Yesterday I went through all my 2008 entries and began to compile this year’s maps like I’ve done for previous years. However, this year I decided to expand the listing to include designs & animations that I’ve made.

The rationale for this expansion was rather simple: if these yearly listings are to be aggregates of my creative work, they might as well include everything. I’m a bit tepid about going through the previous years to find creations that I might have missed, but I imagine that I’ll get around to doing it. Also, since this website has gone public, I’ve found myself sharing content that I did not create and this makes it more difficult to decipher what I’ve created and what I have found on-line & decided to share here.

Today’s creation is the start of a new series of New York City maps that I expect to make in the coming days. This morning I discovered that the USGS has released newer imagery of New York City that was taken in March of 2006.

However, as with other imagery, I’ve found that the older imagery is of better quality. Its not that this new imagery is fuzzy or not as sharp, but rather I found the coloration to be more subdued. The 2004 imagery, which I used to produce all of my previous New York City maps, is more vivid and the colors just look nicer. With that issue aside, I’ve made a few different tessellations that I’m going to be using for the next set of maps of New York City.

This map shows the Manhattan Bridge and the Brooklyn Bridge, as well as a tiny portion of Brooklyn and a larger portion of Manhattan’s Lower East Side. I tried a few different Quilt projection shapes and finally settled on using the Diamond Quilt Projection because I like the way the bridges create a square box within the diamond layout. I have made a derivative tessellation of this map, but I think I’m going to use some of the other imagery first.

View the Google Map of the Manhattan & Brooklyn Bridges.

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View the rest of the map’s close-up details:
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Comments Off || || Posted One Year Ago: Pornographic Tessellations

5/23/2008 || 10:43 am
A New & Arabesque Map of the Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden

:: saved at 6,480 x 5,040 ::

To celebrate the new procedure I decided to get around to editing the Library of Congress‘ copy of Willem Janszoon Blaeu’s Nova totius terrarum orbis geographica ac hydrographica tabula, which was published in Amsterdam in 1606. I removed the original map from the center and kept the decorative border similar to Nova et Accvratissima Totivs Terrarvm Orbis Tabvla, A New Map of the Terraqueous Globe : according to the the Ancient discoveries and most general Divisions of Geospatial Art, America as a Cloverleaf, and A New And Accurate Map of the World by John Speed. However, unlike the previous antique map mash-ups, which usually feature the earth laid out in two hemispheres, this map uses a rectangular space (Mercator?). The beauty of this open layout is that I can place any of my previously made maps inside of this 402-year-old template.

A common naming practice I’ve noticed in old map is the use of “New & Accurate” and since I like to play around with words, I changed Accurate to Arabesque to create a visual pun. The source map was about 6,500 pixels wide, I underlaid a rotated 9,000 x 6,000 copy of Hirshhorn Quilt to fit perfectly in the center of the new map. I think it would be fun to actually hand-color the engravings on this map to match other copies of this map which have the various figures colored in. The LOC’s copy is uncolored which means that its actually easier to add color to it than if it were already colored because pigment matching is not needed.

Below I dissect the border of the map:
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Comments Off || || Posted One Year Ago: LOLMaps - Submit

5/21/2008 || 10:22 am
Hirshhorn Quilt

: rendered at 18,000 X 12,000 :

Following up on my new procedural idea from last week, I made this derivative map without publishing the intermediate maps. The unseen steps involve the rendering of a pre-Hirshhorn Quilt, sampling a portion of that quilt, and projecting the imagery again to create the map above. The result, as with all derivative maps, is a more symmetrical, arabesque map. This technique will be used again.

View the Google Map of the Hirshhorn Museum on the National Mall in Ward 2 of Washington, DC.

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5/14/2008 || 6:12 pm
Swampoodle Quilt #3

: rendered at 18,000 X 12,000 :

Using this portion of Swampoodle Quilt #2, I constructed this derivative Diamond Quilt Projection map of the area around the 2008 Art-O-Matic venue in the Swampoodle neighborhood in Washington, DC.

After making this map I conceived an alternative procedural route to constructing future derivative maps. Those of you that have read this blog for awhile know that I do sequential maps, where you can literally see the visual process of what part of the previous map was used to construct the next map. However, this recursive process shows all the intermediate maps, when sometimes I just want to get to the final map. So the idea is to make smaller maps, like 12,000 x 12,000 (square not 3:2) and sample these maps first and not publish the intermediate maps. For example, I make a map of a new location and after processing that map, I sample it and render another map, sample that map, and render that map as the final map of the geography. The difference here is that I would not publish the intermediate maps as [City] Quilt #2, #3, etc. but just the final map. I’m going to try that next.

View the Google Map of the Swampoodle neighborhood in Ward 6 of Washington, DC.

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Comments Off || || Posted One Year Ago: Quadrant Map of DC - Translated into Latin - "Novus Columbus Quadrans"

5/13/2008 || 4:43 pm
Swampoodle Quilt #2

: rendered at 18,000 X 12,000 :

Using this portion of Swampoodle Quilt, I constructed this derivative Dodecagon Quilt Projection map of the area around the 2008 Art-O-Matic venue in the Swampoodle neighborhood in Washington, DC. Up next is second derivative map that samples a portion of this map.

View the Google Map of the Swampoodle neighborhood in Ward 6 of Washington, DC.

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Comments Off || || Posted One Year Ago: enriching results

5/7/2008 || 6:42 am
Swampoodle Quilt

: rendered at 18,000 X 12,000 :

I chose this site because it’s where Artomatic is at!

Swampoodle is an old name used to describe a small section of the H Street neighborhood in Northeast Washington, DC. The area was first settled in the 1850s by immigrants fleeing the Irish potato famine. A geographic approximation of its borders would be K Street to the north, G Street to the south, 1st Street NW to the west, and 2nd Street NE to the east. Through the center of it, just east of North Capitol Street, ran the principal branch of Tiber Creek, creating the low swampy ground from which the area took its name.

A few years ago developers created the North of Massachusetts Avenue Business Improvement District, or NOMA and have tried to rebrand the neighborhood to something different.

When making the map I concluded that at the time of the aerial photography’s acquisition, it was still called Swampoodle and not NOMA. The same goes for Google Maps, which shows an even older glimpse (from spring 2002) of the changing neighborhood.

Personally, I think the name Swampoodle gives the area character in name. In contemporary identity, the area is mostly a bunch of warehouses and parking lots that are about to be developed, so I look forward to seeing a Swampoodle map in 10 years. It will look drastically different and I just hope its not called some focus group-approved abbreviation of a geographic region.

View the Google Map of the Swampoodle neighborhood in Ward 6 of Washington, DC.

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Comments Off || || Posted One Year Ago: Columbia Quilt #2

4/25/2008 || 8:26 am
North End Quilt #2

: rendered at 18,000 X 12,000 :

Using this portion of North End Quilt, I constructed this derivative Hexagon Quilt Projection map of the area around North End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts.

After rendering the map, while I was processing it for on-line publication on this website, I noticed that the source tessellation was off by one pixel and subsequently, this map has a slight defect to it. This is not the first time this has happened, but it makes me disappointed because the map is not perfect like the rest.

View the Google Map of North End neighborhood in Boston.

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Comments Off || || Posted One Year Ago: Vermont Avenue Sprocket

4/22/2008 || 12:28 pm
North End Quilt

: rendered at 18,000 X 12,000 :

Continuing my series of maps of downtown Boston, Massachusetts, today’s map features the North End neighborhood. Settled in the 1630’s, it’s the oldest continuously inhabited portion of the city of Boston.

View the Google Map of North End neighborhood in Boston.

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Render A Comment || || Posted One Year Ago: San Antonio Sprocket #2

4/20/2008 || 8:11 pm
Boston Financial District Quilt

: rendered at 12,000 X 8,000 :

Continuing my series of maps of Boston, Massachusetts, today’s map features Boston’s Financial District. Using the same Quilt / Lenz hybrid that I first employed in Rochester Quilt #2, I placed a magnifying sphere over the center of the map. This magnified geography in the center of the map features Boston’s Government Center, Faneiul Hall, and the nearby Faneuil Hall Marketplace. As your eye moves away from the center the rest of Boston’s Financial District is revealed.

View the Google Map of Boston’s Financial District.

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Render A Comment || || Posted One Year Ago: Columbine Quilt

4/18/2008 || 1:29 pm
Boston Common Quilt #2

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Using this portion of yesterday’s map, I constructed this derivative Diamond Quilt Projection map of the area around Boston Common and the Massachusetts State House.

View the Google Map of Boston Common in Boston, Massachusetts.

: detail of the Parkman Bandstand :

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Comments Off || || Posted One Year Ago: Roll Call's Photo of the Week features the DC Colonist

4/17/2008 || 6:59 pm
Boston Common Quilt

: rendered at 18,000 X 12,000 :

I’ve had a couple geographers contact me asking if I was attending the AAG’s annual meeting in Boston. My answer has been that I’m too busy on various projects to attend. As a former employee and someone who helped facilitate two annual meetings (Denver & Chicago), I realized that the next meeting I plan on attending will be as either an exhibitor or if the trip is paid for by an employer. I would like to give another presentation again or organize a panel discussion, but, as with most things in life, I’m in no hurry.

Since I have not made any maps of downtown Boston since August of 2005, I decided to download the city, in lieu of going to the city. Pleasantly, I was able to download the city at two different spatial scales and from two different years: 2004 & 2005. So far the imagery looks a lot better than the patchwork design that was previously placed into the public domain. Eight different tessellations later, the entire downtown area will be remapped in the next week. Today’s map features the area around Boston Common, which is the oldest public park in America (created in 1634), and the Massachusetts State House. I chose an Octagon Quilt Projection because I liked the way the center creates a compass rose. Up next will be a derivative of today’s map.

View the Google Map of Boston Common in Boston, Massachusetts.

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Render A Comment || || Posted One Year Ago: Voting Rights March Recap

4/6/2008 || 11:48 am
Saint Louis Quilt #5

: rendered at 18,000 X 12,000 :

This map of downtown Saint Louis, Missouri is the first to use imagery from 2006. I have now made maps of downtown Saint Louis that show the downtown area at three specific periods in time in the last 6 years. In the near future, I might made a montage of how the geography has changed using familiar portions of these maps. It think it would look very interesting. As I mentioned before, I like the way that I’ve been able to capture the Busch Stadium’s progression over time.

View the Google Map of downtown Saint Louis, Missouri.

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Comments Off || || Posted One Year Ago: taking a few days off...

4/3/2008 || 4:26 pm
Saint Louis Quilt #4

: rendered at 18,000 X 12,000 :

Unlike the previous three maps of Saint Louis which use imagery from 2002, this map uses poor quality imagery from 2005. I really like how the old Busch Stadium shows up and the new Busch Stadium is still being constructed. Up next will be another map of downtown Saint Louis, but will feature better quality aerial photography from 2006 and the new Busch Stadium. The 2006 aerial photography was used in my Geospatial Natal Chart that I made in December, as well as the two most recent maps of my childhood neighborhood in Ballwin, Missouri.

View the Google Map of downtown Saint Louis, Missouri.

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Render A Comment || || Posted One Year Ago: What a difference a year (and an internationally syndicated story) makes!

3/31/2008 || 3:49 pm
Albany Droste Quilt

: rendered at 18,000 X 12,000 :

I’ve made similar Droste-like maps before that are multi-scalar, but this is the first to follow “rules” involved in creating the Droste Effect. To achieve this effect I cut out an octagon out of the center of the map and pasted a 34% reduced duplicate of the map within the octagon. This recursive process allows for multiple internal repetitions because the source map is very large in size (216 megapixels).

View the Google Map of downtown Albany, New York.

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Render A Comment || || Posted One Year Ago: The Masked Mapmaker

3/28/2008 || 3:46 pm
Vassar Quilt Refraction

: rendered at 15,000 X 10,000 :

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

|| 3:28 pm
Vassar Quilt #2

: rendered at 18,000 X 12,000 :

Using this portion of Vassar Quilt, I made this derivative map of Vassar College. For more information about this imagery see my previous posting or read the metadata. There will be a third map in this series that is vastly different than the previous two. It should be on-line shortly.

View the Google Map of Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York.

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Comments Off || || Posted One Year Ago: Comparative Meta-Data of the USGS Orthoimagery of Washington, DC - 2002 / 2005

3/26/2008 || 5:18 pm
Vassar Quilt

: rendered at 18,000 X 12,000 :

Continuing my ongoing project of mapping various colleges, schools, and universities around the United States, I decided to follow-up Mount Holyoke College with Vassar College. According to the metadata, the aerial photography was taken in 2004, scanned at 1 foot per pixel in early 2006, and released to the public in December, 2006. I have prepared another tessellation for Vassar and will make a derivative follow-up map.

View the Google Map of Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York.

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Render A Comment || || Posted One Year Ago: Changing the World, The White House is Off-Limits to the Public: An Exploration of Censorship's Perimeter

3/18/2008 || 1:07 pm
Scott + Dupont Circle Quilt

: rendered at 18,000 X 12,000 :

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

3/12/2008 || 2:44 pm
Union Station Quilt #3

: rendered at 18,000 X 12,000 :.

I find it quite interesting being able to see the difference between spatial scales when comparing the two previous Union Station maps. Since this map uses .16 meters per pixel aerial photography and the previous two maps use imagery that was .3 meters per pixel, you can quite easily see how much less I am now showing of the area around Union Station. Specifically, this map only shows the U.S. Postal Museum, Union Station, the Thurgood Marshal Federal Building, and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.View the Google Map of Union Station in downtown Washington, DC.

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3/9/2008 || 9:10 pm
Scott Circle Quilt #2

: rendered at 18,000 X 12,000 :

Read more about Scott Circle in my previous entry

View the Google Map of Scott Circle in downtown Washington, DC.

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3/8/2008 || 1:32 pm
Scott Circle Quilt

: rendered at 18,000 X 12,000 :

I am in the process of making hexagon quilt projection maps of all the major traffic circles in Washington, DC. I have most of the circles covered and intend on continuing this project as I acquire new imagery of Washington, DC. Of important note is that Dupont, Logan, Washington, and Scott circles all lie with the area that is censored in Google Maps. Also, this is one of the first maps that I’ve made in a few years that features National Geographic’s headquarters. I will probably make a derivative map dedicated to National Geographic.

View the Google Map of Scott Circle in downtown Washington, DC.

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3/2/2008 || 11:43 am
Washington + Dupont Circle Quilt

: rendered at 18,000 X 12,000 :

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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