A collection of photography and exploration focusing on Upstate South Carolina and beyond.
A couple of weeks ago this nice little letter from Paul Wickenseimer, Clerk of Court for Greenville County, arrived in my mailbox…
Yep, a jury summons. I was to start my round of civic duty April 4. I just completed it, and it was an interesting, yet unfulfilling experience.
I’ve discovered a treasure trove of 3D tools. Japanese developer Muttyan has put together HUGE collection of applications for viewing and creating stereoscopic images and videos. These include side-by-side stereographs as well as anaglyphs using a variety of color and polarizing schemes.
Online since 2003, the site design looks like it’s stuck in the 1990’s, but the content is current and comprehensive, and that’s what matters.
I first stumbled onto the site looking for a way to create 3D views of Google Earth. I had wondered if there was a way to create an off-set image that could be converted to anaglyphs. I found Muttyan’s Stereo Google Earth page, and started exploring.
This page uses two instances of the Google Earth plugin to present side-by-side images of chosen locations. I started with an overhead screen capture, such as this one of downtown Greenville…
Sometime last week the Greenville Cageliner had an article about a new website from the Greenville County GIS Office (http://gis.greenvillesc.gov/historicalimagery/). The website features historical aerial photography imagery as a map, similar to Google Earth. Images are available for 1955, 1965, 1979, 1989, 1997, and 2009, and cover the downtown area, along with a bit of the county. Also included is the Sanford Insurance Map of the city from 1920.
I could spend a HUGE amount of time exploring the site. Looking at how the city has changed over the decades has been fascinating, and somewhat depressing. The patterns of urban sprawl are quite clear at a distance, and it can be sad to look back on landmarks that are no longer there. On the other hand, there have been some marked improvements in areas such as along the banks of the Reedy River, and these images show that very clearly.
I started with the area around the old Furman campus. I had never really understood the location of the old bell tower in relation to the rest of the campus, but this imagery makes it very clear. (Click on the images for a larger view.)
Today marks the eighth year I’ve been blogging in some fashion or other. I never thought I’d keep at it for so long, but here were are in 2011 and I’m still writing. In 2003 blogs were fairly rare, and most people had never even heard the term. I had seen a couple of blogs, … Read More “Eight Years of Blogging” »