What would it look like if song lyrics were positioned and stretched on a timeline based on the audio’s timestamp and duration? I was curious, so I created a visualisation for a couple of songs to see what it looks like. Below is a simple example of the simple tune Daisy Bell , digitally recreated by a DECtalk Speech Synthesizer. Daisy Bell , written by Harry Dacre , recording by JapanYoshi ,…
I made a kaleidoscope! You can try it out for yourself by visiting this website . For best results, try it out on a phone or tablet so you can move around with the camera. The video below is a demonstration of what you can create with it. A montage of the kaleidoscope. Leif Gehrmann © 2024 (Not in the Creative Commons) Some more examples of the kaleidoscope in action. While creating the…
In early 2024 Apple Inc. entered the virtual reality headset market, releasing the Apple Vision Pro . In their marketing footage for the new headset Apple demonstrates one of its many features, viewing panoramas captured from an iPhone. Panoramas shot on an iPhone can be viewed through the Apple Vision Pro. Copyright Apple Inc., licensed for non-commercial editorial use only. [1] From the footage,…
I recently was looking through Wikipedia’s Early World Maps article, and stumbled upon the oldest surviving globe from 1492 called the Erdapfel , German for ‘Earth Apple’. The globe was produced by German merchant and cartographer Martin Behaim, compiling knowledge of the world from various explorers and geographers. Martin Behaim's Erdapfel © 2019 Germanisches Nationalmuseum, CC BY-SA-4.0,…
Scottish independence has been in the news for a while, especially given the escalating conflict and tension between Holyrood and Westminster Parliaments. Several writers, pundits, and politicians have written hundreds of articles for-and-against independence, and it’ll probably stay that way for years to come. Every [1] now [2] and [3] then, [4] some writer will bring up the old tale called…
In June 2021, the LEGO Group released 31203 World Map , a giant 65cm×104cm mosaic consisting of 1×1 round tiles. LEGO has been creating these mosaic sets for a while now, but usually they’ve just been pop-culture mosaics . So I was very happy to finally see a set related to maps, especially something so visually stunning! I recommend reading the review on brickset.com for more information. Below…
Airplane window seats are great! Not only are they more comfy and easier to take a nap in, but they also have the most quaint form of in-flight entertainment: The outside world! But other than taking a few photos of holiday mementos and lens-flaring sunsets, what’s the point? Well, I’m here to prove that you can recycle your photos into something vaguely cool using photogrammetry . For example,…
One of my favourite TV shows that I watched last year was The Good Place , an NBC fantasy comedy about the afterlife and moral philosophy. The show takes place in “Neighborhood 12358W”, a small town within “The Good Place”, that is meant to be a heaven-like utopia for 322 residents who recently passed away on Earth and were sent to The Good Place for being good people. The neighborhood was created…
The Union Canal is a canal in Scotland that goes from the Falkirk Wheel all the way to the centre of Edinburgh. The canal terminates at Edinburgh Quay, less than a kilometre away from Edinburgh Castle. These days the canal itself is only used for leisure activities such narrowboats, rowing, and canoes. But the canal also comes with other benefits, such as a towpath that has been converted to a…
I saw this YouTube video a while ago about China’s obfuscated datum called GCJ-02 . But I was still curious what the distortion actually looks like overall. I could only find one result on the web , but was not satisfied. After discovering someone has made a nice python library for this called eviltransform , I quickly put together this script that will render the displacement across China. See…
In one corner of The Meadows , one of the large public parks in Edinburgh, stands a sundial pillar. Four metres tall and constructed from various blocks of sandstone, the pillar is inscribed on each side with 8 sayings relating to the passage of time, such as “Well-arranged time is the surest sign of a well-arranged mind”, and “Take heed of time before your time is taken”. Funnily enough the theme…
Lately I needed the ability to create a font from an existing set of SVG files that I created in Sketch . I’m not a professional font creator, but I’ve figured out an automated workflow works that works best for me. My workflow is as follows: Export the SVGs from Sketch Convert the SVG’s strokes to paths (Using Inkscape ) Import SVGs into FontForge Export as a TrueType Font (TTF) 1. Exporting the…
I’ve been living in Edinburgh for a number of years now, but only recently discovered the National Cycle Network’s Millennium Mileposts . Some background first – Sustrans, a charity organisation for sustainable transportation, started in 1975 as a volunteer organisation to create and improve cycle routes all across the United Kingdom. This resulted in what is now called the National Cycle Network.…