The Daily Render

A Digital Scrapbook for the Past, Present, and Future

Libertarians make a misguided political statement at the Jefferson Memorial
|| 4/17/2008 || 4:50 pm || 2 Comments Rendered || ||

I’ve been reading some of the coverage about a group of DC Libertarians who tried to stage a flash mob at the Jefferson Memorial last weekend.

The plan was simple: show up at the Jefferson Memorial at a set time and dance with their iPods for 10 minutes to celebrate Thomas Jefferson’s birthday and leave. But all did not go as planned:

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Comparative Front Pages: Washington Post / Philadelphia Inquirer
|| 1/2/2008 || 10:58 pm || Comments Off on Comparative Front Pages: Washington Post / Philadelphia Inquirer || ||

Photograph of the Washington Post and Philadelphia Inquirer newspapers showing my map Jefferson Mandala

On March 26, 2007, the Philadelphia Inquirer published David Montgomery’s Here Be Dragons article. That morning I received a phone call from one of my best friends who happened to be in Philadelphia on business. He excitedly informed me that one of my maps was on the cover of a section in the Philadelphia Inquirer. I asked him to purchase as many copies as possible and about a month later I picked up the six copies from his house. My housemate let me borrow his camera to take an overhead photograph of the two newspaper articles side by side. When the housemate moved out a few months ago he gave me all of his photographs that he had on his computer and I found this photograph that I had forgotten about. What I found to be the most interesting aspect is the size of the map that was used in Philadelphia, the change of the article’s name, the movement from “Style” to “Health & Science.” I’ve tried to track down other syndications, but so far only the Philadelphia Inquirer has been obtained. The article itself has already been deaccessioned from the Philadelphia Inquirer’s website.

Related In The News Entries:

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Me, Maui, Mall Mandala
|| 10/22/2005 || 4:26 pm || Comments Off on Me, Maui, Mall Mandala || ||

: rendered at 9,000 X 9,000 :

I found out this morning that it only takes about 2-4 hours to render these mandalas, so I’ve decided to make one more! So much faster than the 8-12 hours they normally take :)

This rendering suffers from the same problems that plagued the last mandala rendering, the poor choice of lighting. Yet due to the nature of the source imagery used in this rendering, the light gradient isn’t as a big of an issue. Being my 3rd self-portrait, I am please how it turned out, but I don’t like using my name in the title of a rendering, but “self-portrait mandala” just didn’t sound right.

rendering detail:

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Jefferson Sparks
|| 10/19/2005 || 7:03 am || Comments Off on Jefferson Sparks || ||

: rendered at 12,000 X 8,000 :

The rendering definitely falls out of line with all of my previous work…and I like it. It reminds me of two things- sparks and bacteria…. After reading this article in Salon, I wish I would have called it Jefferson Bacteria. Maybe I just might.

The interesting part of this rendering, to me, is the use of different texture perspectives. In Bryce, you have a ton of choices for different perspectives (object space, world space, parametric, etc.) and while I normally use Object Cubic, this rendering uses almost all of the different perspectives. I like the results and in the future, I’d like to mix perspectives more.

rendering details:

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Boxes of Jefferson
|| 10/17/2005 || 7:20 am || Comments Off on Boxes of Jefferson || ||

: rendered at 18,000 X 12,000 :

This rendering took 3 tries! It’s not that I couldn’t get the boxes in the right place, but every time I tried loading a third image to the scene Bryce would crash.

The result, is my first geographically derived puzzle.

How many boxes do you see?

answer & rendering details:

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Self-Portrait
|| 10/9/2005 || 6:31 pm || Comments Off on Self-Portrait || ||

: rendered at 18,000 X 12,000 :

Using a picture I took of myself in the Iao Valley in Maui, Hawaii on January 6th, 2005, I tessellated the picture (1200X1200) around the edges of a 4800 X 4800 pixel canvas. This allowed for a 2400X2400 square in the center to be filled with an image of my choosing.

In the spirit of my Jefferson Mandala print being at the MOCA DC/A&M Gallery, I chose to use the same source imagery, the first derivative of the Mall Quilt.

I added one extra touch in Photoshop, which I’ve never done before, I added some black glow to the picture of myself. This caused the aerial photograph to appear just below the frame. Almost as if there is a layer of the earth just below the blue sky, the aerial photography seems to float perfectly in the center of the tessellated mosaic.

I chose the quirky picture of myself because:
I liked the angle at which I took it (mountains!),
I liked the “what you lookin’ at,” half-smile, grin
I liked the color of sky (and even the two lens blemishes)
I like the contrast of the green to blue to white tones

The result, is definitely one of my favor works yet. The process of setting up the source imagery in photoshop is probably the most exciting part of it all. I can now do large mosaics with multiple aerial & satellite images. What will come next? We shall see…

view rendering details:

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Knot the National Mall
|| 10/2/2005 || 3:17 am || Comments Off on Knot the National Mall || ||

: rendered at 15,000 X 10,000 :

Knot the National Mall

more later…

grrr….

{no tyme to type}

lets just say last weekend’s festivities caused a knot in the National Mall.

view rendering details:

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Washington Monument Zoom
|| 8/23/2005 || 8:45 am || 2 Comments Rendered || ||

Image Links to Flash Player:

I made this animation for one of the main projects I’m working on right now, Operation Ceasefire. I’m going to make sure it ends up in the right person’s hands and hopefully it will be seen on a projection screen during the concert. I think the only real error in this rendering is that most people will be expecting to see the White House as it zooms out, but the tessellation only contains the Washington Monument, the Jefferson Memorial, and some of the mall. Regardless, I think it looks pretty cool. If I had more time, I’d make a few more animations using this same imagery, but I’m not in the mood right now to do so. I’ve got a lot on my plate right now, and I’m not sure if I’ll have much time to render anything for the next few days. But I guess, as I tend end my postings, we’ll see :-)

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.

view rendering details:

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Jefferson Mandala – 2nd derivative
|| 6/16/2005 || 10:37 pm || Comments Off on Jefferson Mandala – 2nd derivative || ||

I can’t go much further, or can I?
–probably to about 360X and then it will look like a vinyl record :)

view rendering detail:

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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: