The Daily Render

A Digital Scrapbook for the Past, Present, and Future

The Pentagon Timelapse Animated GIF (2001-2005)
|| 9/1/2009 || 5:00 pm || + Render A Comment || ||

Still frame from The Pentagon Timelapse Animated GIF featuring USGS aerial photography from 2005
Click the image above to watch the animation

Last night I was going through one of my external hard drives and rediscovered a cache of “old” satellite imagery. I rarely publish any entries that use satellite imagery due to copyright issues because, generally speaking, the company that owns the satellite also owns all the pixels and this prevents me from legally creating derivative works. Today, however, I decided to test the boundaries with this legacy satellite imagery of the Pentagon and feel that this creation is protected under the fair use doctrine of US copyright law. You can always contact GeoEye if you are interested in purchasing satellite imagery from the IKONOS satellite.

The Animated GIF below features 9 frames consisting of 7 satellite images from the IKONOS Satellite (2001-2002) and two public domain aerial photographs from the USGS (2002 & 2005). It begins with satellite imagery taken four days before 9/11/01 and ends with a USGS aerial photograph taken in September 2005. The frames in between show the aftermath and the subsequent rebuilding of the Pentagon. I did my best to line up the building in my image editing program, but it’s not 100% perfect due to the angle in which some of the imagery was taken.

I have chosen to place the The Pentagon Timelapse Animated GIF “below the fold” so that visitors to the front page of this website are not downloading the somewhat large file. Please be patient while it downloads……

+ MORE

40 Random Banners Now Greet You
|| 8/31/2009 || 10:27 pm || 2 Comments Rendered || ||

A banner graphic featuring my name written using the Cyrillic alphabet over my map New York Public Library Quilt

New banner graphic featuring my name written using the Cyrillic alphabet over my map New York Public Library Quilt

The last time I added new banner graphics to this website was back in July of 2007 and since I’ve been updating the layout of this website lately, I decided to add some new banners into the mix. Earlier today a friend of mine who specializes in the Russian language responded to an e-mail I sent her about Google’s translation of my name. Her response indicated that the translation was infact an incorrect spelling and she offered a substitute spelling. I was then able to cut & paste the text and make six new banners that feature my name using the Cyrillic alphabet over the top of previously made maps on this website. In conjunction with the first batch of banner graphics that I made, there are now 40 different banner graphics that are randomly displayed each time a page on this blog is loaded.

Below are the rest of the new banner graphics hyperlinked to their original blog entries:

+ MORE

[Commissioned Map] National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden Quilt – Tessellation #4 / Drafts #7 & #8
|| 8/22/2009 || 7:12 pm || + Render A Comment || ||

:: Rendered at 900 x 600 ::
Sculpture Garden Quilt - Tessellation 4 featuring the Hexagon Quilt Projection by Nikolas Schiller

A few days ago I started on a new commissioned map of the Sculpture Garden at the National Gallery of Art on the National Mall in Washington, DC. The client made it somewhat easier for me because they were interested in either a Hexagon Quilt Projection map (above) or an Octagon Quilt Projection map (below). Unlike the previous two drafts, today’s drafts feature a far-away view of the area immediately around the Sculpture Garden.

View the Google Map of the Sculpture Garden at the National Gallery of Art

Please contact me if you would like to have a custom map designed for your home, office, or as a gift for someone special!

:: Rendered at 900 x 600 ::
Sculpture Garden Quilt - Tessellation 4 featuring the Octagon Quilt Projection by Nikolas Schiller

[Commissioned Map] National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden Quilt – Tessellation #3 / Drafts #5 & #6
|| 8/19/2009 || 6:42 pm || 1 Comment Rendered || ||

:: Rendered at 900 x 600 ::
Sculpture Garden Quilt - Tessellation 3 featuring the Hexagon Quilt Projection by Nikolas Schiller

The other day I started on a new commissioned map of the Sculpture Garden at the National Gallery of Art on the National Mall in Washington, DC. The client made it somewhat easier for me because they were interested in either a Hexagon Quilt Projection map (above) or an Octagon Quilt Projection map (below). Like the previous two drafts, today’s drafts feature a close-up view of the area around the Sculpture Garden.

View the Google Map of the Sculpture Garden at the National Gallery of Art

Please contact me if you would like to have a custom map designed for your home, office, or as a gift for someone special!

:: Rendered at 900 x 600 ::
Sculpture Garden Quilt - Tessellation 3 featuring the Octagon Quilt Projection by Nikolas Schiller

[Commissioned Map] National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden Quilt – Tessellation #2 / Drafts #3 & #4
|| 8/18/2009 || 2:35 pm || 2 Comments Rendered || ||

:: Rendered at 900 x 600 ::
Sculpture Garden Quilt - Tessellation 2 featuring the Hexagon Quilt Projection by Nikolas Schiller

Yesterday I started on a new commissioned map of the Sculpture Garden at the National Gallery of Art on the National Mall in Washington, DC. The client made it somewhat easier for me because they were interested in either a Hexagon Quilt Projection map (above) or an Octagon Quilt Projection map (below). Unlike yesterday’s two drafts, today’s drafts feature a close-up view of the area immediately around the Sculpture Garden. Tomorrow I plan on posting two more drafts featuring the close-up imagery…..

View the Google Map of the Sculpture Garden at the National Gallery of Art

Please contact me if you would like to have a custom map designed for your home, office, or as a gift for someone special!

:: Rendered at 900 x 600 ::
Sculpture Garden Quilt - Tessellation 2 featuring the Octagon Quilt Projection by Nikolas Schiller

[Commissioned Map] National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden Quilt – Tessellation #1 / Drafts #1 & #2
|| 8/17/2009 || 6:00 pm || 4 Comments Rendered || ||

:: Rendered at 900 x 600 ::
Sculpture Garden Quilt - Tessellation 1 featuring the Hexagon Quilt Projection by Nikolas Schiller

Today I started on a new commissioned map. The client desires a map of the Sculpture Garden at the National Gallery of Art on the National Mall in Washington, DC. Earlier this afternoon I e-mailed a series of eight draft maps so that they could select which one they liked best. The client made it somewhat easy for me because they were interested in either a Hexagon Quilt Projection map (above) or an Octagon Quilt Projection map (below). However, I made the choice somewhat more difficult by providing a map of the location at different spatial scales. The two drafts shown here reveal more of the area around the Sculpture Garden at the National Gallery of Art, while tomorrow’s drafts will show the area close up. Over the week I plan on posting the rest of these draft maps, and like my previous commissioned map, the final map of the series will be the one that gets printed out.

View the Google Map of the Sculpture Garden at the National Gallery of Art

Please contact me if you would like to have a custom map designed for your home, your office, or as a gift for someone special!

:: Rendered at 900 x 600 ::
Sculpture Garden Quilt - Tessellation 1 featuring the Octagon Quilt Projection by Nikolas Schiller

Revisiting the Dupont Lenz Quilt Animation
|| 7/17/2009 || 7:16 pm || + Render A Comment || ||

Embedded from Facebook

In August of 2007 I posted the Quicktime Movie of Dupont Lenz Quilt Animation on this blog. I had not joined YouTube yet, nor had I released the contents of this website to search engines, so only recently have I begun to port some of my animations to other websites. Today I decided to upload the animation to Facebook and to YouTube.

The animation uses same layout from my map “Dupont Circle Quilt 2005.” The 30 second animation features two 15 second segments of the same imagery shown from two different perspectives. The modified aerial photography of Dupont Circle in Washington, DC is magnified using transparent glass spheres to create unique cartographic perspective.

Related Animations:

+ MORE

[Closing Today] Photocartographies: Tattered Fragments of the Map
|| 7/3/2009 || 9:38 am || 2 Comments Rendered || ||

Photograph of “10 & 110 Quilt” and “5, 10, 60 & 101 Quilt” by Noah Beil

For the last month I’ve had two maps on display in Los Angeles at the exhibition Photocartographies: Tattered Fragments of the Map and today the exhibition closes. I wish I would have budgeted some money to attend the opening in May, but thankfully photographer and participating artist Noah Beil attended the opening and took some photos that I have republished here. Click on any of them to be see the rest of the photos from the exhibition.

A big thank you goes to curators Adam Katz and Brian Rosa for organizing the exhibition and for Noah Beil for letting me republish his photos here. The commemorative artwork and the book of essays from the exhibition are still available.

Metro Crash Quilt #2
|| 6/29/2009 || 2:23 pm || 1 Comment Rendered || ||

: rendered at 18,000 X 12,000 :
Metro Crash Quilt No.2 by Nikolas R. Schiller

Continuing on the theme of my last map, I decided to focus on the merging of the two Metro trains for this version. To create this map I first sampled a portion of Metro Crash Quilt, then I used that portion to create an intermediate map (that I chose to not publish), which I then sampled again to create this fractal Hexagon Quilt Projection map. This process of recursive sampling allowed me to focus more and more on the portion of the map where the two train merge together. The result is a weaved pattern of train tracks and merging Metro cars; a far more intricate map than my previous version. What is lost, however, is the area around the crash site and the crash site itself, in their place are more trains and more train track. I have sampled a portion of this map and am in the process of seeing what a third iteration will look like.

View the Google Map of the crash site in upper Northeast Washington, DC.

: detail :
A location somewhere within the map

View the rest of the map details:

+ MORE

Metro Crash Quilt
|| 6/27/2009 || 12:09 pm || + Render A Comment || ||

: rendered at 18,000 X 12,000 :
Metro Crash Quilt by Nikolas R. Schiller

As I stated before, I decided to make a map of the location of where the Metro crash took place. When preparing the imagery I did my best to include both the train and the exact site of the collision, but when it came to trying out different Quilt Projection designs, I found the Square Quilt Projection to have a very interesting line of symmetry– the Metro train itself.

While this map is derived from orthophotography, which essentially flattens out the terrain, the train’s laterally merging together on a line of symmetry creates a different viewing approach to the train. Since I cannot replicate the Metro train on top of another Metro train (nor would I really want to or even have access to the aerial photos of the crash itself), this line of symmetry approach offers a stylized (albeit sad) way to show the merger of two trains.

The aim of this map was to document the location of this tragedy, but I was able to add more than I expected to the final result; a simulated merger of two trains. Had there not been a random train passing through the area on that day in March of 2005, this map would be devoid of the subject of it’s creation and only show the location of the tragedy.

I am working on a second iteration of this map which should be ready shortly.

View the Google Map of the crash site in upper Northeast Washington, DC.

: detail of the crash site with two Metro trains merging together :
A location somewhere within the map

View the rest of the map details:

+ MORE

The Daily Render By

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

::LAST 51 POSTS::

Fair Use

52 queries. 0.630 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: