|| 12/13/2008 || 10:04 pm || Comments Off || ||
Newark Quilt #2
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
View the rest of the details: + MORE
|| 12/12/2008 || 11:43 pm || Comments Off || ||
Newark Quilt
Would you believe that this is my first map of the Garden State? It is. After hundreds of maps, I have finally gotten around to making a map of New Jersey. Originally the delay was based on the availability of color imagery due to the fact that I could only obtain false-color composite imagery of New Jersey. While it looks nice, it is not within the color parameters I’ve chosen to work with. If you look around this website you won’t see any quilt projection maps using this type of coloring. While I have modified the colors of the source aerial photography before, I have not started with false-color imagery and then made a map.
The imagery I was able to obtain and use for this Dodecagon Quilt Projection map is, ummm, to say it nicely, pretty much crap. According to the metadata, this .5 meter aerial photography was taken in March of 2006, processed in June of 2006, and released to the public on June 26th, 2007. Instead of using a digital camera, this imagery was taken with an analog film camera, printed out, scanned, and finally digitally altered for correctness. The result is a very grainy resolution when looked at up close and is comparable to the poor-quality Los Angeles imagery I worked with last year.
The imagery also suffers from the fact that it wasn’t taken completely at nadir. This means that you can see a mishmash of perspectives, where buildings literally run into each other because the angle at which the photograph was taken wasn’t completely overhead (nadir). For example, in the detail below you can actually read the lettering of the Prudential building due to the obliqueness of the original aerial photograph.
Anyways, now I only have to complete a map of somewhere in Vermont and I’ll have a made a map of a city in every state in the United States! I think its time to remove the dust from my last book proposal….
View the Google Map of downtown Newark, New Jersey
View the rest of the details: + MORE
|| 12/10/2008 || 3:04 pm || Comments Off || ||
Eye 670 – A perspective of Interstate 670 in downtown Kansas City
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
View the rest of the details: + MORE
|| 12/9/2008 || 2:42 pm || Comments Off || ||
Kansas City Quilt #2
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
View the rest of the details: + MORE
|| 12/8/2008 || 2:19 pm || Comments Off || ||
Kansas City Quilt
It’s been over a month since I’ve made a map and to knock the dust off of this website I’ve decided to make a map of city that I’ve never sampled before. For over two years there was a licensing issue that prevented the imagery used in this map from being placed into the public domain. I don’t know when it was finally released, but I’m happy they did. This map features the downtown area of the Missouri side of Kansas City and when I was tessellating the source aerial photography I made sure to include something I remembered from when I was a kid. When we’d drive to Colorado from Missouri, we’d drive through downtown Kansas City and I always thought it was cool that there was a portion that created a tunnel that cars drove under. While I didn’t know it at the time, this building is the Bartle Hall Convention Center and I placed it at the exact center of this Octagon Quilt Projection map.
View the Google Map of downtown Kansas City, Missouri
View the rest of the details: + MORE
|| 12/3/2008 || 12:20 pm || Comments Off || ||
On page 149 of Experimental Geography: Radical Approaches to Landscape, Cartography, and Urbanism by Nato Thompson and Independent Curators International
Today I received my copy of Experimental Geography: Radical Approaches to Landscape, Cartography, and Urbanism by Nato Thompson and Independent Curators International. As I mentioned before, my Pentagon Quilt #3 was included in Daniel Tucker’s WE ARE HERE Map Archive that is featured in Independent Curators International traveling exhibition. The catalog for the exhibition and goes on sale next month when the exhibit starts its two year international tour. My map is on page 149 next to Lize Mogel & Dario Azzellini’s The Privatization of War: Colombia as Laboratory and Iraq as Large-Scale Application.
|| 9/4/2008 || 7:11 pm || Comments Off || ||
A New & Somewhat Accurate Map of the Tropic of Gemini and the Tropic of Sagittarius
For the last month I’ve been working on a slightly strange map above. It’s based on Johannes van Loon’s “Scenographia systematis mvndani Ptolemaici” (1660), which includes an “Axis Zodiaci” that shows the signs of Gemini and Sagittarius being slightly more illuminated than Cancer & Capricorn (see below). This shading possibly indicates that the author was aware of natural movement of the earth since the time of Ptolemy (~125 A.D.).
A new & somewhat accurate map of the Tropic of Sagittarius and the Tropic of Gemini was created using two maps of the Tropics from Wikipedia. I added the glyphs of the Zodiac over the meridians, but unlike the antique map below, I moved the signs backwards. The word “tropic” itself comes from the Greek tropos, meaning turn, referring to the fact that the sun appears to “turn back” at the solstices. I have read that in 1989 the Tropic of Gemini moved into the constellation of Taurus, which technically means it should be the “Tropic of Taurus,” but to keep the circle of animals in exact opposition, I kept the tropic in Gemini, hence “somewhat accurate.”
Close-up detail of A New & Somewhat Accurate Map of the Tropic of Gemini and the Tropic of Sagittarius
For hundreds of years cartographers have included the Tropic of Capricorn and the Tropic of Cancer on nearly all globes and world maps. Yet with the natural movement of the earth through space & time, the solstices are not located in the constellations of Capricorn or Cancer anymore. So why do cartographers continue to label the maps & globes using this incorrect information? Does cartographic tradition trump astronomical observation? Should contemporary maps be changed to reflect the passage of time? Are there any antique maps that place the Tropics in any other constellations? Leave your comments below.
Johannes van Loon’s “Scenographia systematis mvndani Ptolemaici” (1660)
+ MORE
|| 3/5/2008 || 12:27 pm || Comments Off || ||
Digital Globe: Where did DC’s roads go?
Screen grab featuring DC with very few roads
I was looking at Digital Globe’s website the other day and I decided to zoom into Washington, DC. The result was a map that only shows the major highways around the area. What is missing, however, are all the roads in DC, even the ones that connect to the “major highways” outside of the District. While the roads are not really needed to find locations of imagery, I’ve come to the conclusion that this is a good example of how an on-line mapping environments can leave out a lot more content than what should be included. Since this map environment was designed to seek Digital Globe’s imagery, not highways, it would make more sense that the base layer shows archive satellite imagery and not ugly vector graphics that incompletely show the major transportation routes in DC.
Notice:
- Two different city centers: Washington + Washington, DC
- In the margin map, the star next to Columbia is not District of Columbia, but South Carolina
- In the margin map, all cities are capitals as well
- Gallaudet University is the only university shown
|| 2/27/2008 || 7:17 am || Comments Off || ||
Featured on-line with the Maps exhibition at the Walters Museum
Screen grab showing a small detail of a Concentric Quilt
Starting in mid-November I’ve been volunteering my time with the Walters Museum‘s upcoming exhibition. They have a small technology center (4 iMacs) in their cafeteria which I was given the opportunity to review. I look forward to going to the opening later this month!!
The Walters Museum has also included a layer for Google Earth that I produced for the exhibit. You can download the layer here or here.
©2004-2010 Nikolas R. Schiller - Colonist of the District of Columbia - Privacy Policy - Fair Use - RSS - Contact
::SUBSCRIBE::
I am taking a brief break from daily blog postings. Please subscribe to be notified when I resume!
::ARCHIVES BY YEAR::
::RENDERS BY YEAR::
+ 95 in 2008::THE QUILT PROJECTION::
Square |
Diamond |
Hexagon |
Octagon |
Dodecagon |
Beyond |
::OTHER PROJECTIONS::
The Lenz Project |
Mandala Project |
The Star Series |
Abstract Series |
Memory Series
|
Mother Earth Series
|
|
Misc Renderings
 |
::SORTA POPULAR MAPS::
- The Los Angeles Interchanges Series::MONTHLY ARCHIVES::
::LOCATIONS & CATEGORIES::
::LAST 51 POSTS::
14 queries. 1.484 seconds.
Powered by WordPress
::SUPPORT::
:: LAST VISITORS ::
|| 3/31/2008 || 1:55 pm || 1 Comment Rendered || ||
National MSM of the American Indian on Google Maps; Why truncate the word Museum?
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?
+ MORE