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This final edition is derived from sampled imagery from the previous two renderings. I chose the layout for this version based on the beautiful geometric design that is created at the center of the map. These two recursive samplings have created an almost crystalline map of the area.

View the Google Map of Oakland Habour.

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This version of the map is derived from sampled imagery from the previous map to create this Octagon Quilt Projection map of Oakland. The recursive sampling employed in this map creates a more geometric geography.

View the Google Map of Oakland Habour.

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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.

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After making eight different drafts, the client liked a modified version the best. Using derivative imagery from Draft #4, I was able to create the map above. It features the area around the fountain at the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden on the National Mall in Washington, DC. The client is having this map printed at 20″ x 16″ so the final printed version will look slightly different than the version above. As always, contact me if you interested in having a custom map created for you.

View the Google Map of the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden on the National Mall in Washington, DC.

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Continuing on the theme of my last map, I decided to focus on the merging of the two Metro trains for this version. To create this map I first sampled a portion of Metro Crash Quilt, then I used that portion to create an intermediate map (that I chose to not publish), which I then sampled again to create this fractal Hexagon Quilt Projection map. This process of recursive sampling allowed me to focus more and more on the portion of the map where the two train merge together. The result is a weaved pattern of train tracks and merging Metro cars; a far more intricate map than my previous version. What is lost, however, is the area around the crash site and the crash site itself, in their place are more trains and more train track. I have sampled a portion of this map and am in the process of seeing what a third iteration will look like.

View the Google Map of the crash site in upper Northeast Washington, DC.

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Using this portion of Front Range Quilt, I created this derivative map. I sampled that portion because I like the nature of how the shadows of the ridge presented themselves and I wanted to include the tarn at the base of Andrews Glacier. I opted for the Dodecagon Quilt Projection because I felt it that it would work nicely since I am not trying to capture any specific buildings or streets in the source imagery (there are none!).

View the Google Map of the Front Range in Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado.

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Using this portion of Fashion District Quilt, I composed this derivative map. I chose this layout because I liked the way the tessellation created almost-circular building clusters.

View the Google Map of the Fashion District in Los Angeles, California

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Using this portion of Phoenix Quilt, I created this derivative map of downtown Phoenix, Arizona. For this map I decided to employ the Dodecagon Quilt Projection because its been a little while since I’ve used that projection. I also liked the way the rooftop of the Sandra Day O’Connor US District Court creates a nice design around the center.

View the Google Map of downtown Phoenix, Arizona

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Using this portion of West Sahara Lake Circles Quilt to make this derivative map.

Upon closer inspection of the aerial photography, I think I know where all that water from Lake Mead went. Swimming pools!

View the Google Map of the West Sahara Lake neighborhood in Las Vegas, Nevada

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At the beginning of the week I received an inquiry about making this map. It’s intended to be a gift for the client’s friend who’s a big Yankees fan. I was unsure if I’d be able to obtain the newest imagery featuring the new Yankee stadium, but since the client felt the friend had spent more time in the old stadium, the newest of the imagery was not an issue. I went with .5 meters per pixel imagery from April, 2006. There was a second set of imagery of the area at lower spatial resolution, but I liked the coloring on this imagery better and went with it. This is my first map of the Bronx borough of New York City and for 2009 I am planning on mapping the rest of the boroughs.

Like my previous commission I was able to modify the source aerial photography so that the nearby outdoor track has been converted into a heart. I debated on modifing the coloration so that the pinkness of the heart (below) would be more pronounced, but I opted to follow my current style of non-modification. Yet this inclusion of the heart motif is something that I find to be an unique addition to my current map design. I am adjusting the imagery to not only create a geometrically perfect design, but literally adding a bit of love to it. An aerial landscape design of love, so to speak.

There is also a sense of transition in this map. By the varying degree of translational symmetry placed upon the the actual stadium, there appears to be an architectural metamorphosis taking place. Where the old stadium is becoming a new stadium. And some day in the future, when it’s time that I make the next map of Yankee Stadium, with newer contemporary imagery, it will be a new stadium. But will the heart (track) still be there in the future? Will development change the love of the geography? I don’t think so. Yet in making this map for the client, I’ve captured the love between two people (and probably thousands of others) that will never change.

Unlike my previous commissioned map, which was printed at 32″x48″ on stretched canvas, this Hexagon Quilt Project map will be printed a bit smaller at 10″x16″ on Hahnemuhle Fine Art Pearl paper. If you are interested in obtaining a custom map, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

View the Google Map of Yankee Stadium in the Bronx

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Using this portion of Newark Quilt, I was able to constructive this Hexagon Quilt Projection derivative map. If you look closely there is a nice hexagram in the center of the map. I’d like to make a map of Trenton, New Jersey next.

View the Google Map of downtown Newark, New Jersey

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Using this portion of Kansas City Quilt #2, I created this derivative map of downtown Kansas City, Missouri. This map is a unique map because it features aspects of the Lenz Projection and the Quilt Projection combined to create what looks like a human eye. By combing what it looks like with the location, I-670, the name of this map becomes a play on words.

View the Google Map of downtown Kansas City, Missouri

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Using this portion of Kansas City Quilt, I created this derivative map of downtown Kansas City, Missouri. When making this map I tried a few different variations but settled on a Diamond Quilt Projection map.

View the Google Map of downtown Kansas City, Missouri

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I’ve been doing some research on an old sculpture that used to be in Meridian Hill Park that will be featured in an upcoming posting. In preparation, I decided to make a quilt projection map of the park using the newest available imagery. Unlike the previous three, which were some of the first to use my recursive tessellation technique, the newer imagery captures less of the area surrounding the park and more detail of the park itself. This is simply due to the fact that the newer imagery has a high spatial resolution than the older imagery, which correlates to more detail, but less geographic coverage. Since the aerial photography was taken in the early spring, the fountains were still in their winter slumber and I imagine that if it were taken in the summer the coloration would be vastly different.

When constructing this map, I used my new technique hypothesized in May and first rendered a hexagon tile and then took a portion of that tessellation and used it here. The result, which I am seeing for the first time, is that you can see the hexagon shape around the center of this square quilt projection map quite easily. From my understanding, depending on the location of the recursive sampling within the first map, I’ll be able to see it’s respective geometry embedded in the second map. However, I think it’s nearly impossible to fully gage the geometry of the original map after two recursions because each subsequent sampling makes it more difficult to see the geometry present in the previous map.

View the Google Map of Meridian Hill Park in Washington, DC.

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This fractal octagon quilt projection map was recursively rendered four times before the final result above. It took approximately two hours for each rendering to complete and then each tessellation was sampled while maintaining the source spatial integrity. Altogether this map took about 12 hours of rendering time and post-processing time to complete. I intend on printing this out for the upcoming lecture.

View the Google Map of the area around the New York Public Library in New York City.

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Using my new procedure, I pre-rendered 2 tiles to create this third derivative map of Madison Square Garden in Midtown Manhattan. It looks very similar to Hirshhorn Quilt (they are both circular buildings) but they are composed of aerial photographs taken at different spatial scales. The NYC imagery has been downsampled to 2ft per pixel compared to DC’s imagery which is at 6 inches per pixel or a difference of about 16 times less detail (I think). Up next will probably be the New York Public Library, which was actually in the first tessellation, but dropped from the second.

View the Google Map of Madison Square Garden in New York City.

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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.

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Across the top (left to right) you have the planet gods:

• Luna guiding ships at night
• Mercury holding his Caduceus
• Venus with Cupid
• Sol riding a Quadriga
• Mars being lead by the dogs of war Phobos (Panic) and Deimos (Dread).
• Jupiter with lightening bolts in his hands
• Saturn holding a scythe

Drawn within each of these engravings are the signs of the Zodiac that the planets rule:

• Moon rules Cancer
• Mercury rules Gemini and Virgo
• Venus rules Libra and Taurus
• The Sun rules Leo
• Mars rules Aries and Scorpio
• Jupiter rules Sagittarius and Piscies
• Saturn rules Aquarius and Capricorn

Below I dissect the rest of the border of the map:

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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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Using this portion of Swampoodle Quilt #2, I constructed this derivative Diamond Quilt Projection map of the area around the Artomatic 2008 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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Using this portion of Swampoodle Quilt, I constructed this derivative Dodecagon Quilt Projection map of the area around the Artomatic 2008 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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