at the edges is really cute.
View the Google Map of downtown San Antonio, Texas.
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Comments Off || || Posted One Year Ago: Pentagon Quilt
4/21/2007 || 4:58 pm
San Antonio Sprocket
More about this map later…. All I can say now is that I like it.
I started off using some pieces from the Star Series and ended up with a completely new design. By using two different texture styles I was able to create a Droste-like effect.
View the Google Map of downtown San Antonio, Texas.
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Comments Off || || Posted One Year Ago: Raleigh Quilt
12/3/2006 || 4:47 pm
Temporal Stereography of Schiller Park, Illinois
Tessellations of Time
Schiller Park Quilt 2002 || Schiller Park Quilt 2005
Some locations around the United States have high-resolution, color, aerial photography available from two specific periods of time, some entire states have none. Washington, DC has imagery of 2002 and 2005, however the 2005 imagery has not been released to public (I’m still waiting to see if NO WAR shows up on my roof!). All of my DC maps use the Feb 2002 imagery. Google currently uses imagery of Washington, DC that was taken probably in March or April of 2002 because the Mandarin Oriental Hotel is still semi-completed in both sets of imagery.
Chicago, on the other hand, also has available imagery taken in April of 2002 and April of 2005. So I obtained both years for the Village of Schiller Park, Illinois, which is located right outside of Chicago’s O’Hare airport. When preparing the imagery I made sure that they were identical tessellations, differing only in acquisition date. I attempted to match the tone as best as I could.
The idea behind this process was that when printed and hung next to each other, they would create a rudimentary stereoscopic projection that would look largely similar, but with temporal artifacts showing change in the built environment.
The one regret is rendering the maps at 9K x 6K instead of the normal 18K x 12K, I would have captured more detail from the source aerial photography. But aside from that, I am going to make more of these temporal diptychs when the imagery is available. I think it’s a unique method of showing time, space, place, and symmetry.
Ironically, even though both sets of imagery present Schiller Park in the recent past, those of you in Chicago are technically seeing the future, because Google will most likely update their servers with the same imagery I’m using. So in reality, you are looking at a map of the future!
Look closely and watch time bend.
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Comments Off || || Posted One Year Ago: Beverly Hills Quilt #4, Star of the George Washington University
12/2/2006 || 11:47 pm
Meridian Hill Park Mask
This map was commissioned by a friend of mine and went through four drafts before perfection.
View the Google Map of the Meridian Hill Park in Ward 1 of Washington, DC.
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Comments Off || || Posted One Year Ago: Beverly Hills Quilt #3, I was elected!
10/2/2006 || 11:08 pm
A Degraded Mask of Meridian Hill Park
I took a draft of an African mask design for a client and degraded it to make it look slightly older. It’s Cardozo High School to Meridian Hill Park in Northwest Washington, DC and somewhere in that map is the client’s house.
The map was completed on December 2nd, 2006. View the drafts:
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Comments Off || || Posted One Year Ago: Knot the National Mall
8/12/2006 || 2:18 pm
UCLA Quilt #3
Notice how this one isn’t completely symmetrical? Well, in that regards, it was a total mistake! Normally I just scrap the ones that I am not happy with, but I decided to keep this one to simply thrown in some flair to this series.
View the Google Map of the University of California - Los Angeles.
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Comments Off || || Posted One Year Ago: Minneapolis Sunrise
12/15/2005 || 12:32 pm
Blue Marble Beauty #2
The 90 degree rotation tessellation scheme did not turn out as well as planned. It appears that this type of rotation is incompatable with mult-planar mapping, so I scrapped it and used on plane. The result is something I could have made in photoshop and probably even more quickly. Nonetheless, I like the fabric, or human fabric, that I’ve created in this rendering 
I also decided to play around with my name on this one too!
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Comments Off || || Posted One Year Ago: council member fun
12/13/2005 || 11:50 pm
Blue Marble Beauty
Using source imagery from the USGS and the NASA Blue Marble Imagery, I used the first rendering that was modified for my new splash page graphic as the tessellated source imagery for this rendering. I made two differnt version of the tessellation. One using the standard reflection process, and the other I used a 90 degree rotation process. I am going to render that one next. However, this rendering marks a new addition to the janus series and the mother earth series. I’m going to define this creation as…ummmm…a hybrid…. lets see what comes up next
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Comments Off || || Posted One Year Ago: Star of DC, one year ago today...
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