Category Archives: mapping

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Hole in History

  December 7, 2014 , , , , , ,

As you all may know, I am a part of a team of awesome SIFs who are working on an educational, innovative project. The project is aimed towards recreating an interactive virtual 3D model of the intersection of Decatur St. and Ivy St. (now Peachtree Center Ave.) in what it would have been like in the 1930s. Working on this project for the last semester has shed light in the fact that the project has taken a lot more time and energy than expected, while also hitting several bumps on the road. To me, that’s no problem as I know that all great masterpieces (not implying that our project will live up to the word “masterpiece”) take hard work, time, and dedication. Currently we have been at a standstill with the project because of one fact: there is a lack of pictures of the street during the 1930s. In order to resolve our problem, My job for the project was to search the internet inside and out for any pictures of buildings, preferably head-on shots, that would aid in recreating the building in a virtual 3D model as accurately as possible. Another SIF was setting up the 3D world in the game engine called Unity. As the search continued and the results were very disheartening and minimal, we decided to look to outside sources for help. One of our project supervisors heard that Emory was attempting to recreate the city of Atlanta into virtual 3D model in a similar project. … Continue reading

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Collaboration

  November 23, 2014 ,

http://blogs.esri.com/esri/esri-insider/2013/02/01/the-role-of-gis-in-sustainable-economies/ ESRI, Environmental Systems Research Institute, provides software and geographic data to understand and hopefully help solve problems through spatial analysis.  In the blog I have included above, ESRI discusses the role of GIS in creating sustainable systems- how the multifaceted issues facing the world globally and locally are best conceptualized through the use of GIS. “GIS gives us a lens to understand different objectives and create an environment for collaboration.” I think this quote explains why I was so interested in the SIF program. I have a background in GIS, and have seen first hand the ability of it to create collaborative projects and engage varying disciplines. Like GIS, CURVE and the SIF program brings together various interests and backgrounds to tackle innovative projects and help reimagine ones already conceived.  Although the research and visualization part of CURVE is important, without the collaboration part I don’t think much innovation would be possible . Nicole

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Archaeology and Cartography: Why Theory Matters

  November 17, 2014 , ,

Maps are graphic representations that facilitate a spatial understanding of things, concepts, conditions, processes, or events in the human world. [Harley and Woodward 1987:xvi, quoted in Crampton and Krygier 2005:17] Maps and archaeology have a long history. Heinrich Schliemann produced many maps and plans through the course of his excavations in what he deemed ancient Troy (Schliemann 1884). Spatial interpretation at all scales has long been part of the archaeological discourse (Ashmore, 2002; Ebert 2004). Ashmore (2002:1173) states “Myriad scholars, in the United States and elsewhere, have long sought to reconstruct social (or societal) organization from the archaeological record, as viewed through artifacts and features mapped across space (e.g., Chang 1958; Childe 1951; Fox 1932)”. Trends in archaeological cartography have followed those broader themes in archaeological theory as well as in cartographic, geographic and social theory. The “completion” of a map of Teotihuacan in 1970 (Millon 1970) after 8 years of work beginning in 1962(Millon 1964) is a great example of the state of spatial archaeology prior to the advent of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Technology. This project can be seen as a processual consumption of what Crampton and Krygier term “Scientific Cartography” (2005:20). That is, the use of techniques, method and theory for creating more accurate maps developed during and after the Second World War for the purposes of archaeological research. Million (1964, 1970) describes the project in detail, the methodology used and the attention to detail and accuracy by the project members in the creation of the map. … Continue reading

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Servers and SIF Longevity

  November 17, 2014 ,

This post will be a short update of some of the challenges I have run into with services available to students on campus in relation to servers and Esri’s ArcGIS. I’ve been working on two projects this semester which pair historical maps and planning documents for the city of Atlanta with present day data using Esri’s ArcGIS Online. One of the limitations of ArcGIS Online is that you are not able to host raster images on the Esri servers-you need to host them on your own servers. Server upkeep and support for ArcGIS was previously provided by a the technical advisor/GIS coordinator in the Department of Geosciences. For a number of reasons, this position is currently empty within department and, to my knowledge, there is no one at any level of campus providing the necessary support to GSU’s established GIS. Since the completion of these projects hinges on the ability to host this data and given the mission of CURVE for supporting the research and digital digital scholarship of students, I think it would be appropriate to explore possibilities of a server being available to students as a service of CURVE. This topic brings to light an interesting aspect of SIF that I had not previously considered–longevity:longevity in the sense that a project can continue once the current SIFs have graduated and moved on. To “continue” just doesn’t apply to a scenario where it has not yet been completed and the torch needs to be passed for the completion to be achieved-continue also means understanding how … Continue reading

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Oculus Rift — The Nausea Machine

  November 12, 2014 , ,

Hey Guys! Our Oculus Rift SDK2 kits are in! I spent a great deal of time with it over the weekend so I’d like to give a quick overview of what I’ve discovered: 1) It’s pretty difficult to setup. It took about 5 hours of fiddling with settings and looking online through forums to get this thing working properly–that being said–I was using my laptop and the SDK2 is not particularly fond of laptops with dual gpus like my own. Rather than use my Nvidia GPU, it will default to the integrated Intel GPU. This is a problem on their end. Regardless–I found a weird workaround to get this thing going! The downside is that I can’t mirror the goggle’s vision to my desktop–so you can’t see what someone is playing unfortunately until their dual GPU issue is fixed. Beyond that–learning the settings to adjust pupil distance, etc. is not particularly intuitive either, which is problematic because of the nausea that occurs if the settings aren’t tweaked properly. 2) Nausea, Nausea, and more Nausea. No matter how I tweak the goggle’s settings–some demos or games will consistently make me ill every time after about 5 minutes. Half-Life 2 is one of those games. Although it is stunning to explore–I get ill quite quickly and have to put the goggles down. I will continue to feel ill for about 15-20 minutes afterwards. It’s hard to pass it up though–nothing is quite as unnerving as walking up to a person in the … Continue reading