LiDAR as Rock Star?

The rock band Radiohead has released a new "video" made without video. The optical portion of the "House of Cards" single was created using two laser-scanning technologies. One for close-ups of the band and another, a more traditional-feeling LiDAR, for landscapes.

The band partnered with Google for the release and has included data set downloads to allow fans to remix the spatial data themselves.

This has been making something of a splash among the geo-bloggers and music press alike. At least one geo-blogger has some screenshots of playing with the singer's head.

This may be the start of Music Video for the Nation.

(NOTE: The final sentence of this post is a gentle form of self-parody. No offense was intended; none was taken.)

Update on the Scribbled ZIP Map

We noted with some aesthetic pleasure last year the "ZIPScribble" map created by Robert Kosara. Now we find further joy in a Google Earth visualization of that scribble that an enterprising KMLer has created. In fact, said KML jockey -- James of barnabu.co in the UK -- has made an animated KML ZIPScribble that, well, scribbles the ZIPs!

I'm not sure what this means for the NSDI, but it is fun. (And found via Google Earth Blog)

Looking Ahead to Madison

State Street Madison
Originally uploaded by puroticorico.

While most of our focus is, appropriately, on the NSGIC Mid-Year Meeting at Annapolis in just under a month, here's a chance for a brief look ahead to the 2007 NSGIC Annual Conference in Madison, Wisconsin.

The FlickrBlog this morning includes an entry on the most active city-focused groups of photographers on the photo-sharing site. Madison's group is right up there near the top of the list.

With a population of just 221,551 (only the 83rd largest city in America), the Madison, Wisconsin Flickr group has 473 members (or one member for every 468 citizens).

So, those thinking about attending the Annual Conference (and you should) can get a preview of the views to be seen around the conference site.

This also raises the question of NSGIC shutterbugs. I'm known as a picture-snapper at conferences, and there are others who help take photos to record our gatherings. We can always use more, though. Are you an amateur photographer as well as a GIS pro? We might need your help.

Let Us Not Forget the Art Inherent in Geospatial Data

The image above is taken from Robert Kosara's EagerEyes site. He is experimenting with what I think of as functional visualizations of data sets.

In this case, he's connected all US ZIP Code centroids in ascending order to create a "ZIPScribble" map. He's also calculated a version of shortest path among all those points to create what he calls a "Traveling Presidential Candidate Map."

I'm not sure we'd call this GIS, but it is an interesting new way to see a data set we've all worked with in more prosaic applications. (VIA URBAN CARTOGRAPHY)