The Daily Render

A Digital Scrapbook for the Past, Present, and Future

Malfunction Junction Offset
|| 6/16/2009 || 1:35 pm || + Render A Comment || ||

: rendered at 18,000 X 12,000 :
Malfunction Junction Offset by Nikolas R. Schiller

The other week I downloaded the aerial photography of downtown Birmingham, Alabama to make some maps for a friend of mine. Upon closer inspection of the geography, I found that there was a nicely formed highway interchange close to the downtown area that happened to be colloquially named “Malfunction Junction.” While other cities can also claim in having their own Malfunction Junction, this highway interchange is the first one I’ve read about.

When I started working on this map I intended to render a couple versions and recursively sample them to created a fractal map, but I wasn’t happy with the results, so I decided to go in a completely direction. This map did end up using previously sampled imagery, but it does not conform to that regular quilt projection format of a centralized kaleidoscope. Also, this map is not unlike some of my previous maps, like White House Sunrise or Minneapolis Sunset, however, I chose to name it differently based on the position of the kaleidoscope’s focal point, which is offset in the upper left hand corner. I spent a lot of time adjusting this location and as you can see in the last detail below, I was a few pixels off. Up next I’m probably going to work on the downtown area of Birmingham, but I’m really itching to start mapping Europe.

View the Google Map of Malfunction Junction in Birmingham, Alabama

: detail :
A location somewhere within the map

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A Gigapan of the 105 & 110 Quilt
|| 3/23/2009 || 3:10 pm || Comments Off on A Gigapan of the 105 & 110 Quilt || ||

After uploading yesterday’s map to Gigapan, I realized that most of my maps on the website are not really panoramas. They were big files, but not wide panoramas, so I decided to make a special map that looks more like a panorama. To do this, I found the map 105 & 110 Quilt in my archives and opened it up. Then I increased the size of the canvas by a factor of 3 to 27,000 pixels wide and added two more copies of the map in the new space. Finally I saved it and uploaded it. I could easily do this with the rest of the Los Angeles Interchanges Series, but I think one example is enough for the time being. I would have made it larger, but my computer can only handle files 30,000 pixels or smaller. Maybe if I were to use a different computer with more ram and more hard drive space I could actually make a GIGApan.

If you are subscribed to my RSS feed and are reading this on through your RSS reader, please click here to view it on my website or click here to view it on the Gigapan website.

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Eye 670 – A perspective of Interstate 670 in downtown Kansas City
|| 12/10/2008 || 3:04 pm || Comments Off on Eye 670 – A perspective of Interstate 670 in downtown Kansas City || ||

: rendered at 9,000 X 6,000 :
Eye 670 by Nikolas R. Schiller

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

: detail :
A location somewhere within the map

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Manhattan & Brooklyn Bridge Quilt
|| 6/7/2008 || 6:12 pm || Comments Off on Manhattan & Brooklyn Bridge Quilt || ||

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.

: detail :

View the rest of the map’s close-up details:

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Albany Droste Quilt
|| 3/31/2008 || 3:49 pm || Comments Off on Albany Droste Quilt || ||

: rendered at 18,000 X 12,000 :
Vassar Quilt #2

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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Digital Globe: Where did DC’s roads go?
|| 3/5/2008 || 12:27 pm || Comments Off on 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

87 & 280 Quilt #4
|| 2/24/2008 || 3:32 pm || Comments Off on 87 & 280 Quilt #4 || ||

: rendered at 18,000 X 12,000 :
The 87 & 280 Interchange in San Jose, California

Using this portion of 87 & 280 Quilt #3, I constructed this derivative map of the California State Route 87 & interstate 280 interchange. This is the final map of the series. It reminds me of a braided highway!

View the Google Map of the interchange.

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87 & 280 Quilt #3
|| 2/18/2008 || 1:33 pm || Comments Off on 87 & 280 Quilt #3 || ||

: rendered at 18,000 X 12,000 :
The 87 & 280 Interchange in San Jose, California

Using this portion of 87 & 280 Quilt #2, I constructed this derivative map of the California State Route 87 & interstate 280 interchange.

View the Google Map of the interchange.

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87 & 280 Quilt #2
|| 2/17/2008 || 4:41 pm || Comments Off on 87 & 280 Quilt #2 || ||

: rendered at 18,000 X 12,000 :
The 87 & 280 Interchange in San Jose, California

Using this portion of 87 & 280 Quilt, I constructed this derivative map of the California State Route 87 & interstate 280 interchange. What is unique is that it’s a actually a Diamond Quilt Projection map, but it looks quite a bit like a Square Quilt Projection maps. The third derivative tessellation looks quite cool and I think the next map will be the best in the series.

View the Google Map of the interchange.

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87 & 280 Quilt
|| 2/15/2008 || 1:45 pm || Comments Off on 87 & 280 Quilt || ||

: rendered at 18,000 X 12,000 :
87 & 280 Interchange in San Jose, California

Similar to the Los Angeles Interchanges Series (LAIS), I decided to make my first San Jose, California map using imagery from the interchange of California State Route 87 & interstate 280. Unlike the LAIS, which used only the Diamond Quilt Projection this map uses a Hexagon Quilt Projection.

View the Google Map of the interchange.

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A Digital Scrapbook for the Past, Present, and Future.

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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: