Archive for February, 2007
The Piri Reis Map from 16th-century
by admin on February 4th, 2007
The story of the Piri Reis map is the story of how a perfectly innocent 16th-century navigational chart can end up, through no fault of its own, at the centre of a crackpot theory about our planet’s ancient history.
Story about this map begins in 1929, when the new republican government of Turkey was converting the old Topkapi Palace in Istanbul into a museum. During the work, a map was discovered that was more than 400 years old but had been hitherto unknown. (That in itself is not necessarily surprising: maps of that era were state secrets.) The map was the western third of a portolan chart of the world, drawn on gazelle skin. It covered the Americas, the Atlantic Ocean, the Iberian peninsula and the western part of Africa. The rest of the chart, covering the Mediterranean Sea, Indian Ocean and Far East, is presumably lost forever.
read the rest of this story on original source page at map room
IRender: integrated renderer for SketchUp
by admin on February 2nd, 2007
Created by Render Plus, IRender uses the AccuRender rendering engine to create renderings. All IRender functions are available while running SketchUp, and all IRender settings are saved in your SketchUp model.
The user can go from SketchUp to a high-end rendering without having to add lights, glow, specular reflection, etc. in an external program. This means that when you change the
SketchUp model, you can render it again without having to define lights and materials a second time in a separate application.
IRender contains all the features you need for photorealistic renderings from you SketchUp model - lights, reflections, materials and more.
download it here
Call for Entries: Graphic Work: Imaging Today’s Labor Movement
by admin on February 1st, 2007
The American labor movement has an amazing history of graphic
production, creating some of the most effective political images in the
history of this country. However, work and workers, along with the
labor movement, are often depicted as experiences of the American past:
photographs of children in factories in the early 1900’s, paintings of
Joe Hill or Rosa Parks, historic strikes and Rosie the Riveter.
Now the labor movement needs new images of the issues confronting
workers today. We are asking innovative artists to create posters that
relate to today’s workers. Twenty-five posters will be chosen to
exhibit. Five designs will be selected for mass printing and
distribution in union halls, schools, and community centers around the
country.
more on call for entry page