Smedresmania! » Design Tools

Woodcut Maps

Gabe — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 19:43:55 +0000

Handcrafted wood-inlay maps, designed by you: woodcutmaps.com. A new art+crafts+tech+maps business in the making with Catherine Herdlick, Katie Mordarski, and Pagoda Arts.

Gizmodo:

Maps can be beautiful things, that bring back memories, remind you of journeys, or just make you glad you live where you do. A company called Woodcut Maps now lets you preserve a Google Maps image in solid wood—and the results look gorgeous.

Boing Boing:

I really dig creative work that turns a sense of place into art. That’s why I’m really getting a kick out of woodcutmaps.com, which uses Google Maps to create really great geometric art—some clearly map-like, others much more abstract.

It all depends on what view of the map you choose to have turned into a woodcut. You can do a tight crop, or wide pull-out. Basically, you choose the view that matters to you. They make it art. Above is what my neighborhood in Minneapolis would look like as a woodcut.

Flowing Data:

Just choose the location you want via the Google Maps interface, pick what materials you want, and Woodcut Maps puts your map through the laser cutter and assembles and packs your map by hand. Great gift idea or a nice little something to set on your desk.

And #1 on Hacker News!

Mental Canvas

Gabe — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 01:21:37 +0000

A tool for conceptual architectural design and analysis. A collaborative project with faculty and graduate students at Yale School of Computer Science Graphics Lab. Presented at Pacific Graphics ’07.

The Mental Canvas: A Tool for Conceptual Architectural Design and Analysis by Julie Dorsey, Songhua Xu, Gabe Smedresman, Holly Rushmeier, and Leonard McMillan.

Simpleframe

Gabe — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 02:08:59 +0000

An evolutionary algorithm for generating load-bearing space frame geometries. The frames were evaluated with the FRAME static structural evaluation package, by Professor Henri Gavin at Duke University. Built using C++ and OpenGL.

Simpleframe Source

Project Seven

Gabe — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 01:24:46 +0000

Another attempt at an adaptive music engine based on live keyboard input. Records and replays sequences of notes based on pattern recognition of the history of played notes. The application was built in Max/MSP and javascript.

Max/MSP source

Project Five

Gabe — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 01:17:20 +0000

An evolutionary algorithm for generating airport terminal floor plans. Each design was evaluated with an agent-level crowd simulation. Built using C++ and the Windows GDI.

Download Paper

Project Binaries

Project Cell

Gabe — Wed, 23 Nov 2005 01:14:34 +0000

A script implementing a 3d Voronoi cell cutting algorithm to split an arbitrary shape into strikingly crystalline volumes. The algorithm is physically equivalent to filling a box with balloons, and then inflating all the balloons until all edges are tightly pressing against each other.

Voronoi Script

[update!] I wrote a version of this script for David Beil and Geoffrey Braiman at Georgia Tech that uses spheres instead of points, and incorporates the sizes of those spheres in the 3d voronization.

Red: unconstrained voronoi, where each sphere is of equal weight

Blue: constrained voronoi, where each sphere is weighted according to its size

Constrained Voronoi Script

A second version, downloadable below, includes a “cutoff” radius to improve speed. When considering a voronoi sphere, any sphere outside this radius is not used in the voronoi tesselation. Unpredictable results can result from using this version of the script.

Constrained Voronoi Script with Cutoff

Project Bubble

Gabe — Sat, 19 Nov 2005 01:08:31 +0000

This 2d physical study preceded the 3d version, proving that a physical simulation of balloons under pressure yields boundaries predicted by the Voronoi algorithm.

Project Bubble Applet

Julienne

Gabe — Mon, 07 Mar 2005 01:05:24 +0000

A WAV and MIDI sequencer specifically designed for projects in generative music composition, allowing sequencing of many models with similar instrumental material, which facilitates statistical analysis. Built using C++, Windows GDI, and DirectAudio.