November 30, 2010 6:32 PM
by CmdrTaco
Google Earth Adds 3-D Trees
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Art Trembanis
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware
http://cshel.geology.udel.edu
Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware
http://cshel.geology.udel.edu
Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware
http://cshel.geology.udel.edu
Most people probably think of William Blake (November 28, 1757 - August 12, 1827) as a slightly whack-a-doodle British poet and painter. But he was so much more than that. He was a slightly whack-a-doodle British craftsman, inventor, engraver, printer, and self-publisher, among many other things.
Blake believed that every human being had a "poetic genius" within them, something that was systematically destroyed by the single-minded needs of institutions, such as the State and the Church (think: drones in a hive). He was certainly a living embodiment of what could happen if you fought against some of this institutional indoctrination and unleashed some of that creative potential. Although he was basically laughed at during his lifetime, sold next to nothing of his artistic work, and he and his wife barely ate and kept a roof over their heads, he remained incredibly prolific, literally working until the day he died. He invented a number of new art techniques, such as illuminated printing (a kind of freeform engraving which allowed the artist to paint resist media directly onto copper plates) and a form of fresco painting (a failed experiment in bringing a fresco technique to conventional painting using tempera paints mixed with carpenter's glue).
Blake came of age during an exciting, tumultuous time (see: American and French revolutions) and at a time when an expanding trade-class was on the rise in Britain. Blake was trained as a traditional engraver and was a printer, and throughout his life, he remained very proud of his tradecraft and always saw himself as a tradesman. It was also a time in which art in Britain was expanding beyond the academy and the collections of the wealthy. Artists, such as water colorists, fed up with lack of respect and support for their media, began their own art societies and mounted their own shows. The only show that Blake ever did, in 1809, was a solo one, held in a bedroom above his brother's hosiery shop in Soho (the home in which Blake was born). The fact that he addressed his books and catalogs "To The Public" and "For Public Inspection" was quite a revolutionary gesture at a time in which only the aristocracy was supposed to understand or care about art.
To those who don't spend a lot of time teasing out the deeper meanings in Blake's work, much of it can come off as "distempered" (to quote the only review of his show), apocalyptic, impenetrable, and just plain nutso. He was certainly an intense and complex character who felt an urgency to alert the world to a discovery he thought he'd made: The limitless potential of the human imagination to render the world paradisaical (and the risk that the scientific and industrial revolution might kill a lot of that potential). An overly simplistic and romantic notion perhaps, but certainly a thought, a dream, that remains as relevant today as it did at the turn of the 19th century.
"The Foundation of Empire is Art & Science Remove them or Degrade them & the Empire is No More -- Empire follows Art & Not Vice Versa as Englishmen suppose." -- Wm. Blake
More:
See my article on William Blake from MAKE Volume 17, in the digital edition
Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware
http://cshel.geology.udel.edu
This amazing artwork, by Jason de Caires Taylor, has been making the viral socmedia rounds. Taylor casts life-size cement sculptures of people, animals, furniture, and then submerges them off the coast of South America. Hauntingly beautiful. Imagine scuba diving and coming upon a guy typing at a desk. Awesome. [Thanks, Fran!]
Read the Full Story » | More on MAKE » | Comments » | Read more articles in Arts | Digg this!Read more of this story at Slashdot.
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2010/20101102_grants.html
Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware
http://cshel.geology.udel.edu
Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware
http://cshel.geology.udel.edu
Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware
http://cshel.geology.udel.edu
Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware
http://cshel.geology.udel.edu
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware
http://cshel.geology.udel.edu
Chris Yates' puzzle entitled "Depths" uses 407 pieces, built up in layers to fill the pond-like base. Many more photos illuminate his build process over on Flickr.
Read the Full Story » | More on MAKE » | Comments » | Read more articles in DIY Projects | Digg this!
Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware
http://cshel.geology.udel.edu
I tinkered around with a demo copy of the 3DVista Stitcher and 3DVista Show 3.0 to push its capabilities a tad. I touched on the packages in a previous blog post about the Global Visualization Lab where I did a simple panorama of the room. The wheels started turning and we decided to push the envelope a little and create a series of panoramic views of the RV Hugh R Sharp as a proof of concept for an online virtual tour of a research vessel.
The image above is a screen shot of the proof-of-concept panoramic tour we came up with. Click the image above or this hyperlink to visit the actual panoramic tour. The pane on the left shows an interactive panorama of the various points of interest on the ship. The right-hand pane shows a scan of the deck and compartment that the panorama represents. If there is no user action, the tour will cycle through a complete 360 view of each panorama and will move onto the next panorama in the list if nothing is clicked. There are two drop-d0wns to the right, one above the deck layout to select a specific panorama and one below it to select a specific panorama.
A really cool feature of the product is the ability to take the panorama full-screen for a more immersive experience. To do so, just click on the arrow button in the top-right-hand corner next to the question mark symbol. Once in full-screen mode, you can easily cycle through the various pano's by mousing over them near the bottom of the screen.
The 3DVista Show software allows you to insert hot-spots into the panorama's as well that can either link to other pages/sites or to include an audio clip into the mix. This makes it quite easy to include additional information about a specific area or feature. I inserted an animated arrow pointing to the Multibeam Operator Station on the Main Deck -> Multibeam Tech Area that links out to the Reson Seabat 8101 Multibeam Echosounder posting.
The mind races with the various uses for this type of technology. It allows for mobility impaired individuals and class groups to tour a space that they'd ordinarily be unable to access. It also allows scientists to "look around" and get a feel for the spaces that they'd be using when they come onboard a vessel. For future a project, I'd like to get support do some panorama's both inside and outside of the various UNOLS lab vans that would allow scientists to virtually stand in the lab vans and walk around them to see how they're laid out. 3D panorama's of research sites in remote locations like the arctic and antarctic also come to mind as does tours of mineral sample and other collections with hotspots included for the various specimens for links to additional information. The application of this tech abounds.
I talked with the folks at 3DVista and it looks like they offer a 15% academic discount for the software so be sure to ask about if if you're going to purchase it. They also list a one-shot 360 degree pano lens and adapters to make shooting the digital pics a little easier. We used a 180 degree fish-eye lens for our pano shots, which means we did 3 shots at each location 120 degrees off from one-another and stitched them together with the 3DVista Stitcher program.
Many thanks to Lisa Tossey for taking the photos and getting this project rolling. I posted this as an unpolished proof-of-concept version. I look for the ready-for-prime-time panorama that she comes up with for the CEOE site. I also look forward to seeing any cool panoramas that are out there for research projects. Be sure to share your links.
From Google Earth
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GoogleEarthBlog/~3/Bmp6zQkWUUY/google_updates_the_photos_layer_to.html
Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware
http://cshel.geology.udel.edu
Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware
http://cshel.geology.udel.edu
Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware
http://cshel.geology.udel.edu
Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware
http://cshel.geology.udel.edu
A guest post - Solving a problem with Open Source Hardware by David Carrier (Parallax)...
I recently listened to a Freakonomics podcast that talked about using contests to promote innovation, in this case the efforts of the X Prize foundation. If you listen to the podcast, at 18:15 they mention the significant effort that people put into the contests. Some lost their fortunes, their homes, and their personal relationships in an attempt to win. I see it as somewhat of a moral dilemma, because despite the costs, the benefits of the contest on the community far outweigh the accumulative costs to all the participants. One downside of many contests though, is that often only the work of the winner benefits the community. Everyone else's work is just a less successful attempt to do the same thing.Read the Full Story » | More on MAKE » | Comments » | Read more articles in Open source hardware | Digg this!
As evidence, nothing beats one's own senses: I'll have to see that for myself. But some experiments are too expensive, too time-consuming, or too dangerous for most folks to reproduce on their own, and for these, well, the next best thing is video. And the tubes are rich with great footage of phenomena that have to be seen to be believed. Here's a sampling of some of the gems we've covered, over the years, to get you started.
Mercury "beating heart" demo video
Nitroglycerine detonation at 1/600 speed
Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware
http://cshel.geology.udel.edu
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/07/business/07novel.html?_r=1
Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware
http://cshel.geology.udel.edu
Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware
http://cshel.geology.udel.edu
Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware
http://cshel.geology.udel.edu
Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware
http://cshel.geology.udel.edu
Art Trembanis
CSHEL
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Delaware
http://cshel.geology.udel.edu