The Daily Render

A Digital Scrapbook for the Past, Present, and Future

White House Warp – geospatial animation
|| 8/19/2005 || 5:33 pm || 1 Comment Rendered || ||

Image Links to Flash Player:

Wow. This is probably my favorite animation yet. Its not technically special, it’s just fun as a hell to watch. Using Quicktime Pro, I can set it loop back & forth and I’ve spent the last few minutes marveling at my latest creation. If you look closely you can see the White House replicating into a perfect circle.

Up next, I’ve got some imagery of Prague, Sioux City, Iowa, a few topographic maps (a new dimension to Geospatial Art!), and even a subway map of Moscow I want to geographically exploit. Fun.

Yeah for the 9 day weekend- I took next week off!

Change in DC imagery in Google’s servers
|| 8/17/2005 || 6:35 pm || Comments Off on Change in DC imagery in Google’s servers || ||

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 :

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Baghdad Imagery change in Google Earth
|| 8/16/2005 || 6:02 pm || Comments Off on Baghdad Imagery change in Google Earth || ||

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:

Buena Park Mandala
|| 8/15/2005 || 7:22 am || Comments Off on Buena Park Mandala || ||

: rendered at 12,000 X 12,000 :
Buena Park Quilt by Nikolas Schiller

I really don’t dig how this one turned out. It’s too dark for my taste and you can’t really see much detail in the final product. I do like the other Buena Park renderings much better.

I need to get some new imagery because I’m not very happy with what has been rendered recently. I think it boils down to needing a new template that reflects my current emotions a bit more. And well, it’s quite ironic that the Buena Park imagery does has a roller coaster inside of it :-) But really, I want to start using some more human figures and new perspectives. I like that…new perspectives on the world, because, after all, that is what I’m creating isn’t it?

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Boston Mandala
|| 8/14/2005 || 11:23 pm || Comments Off on Boston Mandala || ||

: rendered at 15,000 X 10,000 :

This rendering differs from the rest of the Mandala Project because I rendered it in 3:2 aspect ratio instead of the regular square. I really like the way the high number of reflections create an optical illusion of a circle when the rendering is a series of reflected squares. Reminds me of that Jung quote I found…

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Boston Quilt
|| 8/13/2005 || 8:49 pm || Comments Off on Boston Quilt || ||

: rendered at 18,000 X 12,000 :

I’m digging these Boston renderings too much! I am very happy with how it turned out and I am looking forward to the next Boston rendering. Should I throw it into a Lenz? I guess we’ll see…. Nonetheless, this probably one of my favorite renderings from the Quilt Project yet. Up next, of course, a Boston Mandala.

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Minneapolis Sunrise
|| 8/12/2005 || 8:28 pm || Comments Off on Minneapolis Sunrise || ||

: rendered at 18,000 X 12,000 :

Eh, after 23 hours of processing time, I wish this rendering turned out better. It looks cool, I mean after 3 hours of trying to move around the infinite planes so they’d look right before I set the scene to render, I still am not as happy as I should be with this rendering. I think it boils down to the source imagery itself… I mean, I’ve been really digging the recent Boston imagery, with its acquired/found colorful nature, and this imagery just doesn’t look as cool as what I’ve been making as of late.

Granted the Minneapolis Convention center looks cool the way it reflects, but I guess this rendering simply lacks the variations of color I desire. I could always manipulate the imagery in photoshop a bit more, and maybe I just might start doing this, but I sincerely like the concept of not modifying the colors of the imagery before rendering. By not doing so I can always modify the final product, yet the final product can be influenced by the coloration I do ahead of time…. I’ve been considering doing something similar using black & white imagery, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet….soon…

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Boston Volcano
|| 8/11/2005 || 7:55 am || Comments Off on Boston Volcano || ||

: rendered at 15,000 X 10,000 :

This is my first rendering of “colorful” Boston. I obtained the “colorful” imagery from MassGIS and I really like the way the rendering turned out. I use the word “colorful” to denote how MassGIS has put together a bunch of different imagery, taken at different a bunch of different times, and made a patchwork mosaic out of it. The different colors represent a series of factors like what time of day the photograph was taken, the angle at which the overhead device took the picture, and even season in which the photograph was taken. Regardless, this patchwork approach looks great!

I used the same template as the Mall Mountain but I changed the angle to about 40 degrees to give an interesting sense of depth to the rendering. Yet, this graphic doesn’t look much like a volcano, more like a Greatful Dead tye-dye shirt! But I think I’ll be able to replicate this again using different imagery to make some interesting prints :-)

When I was riding my bike home from work today I came up with the idea of delving into some other geographic mediums. Instead of aerial & satellite imagery, why not use a topographic map? I bet the contour lines will make the rendering all more intricate! I don’t have anything in the render pipeline at the moment, but I’m going to snag an actual map tomorrow to see what I can come up with.

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I am featured in the Green Party’s “Green Pages”
|| 8/10/2005 || 2:15 am || Comments Off on I am featured in the Green Party’s “Green Pages” || ||

Its a great story too!

Via the Green Pages:

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Mall Mountain
|| 8/9/2005 || 8:21 am || Comments Off on Mall Mountain || ||

: rendered at 15,000 X 10,000 pixels :

Going to foothills of the Appalachians and promoting an event on the National Mall, I felt compelled to combine the two :-)

One of the ideas that popped in my head during the trip was having a book titled “The Legend of Nikolas Â® Schiller.” Inside would be large prints of my work. The use of the word legend in a cartographic sense would be the description of my methods used to create my maps, like a legend on a map.

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Nikolas Schiller is a second-class American citizen living in America's last colony, Washington, DC. This blog is my on-line repository of what I have created or found on-line since May of 2004. If you have any questions or comments, please contact: