The Daily Render

A Digital Scrapbook for the Past, Present, and Future

Commission: Yankee Stadium Quilt
|| 12/19/2008 || 1:51 pm || Comments Off on Commission: Yankee Stadium Quilt || ||

: rendered at 9,000 X 6,000 :
Yankee Stadium by Nikolas R. Schiller

At the beginning of the week I received an inquiry about making this map. It’s intended to be a gift for the client’s friend who’s a big Yankees fan. I was unsure if I’d be able to obtain the newest imagery featuring the new Yankee stadium, but since the client felt the friend had spent more time in the old stadium, the newest of the imagery was not an issue. I went with .5 meters per pixel imagery from April, 2006. There was a second set of imagery of the area at lower spatial resolution, but I liked the coloring on this imagery better and went with it. This is my first map of the Bronx borough of New York City and for 2009 I am planning on mapping the rest of the boroughs.

Like my previous commission I was able to modify the source aerial photography so that the nearby outdoor track has been converted into a heart. I debated on modifing the coloration so that the pinkness of the heart (below) would be more pronounced, but I opted to follow my current style of non-modification. Yet this inclusion of the heart motif is something that I find to be an unique addition to my current map design. I am adjusting the imagery to not only create a geometrically perfect design, but literally adding a bit of love to it. An aerial landscape design of love, so to speak.

There is also a sense of transition in this map. By the varying degree of translational symmetry placed upon the the actual stadium, there appears to be an architectural metamorphosis taking place. Where the old stadium is becoming a new stadium. And some day in the future, when it’s time that I make the next map of Yankee Stadium, with newer contemporary imagery, it will be a new stadium. But will the heart (track) still be there in the future? Will development change the love of the geography? I don’t think so. Yet in making this map for the client, I’ve captured the love between two people (and probably thousands of others) that will never change.

Unlike my previous commissioned map, which was printed at 32″x48″ on stretched canvas, this Hexagon Quilt Project map will be printed a bit smaller at 10″x16″ on Hahnemuhle Fine Art Pearl paper. If you are interested in obtaining a custom map, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

View the Google Map of Yankee Stadium in the Bronx

: detail :
A heart created next to Yankee Stadium

View the rest of the details:

+ MORE

Newark Quilt #2
|| 12/13/2008 || 10:04 pm || Comments Off on Newark Quilt #2 || ||

: rendered at 18,000 X 12,000 :
Newark Quilt #2 by Nikolas R. Schiller

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

: detail :
A location somewhere within the map

View the rest of the details:

+ MORE

[Commission] Shirlington Quilt
|| 10/15/2008 || 6:16 pm || Comments Off on [Commission] Shirlington Quilt || ||

: rendered at 9,000 X 6,000 :
Shirlington Quilt

I’ve been working on this commissioned map for a few months now. It was originally going to be Paris, but we decided to it would be easier to make a map of their house. I spent some extra time transforming the nearby highway into a heart (below) to signify the love between the husband and wife. I think it looks beautiful :-) It will be placed in the client’s home, which is featured within the map.

View the Google Map of the Shirlington neighborhood of Arlington, Virginia.

: detail :

View the rest of the details:

+ MORE

Saint Paul Quilt
|| 9/29/2008 || 11:42 am || Comments Off on Saint Paul Quilt || ||

: rendered at 18,000 X 12,000 :
Saint Paul Quilt

It’s been quite a long time since I’ve made one of my signature quilt projection maps. On one hand I haven’t been inspired lately to make any new maps based on this technique. On the other hand, there are only a few American cities that I have yet to map, and Saint Paul, Minnesota was one of them. I was originally going to make this map during the Republican National Convention, but was sidetracked due to other work. Unlike the previous quilt projection maps that I have made most recently, which involved at least one recursive tessellation, this map employs the original style of my hexagon quilts.

This coming Saturday I will be in New York City for the New York Map Society’s monthly meeting. In preparation for my talk, I don’t expect to be blogging much this week because I intend on spending much of my spare time preparing my notes for the talk. If you are in New York, I hope you can make it!

View the Google Map of downtown Saint Paul, Minnesota.

: detail :

View the rest of the details:

+ MORE

A New & Arabesque Map of the Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden
|| 5/23/2008 || 10:43 am || Comments Off on A New & Arabesque Map of the Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden || ||

:: saved at 6,480 x 5,040 ::

To celebrate the new procedure I decided to get around to editing the Library of Congress‘ copy of Willem Janszoon Blaeu‘s Nova totius terrarum orbis geographica ac hydrographica tabula, which was published in Amsterdam in 1606. I removed the original map from the center and kept the decorative border similar to Nova et Accvratissima Totivs Terrarvm Orbis Tabvla, A New Map of the Terraqueous Globe : according to the the Ancient discoveries and most general Divisions of Geospatial Art, America as a Cloverleaf, and A New And Accurate Map of the World by John Speed. However, unlike the previous antique map mash-ups, which usually feature the earth laid out in two hemispheres, this map uses a rectangular space (Mercator?). The beauty of this open layout is that I can place any of my previously made maps inside of this 402-year-old template.

A common naming practice I’ve noticed in old map is the use of “New & Accurate” and since I like to play around with words, I changed Accurate to Arabesque to create a visual pun. The source map was about 6,500 pixels wide, I underlaid a rotated 9,000 x 6,000 copy of Hirshhorn Quilt to fit perfectly in the center of the new map. I think it would be fun to actually hand-color the engravings on this map to match other copies of this map which have the various figures colored in. The LOC’s copy is uncolored which means that its actually easier to add color to it than if it were already colored because pigment matching is not needed.

: detail of the planet Goddess Venus :

Across the top (left to right) you have the planet gods:

Luna guiding ships at night
Mercury holding his Caduceus
Venus with Cupid
Sol riding a Quadriga
Mars being lead by the dogs of war Phobos (Panic) and Deimos (Dread).
Jupiter with lightening bolts in his hands
Saturn holding a scythe

Drawn within each of these engravings are the signs of the Zodiac that the planets rule:

Moon rules Cancer
Mercury rules Gemini and Virgo
Venus rules Libra and Taurus
The Sun rules Leo
Mars rules Aries and Scorpio
Jupiter rules Sagittarius and Piscies
Saturn rules Aquarius and Capricorn

Below I dissect the rest of the border of the map:

+ MORE

Hirshhorn Quilt
|| 5/21/2008 || 10:22 am || Comments Off on Hirshhorn Quilt || ||

: rendered at 18,000 X 12,000 :
Hirshhorn Quilt

Following up on my new procedural idea from last week, I made this derivative map without publishing the intermediate maps. The unseen steps involve the rendering of a pre-Hirshhorn Quilt, sampling a portion of that quilt, and projecting the imagery again to create the map above. The result, as with all derivative maps, is a more symmetrical, arabesque map. This technique will be used again.

View the Google Map of the Hirshhorn Museum on the National Mall in Ward 2 of Washington, DC.

: detail :

View the rest of the details:

+ MORE

North End Quilt #2
|| 4/25/2008 || 8:26 am || Comments Off on North End Quilt #2 || ||

: rendered at 18,000 X 12,000 :
North End Quilt Quilt #2

Using this portion of North End Quilt, I constructed this derivative Hexagon Quilt Projection map of the area around North End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts.

After rendering the map, while I was processing it for on-line publication on this website, I noticed that the source tessellation was off by one pixel and subsequently, this map has a slight defect to it. This is not the first time this has happened, but it makes me disappointed because the map is not perfect like the rest.

View the Google Map of North End neighborhood in Boston.

: detail :

View the rest of the details:

+ MORE

North End Quilt
|| 4/22/2008 || 12:28 pm || Comments Off on North End Quilt || ||

: rendered at 18,000 X 12,000 :
North End Quilt

Continuing my series of maps of downtown Boston, Massachusetts, today’s map features the North End neighborhood. Settled in the 1630’s, it’s the oldest continuously inhabited portion of the city of Boston.

View the Google Map of North End neighborhood in Boston.

: detail :

View the rest of the details:

+ MORE

Saint Louis Quilt #5
|| 4/6/2008 || 11:48 am || Comments Off on Saint Louis Quilt #5 || ||

: rendered at 18,000 X 12,000 :
Saint Louis Quilt #5

This map of downtown Saint Louis, Missouri is the first to use imagery from 2006. I have now made maps of downtown Saint Louis that show the downtown area at three specific periods in time in the last 6 years. In the near future, I might made a montage of how the geography has changed using familiar portions of these maps. It think it would look very interesting. As I mentioned before, I like the way that I’ve been able to capture the Busch Stadium’s progression over time.

View the Google Map of downtown Saint Louis, Missouri.

View the rest of the details:

+ MORE

Vassar Quilt #2
|| 3/28/2008 || 3:28 pm || Comments Off on Vassar Quilt #2 || ||

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

Using this portion of Vassar Quilt, I made this derivative map of Vassar College. For more information about this imagery see my previous posting or read the metadata. There will be a third map in this series that is vastly different than the previous two. It should be on-line shortly.

View the Google Map of Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York.

View the rest of the details:

+ MORE

The Daily Render By

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

::LAST 51 POSTS::

Fair Use

48 queries. 1.597 seconds.
Powered by WordPress

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: