Video mapping 2009 album
All mappings did in Brasil, in Niterói and Juiz de Fora.
Hosted by Visual Jockey Gold.
Videos on:
Explore Posterous
Search posterous
Search all posts and users. Type a name, type a favorite song title, whatever! See what comes up.
More posterous blogs
Here are posterous posts filed under mapping...
concept ui for the geo media mapping for conkertu
guessing that this is going to be a lot of experimentation.
the idea for the lightweight controls is to see the thumbnail of the last bit of media whatever it might be (combiview) in a flyout list along the bottom that the user either activates by clicking to unhide it or if they select any of the icons on the map itself. if they click on a thumbnail and it is an audioboo then the audio will play in the controller on the right handside of the slider with profile avatar and hyperlink back to the users profile on audioboo. the dropdown is for different event dates when the map starts to get busy. i'm guessing we will look at clustering when the map really starts to have a lot of content displayed all over it. we are hoping to have bambuser, youtube, audioboo and audioboo fully functional on the map before the 28th. i'm waiting for some t-mobile sims in the post so i can do some more geo media in the park. i'll probably head down tomorrow to get some done and get some exercise done at the same time maybe!
ooooohh, aaaaaahhh! APM
Battle of Branchage from seeper on Vimeo.
This blew my mind when I saw it. Thanks to Richard Perry for passing it along. A canvas like this is brimming with potential. Staring at the glasshouse, I can't help but think what a great canvas that would make. I have no idea what it would do to traffic patterns on Southfield Freeway, though. Enjoy.
Follow up: since posting this yesterday, I've developed a healthy obsession with these large-format projections. There are some more examples here on UrbanScreen's you tube channel. This is not the same group that put together the projection above, but there are some great examples there.
Lighting up neurons in the fly brain
This is one of my all time favorite image, so I guess it was only a matter of time that I pulled it out of my collection and posted it up here. To label these neurons with GFP, I used a genetic method called Mosaic Analysis with a Repressible Cell Marker (MARCM). This was followed by dissecting the brain out very carefully for immunlabeling the neuropile compartments (in red), and then scanning the specimen using confocal microscopy. The MARCM method allows us to conduct UAS/Gal4 mediated gene expression only in those neurons or cells that don't express a repressor called Gal80. In effect, it is a way to make genetic mosaics of the tubulin-Gal80 transgene. Actually, one of my original intent was to create MARCM strains to study neurons in the larval brain. For this, I made a strain containing hs-FLP; ChAT-Gal4, UAS-GFP; tub-Gal80, FRT(82B) transgenes and crossed it to another similar strain that lacked only the tub-Gal80 component. In the progeny from such a cross, I expected random lineages of neurons to lose tub-Gal80 transgene, due to perhaps leaky expression of the FLPase (recombinase) and thus allow GFP to be made freely in candidate cholinergic neurons. The strains I made turned out to be very useful for conducting a mapping exercise in the larval brain using the neuropile compartment framework. That work was published in 2006. While I was doing larval neuroanatomy work, one day I wondered how well ChAT-MARCM neurons in the adult brain express GFP. Right away it looked very promising indeed. The cool thing about my MARCM strain is that every brain one examines may potentially contain a random combination of neurons lit up with GFP. And light up they do, due to excellent GFP expression levels. Which is good news if you are a neuroanatomist. Anyhow, to cut the chase, I spotted this particular brain on that auspicious day, and it looked very interesting because of that large ~20 micron size interneuron, so I just had to go the whole distance and process it. For this image, I received an honorable mention in an international competition. I was mighty pleased! Here is another neat ChAT-MARCM example in the optic lobe.
Before I conclude this post, I would like to mention that the era to systematically reconstruct the entire fly brain at individual interneuron resolution is now very much here. Combining transgenic methods with digital reconstruction and visualization tools like the ones described by this Utah group and a group from Austria will expedite the process. Here is a group in Japan working on fly brain reconstructions. For me, I continue to be more interested in identifying functionally critical interneurons in the larval and adult fly brain through behavior screens.
Mapping yet another tortured river...the Mighty Bill Williams River, AZ
It is tortured river season in my office. Lately, I have been tackling Nevada's mighty Walker River and its shrinking terminal lake (new term is terminus lake...but that is a bit soft); and Oregon's Owyhee River and its travails with lava and landslides; but now I am back on to the Mighty Bill Williams River of Arizona. You know, the Bill Williams River.
Included below is a snippet of the map I am working on. Shown are 6 generations of lines that document major changes in the channel, most since a dam was finished in the late 60s. One day soon, this map will actually make sense, I promise.
The BWR is a special case. It is a roughly 35 mi stretch of river that traverses the hot desert below the confluence of two rivers that collectively drain more than 5000 square miles of western Arizona. Alamo Dam sits just below the confluence and traps essentially all of the sediment that would otherwise have gone down the BWR and to the Colorado River (well, at least to Lake Havasu). Also important to note is that the pre-dam BWR could attain peak discharges ranging up to 100,000 cfs, whereas the post-dam BWR can hardly exceed 7000 cfs owing to the outlet works of the dam. Thus, large runoff events that would have otherwise blasted through the system in a week or less (Spikes) are now converted to protracted, flat-topped hydrographs that lumber through the channel for up to several weeks to months (Bricks). Recall that these bricks are also sediment-free except for the sed picked up in the channel below the dam.
The result is an interesting experiment in channel change, sediment budgeting, and inadvertent (or otherwise) tamarisk farming.
I won't be posting daily updates of this map, so don't worry. Be assured, however, that I will make a lot of noise when I finally finish it. This one is a long, long, long, time coming. Just ask the sponsors.
Some other BWR info:
Holy crap, it's a map! Lower Walker River Map, October 28, 2009
Today, the preliminary map was finally finished. It will be delivered tonight or tomorrow AM. Too bad I can't take a break and bask in its preliminary glory.
Gotham City Sideways
Gotham City (or New Rotterdam for all you purists out there) is real. This is old news you know. Luckily, accompanying old news comes a new generation of comic book readers and creators willing to recreate their favorite dirty city. With each work of creativity regarding modern fictional comic book characters, a grand narrative is being raised slowly to life. Readers who are willing to subscribe to an alternate dimension where Gotham City is next door, or even home, get the benefit of seeing their own familiar city enshrined within the legends they enjoy. While Bruce Wayne certainly doesn’t exist, but the places, faces, and ideas sometimes do. This complex and interactive style of placemaking also may be further along than you might expect.
Look Familiar?
Image courtesy of The Paratime Index.
Did you know that some die hard comic book fanboys would argue that Gotham is actually an integration of New York City, Chicago, and New Jersey-ish Cities? The question then persists, where is Gotham City? Chris Nolan, the director of the latest installment of the Batman franchise, along with his cinematographer/director of photography Wally Pfister, believe that Gotham is located firmly in Chicago.
Look here for better context: http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/chi-dark-knight-location-map,0,3631449.mapmashup
Lower Wacker Drive, or that one, like, scene in the new Batman where the Joker, god rest his soul, is standing on his semi and blasting insane clown rockets at the Batmobile. The interest to me is the discourse and highly personalized narratives that are going on based on this imagined place. Similarly to the rationale behind China Mieville's latest book, City and the City. "Beszel, the imaginary metropolis that is the setting for China Miéville’s latest book, is much like many cities. Clinging to the edge of Europe, it has crime and traffic, and is grappling with the problems of globalization. Its inhabitants talk about Google and Starbucks. But it is also extraordinary...it is not one city but two, or rather it shares its space with another polity, Ul Qoma. The two cities overlap and interweave, but so sensitive and contentious is their Balkan history that the citizens of one cannot see the other. It is not literally invisible, but the inhabitants of the dual city are practiced in “unseeing”, conscious ignorance, a skill like the doublethink in George Orwell’s 1984." -Will Wiles, Spillway. So who is seeing the real Gotham CIty?
State of the lower Walker River Map, October 27, 2009
The current 'Dead Tree' version...damn it is small.
On Organizing Space - Both Physical and Virtual
How does the way we organize space influence the way we use technology?
In "Life on the Gridiron," a chapter in James Kunstler's book The Geography of Nowhere, the author criticizes how our space is organized. From the first settlements in The New World to the island of Manhattan, space has typically been organized into evenly divided squares or blocks. Kunstler is obviously disconcerted by this phenomenon. However, I don't see the problem with it. It seems logical to me, just as it probably did to those early settlers, who had lots of land that needed to be divvied up.
I am a very organized person, so straight roads lined with equal-sized plots of land is appealing to me. For example, take a look at this GoogleMap satellite view of Muncie:
And Muncie probably isn't even the best example of this type of division of space. Due to natural formations like the White River, some areas aren't as linearly divided as others.
While thinking about the organization of actual space, I realized that it is similar to how we organize virtual space, like our computer files.
Of course, there are three organization options - the list, columns, or (pictured above) icons. All three very linear and logically organized. So, it would seem that the way we organize the space we inhabit has influenced the way we construct technological, virtual space.
BUT the way we organize and interact with technology, specifically computers, is rapidly changing. Take a look at this video from the 2006 TED Talks:
The speaker is demonstrating what he says is a more "intuitive" way to interact with your computer. The multitouch technology allows users to manipulate objects on the screen without using a mouse. I found it interesting that he repeatedly said this state-of-the-art technology is intuitive. He said it wouldn't require a manual and "it is exactly what you would kind of expect, especially if you haven't interacted with a computer before." So, someone who has never encountered a computer could approach this technology and use it successfully with no help or training.
Now, I have messed around on the Microsoft Surface in Bracken Library, and it doesn't seem intuitive to me. It's fun, that's for sure, but I don't know that I could use it to it's full potential without some kind of training. But could that be because of the structured, linear way of organization that has been ingrained in me since childhood (from the numbered county road I lived on to the computers I used at school)?
Perhaps new technology will change that way we think about organizing our actual, physical space. Apparently, intuition trumps logic.
