The Daily Render

A Digital Scrapbook for the Past, Present, and Future

Quilt of Guinea-Bissau
|| 7/27/2005 || 3:17 pm || Comments Off on Quilt of Guinea-Bissau || ||

: full size print, rendered at 12,000 X 8,000 :
Quilt of Guinea-Bissau by Nikolas Schiller

It’s been awhile since I’ve used some imagery that is not aerial photography! Last night I decided to use one of my favorite satellite images from the “Earth as Art” collection. The colorful original satellite image is of Guinea-Bissau, a small country in West Africa, and the colors represent water and different types of vegetation. I decided to use the ol’ Quilt template to make a somewhat intricate design that has two central axises of symmetry. I genuinely like this rendering and will most likely have it printed shortly.

Somewhat related… When I was setting up the scene to be rendered I realized that I could easily make one of these renderings surpass the gigapixel barrier that I’ve recently read about, but I realized that my computer cannot process that much information. I need a G5!

view rendering details:

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Star of Bissau
|| 11/9/2004 || 12:42 am || Comments Off on Star of Bissau || ||

new style
|| 9/23/2004 || 3:34 pm || Comments Off on new style || ||

As mentioned at the end of my previous post, I’ve made a slight modification on the original template. Before the images were rendered againsts a completely neutral background (either black or white) which made them look very simple. It also allowed me to cut & paste them rather easily to make larger images (which I haven’t quite gotten to yet!), however I have stumbled on a way to make them look slightly my dynamic. My previous rendering removed the glass sphere and the embedded satellite image, but I opted to keep the two where they are and concentrate on the background of the renderings. This one I used a massive cylander as the background with the texture being completely randomized, and the next I one I’ll use maybe two large cylanders. Their inherint depth will create a foreground and background which will make the centeral image stand out more. And if I ever get these printed out they’ll make for better posters, simply because the entire page will be taken up. Next up will be a few more of the same, and then I’m going to get a few more new satellite images to give the Lenz treatment or maybe something completely new- I am thinking of maybe moving to central box of sorts… I still like this series tho. I’m at like 64 renderings, should I stop at a 100?

Greenzone #5
|| 9/20/2004 || 3:25 pm || Comments Off on Greenzone #5 || ||

This map uses copyrighted imagery and is on-line for educational purposes.

welcome to the greenzone
|| || 2:04 am || Comments Off on welcome to the greenzone || ||

Today I “Greened the Festival” at the Green Festival. Which is simply a glorified way of saying I worked a recycling center. Being that I have my own recycling center concept, I loved my job! However it was amazing to see how little people knew about recycling; more specifically recycling plastics. Even the little pamphlet given out by the DC department of Public Works, which oversees the recycling initiatives, has no mention of the plastic resin codes! I completely understand why there is such a disconnect in this simple but important chore. It could easily read “Look under the bottom of the plastic container and find the recycling triangle. We only take plastics with #1& #2” Instead it reads:

Plastic Bottles and Jugs: Narrow-necked containers only.
Some examples include:
-Soda, juice, pop, and liquor bottles
-Shampoo, conditioner, and laundry detergent bottles
-Window, bathroom, and kitchen cleaner bottles

There needs to be some PSA’s about looking at the bottom of plastic containers. Or maybe not…. I mean, people would then realize that they throw away a lot of plastics. I am still working out my plan to recycle polypropylene aka plastic #5. Grrr. Regardless, I am very happy that I was able to spread some ecological wisdom to some fellow festival goers. I just hope they recycle more. I plan on it.

Ironically, this rendering is of the Green Zone in downtown Baghdad. I made it because I overheard some news about how both the U.S. & Iraqi military were having trouble keeping the area safe. It just turns out that I was at the Green Festival all weekend! I also opted to upload a higher resolution version of the rendering to give a better look at the area. The graphic was rendered at 16,000 X 12,000 and the original satellite image of Baghdad was a 1 meter image (aka 1 pixel represents 1 meter on the ground), but the high resolution version is only 5,000 X 3,750, which means that what you see on the ground is roughly a 16 meter image (aka 1 pixel equals 16 meters or so). Sorry if this is confusing jargon, but its important to me :-) Just imagine what the full size will look like printed. Yet in reality the Daily Render for today should be this old one!

party on down
|| 9/19/2004 || 7:11 pm || Comments Off on party on down || ||

After returning back from the Green Festival I made my way over to Adams Morgan for the block party. When I arrived I found that somehow the inverters, which are used to power the sound system, were missing. After fretting for a bit, I asked a friend of Adam’s to go ahead and ask the police if we could use their power. The main talking point was that we used the police station’s power before without a problem*. Luckly with a little elbow grease we were able to play music.

Since it was Adam’s birthday and I wanted it to be a big ass party, I had contacted some friends in advance about DJing the event, but since I couldn’t secure in Technics, I opted to not have them DJ. Instead I had the opportunity to DJ the block party. Normally I never DJ events that I am working on, but last night I made a special exception! I selected nothing but my favorite Thievery Corporation & ESL music tunes. I am happy that I started listening to them back in 1998 before I even came to DC because it gave me a good knowledge of their entire discography and it also helped being on their promo distribution list when I was the director of the electronic music department at WRGW. I dunno what it is about their sound, but I love it. I sincerely just wish that I had all my vinyl here in DC, but that wouldn’t have helped any yesterday.

The worst part of the night was when some drunken fool from Maryland snatched the microphone from Adam while he was giving a speech. After haranguing the dolt for a bit, we got the microphone back and I dropped Thievery’s “Assault on Babylon.” It was the perfect tune for that moment and the crowd liked it’s ragga overtones.

The best part of the night was the beautiful belly dancers. They definitely stole the show! There were at least a hundred people watching them dance. I took advantage of the captive audience and passed out every flyer I had. Afterwards, when I made my way to a house party to meet up with a friend (the same friend who said, “you are doing another green party thing again tonight?”), she was ecstatic about the fact that I had just missed the belly dancers performing at the house party. I slyly said to her, that she had missed the belly dancers at the block party. All I could do was laugh and think to myself “dam this is a small city.” All in all, the campaign events were fun this weekend and I hope we made some minute impact. I know I had fun at least.

*Well there was a slight problem at the last event when the police officer decided to pull the plug after the comedienne used the same cuss words our vice president used in a bit about him cussing

embedded hurricane reporters
|| 9/4/2004 || 11:06 pm || Comments Off on embedded hurricane reporters || ||

Its the war on nature.

Watch out for those strong winds of change!

The climate revolution will be televised….

MHz
|| 9/3/2004 || 9:10 pm || Comments Off on MHz || ||

I just got done watching MHz Network’s evening news. I must say that this is the best station for world news. Its puts the rest of American networks to shame- at 6pm you get BBC World News, followed by South Asia Newsline (in English), Today’s Asiavision (in English), Le Journal (in French with English subtitles), and Deutsche World’s Journal (in English). Watching the coverage from London, Paris, Tokyo & Berlin, it was amazing to see the lack of depth the American media has. If you have a chance watch MHz some evening on Comcast’s channel 4. A world perspective is so important!

I am rendering another image like the one above with a slight modification. It turns out that the full-size rendering of the image above has a slight error in the way the center lines up, but its not really that noticeable.

pearl earring
|| 9/2/2004 || 3:26 pm || Comments Off on pearl earring || ||

I am panicing about my money troubles- it sucks. I need to find work pronto! Ack!

Last night I watched Girl with a Pearl Earring. It was a cute film. Johannes Vermeer was one of my favorite Dutch painters. In my travels, I’ve seen 13 of his 39 paintings in Amsterdam, Paris, Madrid, and DC. I know my oldest sister probably has seen the movie. I am going to call her tonight and see if she saw it and if she liked it. Quite a few scenes looked just like some of his paintings and it made the movie seem like a Where’s Waldo of Vermeer, but I’m not sure if the director had some embedded paintings in the movie or not. Anyways, its a good movie to watch with someone you love. The plot isn’t too deep but I felt the photorealism was great. I enjoyed how the director accurately showed how life was in 1600s. I’ve been trying to look at those clues like that as of late. Basically, I realize how far we’ve come as a civilization and the degree of specialization that has taken place. I can’t help but wonder how people will survive if they were forced to live back then, or possibly in the future where energy is not plentiful and people are forced to farm themselves. I’d like to take up farming someday simply so that I can take that skill with me to the edges of the earth.

The two renderings are decent. I photoshopped an image of Manhattan (on the left), which makes an interesting looking inner eye. I am rendering another image of NYC, but without the inner lenz. It should be ready in about 4 hours or so. After that I’d like to render an image I snagged of a delta in the Netherlands (its beautiful!). I think the movie was the stimulus to make this next one. It should look nice. Hopefully I’ll have it rendered by tomorrow or so!

its starting to get B.A.D.
|| 9/1/2004 || 4:46 pm || Comments Off on its starting to get B.A.D. || ||

This rendering looks really nice. The only problem is that I accidentally rotated the torus 30 degrees, so the image looks slightly off kilter. Up next is the same inner satellite image with a lake for the torus. After that I’m going to photoshop another satellite image to change things up a bit!

Today I sent out faxes to all of the members of the Committee on Government Reform. We are scheduling meetings with congressmen and their staff to discuss Budget Autonomy for the District*. This is my first foray into lobbying but I’m excited about it. I hope the congressmen are receptive and we are able to schedule a lot meetings. If you are reading this, mark your calendars for October 1st so that you can take off work and come & meet up with fellow DC residents at the Capitol Hill South Metro stop at 9am. Its going to be fun. And to steal Move On’s tagline- it will truly be democracy in action.

*B.A.D. Day is October 1st ;-)

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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: