We are moving paintmap blog to a new url: http://paintmap.blogspot.com.
Please update your links and bookmarks!.
May 16, 2009
November 24, 2008
How-to: Embedded Paintmap Maps
We are working to add more features to the Paintmap Maps for our artists and users, we also strive to make it even easier for non-programmers to embed maps into their webpages.
This is the basic code needed to get a Google Map running on your site (or blog!):
Let’s see how to change the size map and filter the paintings by author.
You can edit the value of: width=”450” and height=”250” to play with the map size.
To set the map center edit the string (lat, lng and zoom variables) and remove jaime (change to all) from your code to show all paintmap paintings or add your own user:
author=jaime&lat=34&lng=8&zoom=3
Some examples, show all artists:
All artists with a wide zoom:
If you have a blog, you can add your map in a new page or post thought the HTML editor (visual -> html) and using the same code.
Finally, if you need some coordinates you can use any simple geocoder as: http://gmaps-samples.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/geocoder/singlegeocode.html to get them and apply the zoom you need.
November 19, 2008
Google Earth, Maps and our new KML!
We Are Proud To Announce our new KML file: http://www.paintmap.com/paintmap.kml.
With this link your are going to be able to explore all paintmap contents through Google earth and Google Maps.
For Google Earth, you have to have installed the google app, its free, download it here: http://earth.google.com/. Then you only have to click here http://www.paintmap.com/paintmap.kml and select, open with Google earth to enjoy.
Note: The last Google Earth version has a bug (http://code.google.com/p/earth-issues/issues/detail?id=21#makechanges). If Google Earth is closed and kml file is being opened, Google Earth starts and loads all data properly. When “camera” is moved to another place data
should be refreshed but nothing happens (you have to update manually).
This new feature works with Google Maps, to see all paintings over the Google Maps interface only visit: Maps!.
In addition you can add paintmap onto your website, please, read our How-To here.
September 29, 2008
Important for newcomers!
In our blog section you will find a tutorial to start registering, uploading and managing your paintings Coming into Paintmap (I): registering and uploading images, (II) managing your paintings, published on May, 29, 2008. Please read these documents to see the basic steps of these processes.
Another important point to be taken into account is not to forget the double aim of Paintmap, both artistic and environmentalist. Some recommendations to make your posts coherent with this spirit can be read in the blog posts A plea for describing painting subjects, published on June 14, 2008 and Preserving the environmentalist spirit of Paintmap, published on July 28, 2008. Please read them and, if you consider opportune, we would be very pleased to have your opinion and suggestions about this community project.
August 26, 2008
500 paintings: time to take a breath and clarify some criteria
Paintmap has just reached 500 paintings distributed all around the world including the submarine environment. During this time, the Paintmap team was more concerned about solving technical problems and improving the site easy-of-use although always paying attention to the preservation of Paintmap’s spirit and goals.
In this context, we are sorry to feel obligated to discard some paintings because of the fact that they do not conform to our basic objective: the subject has to contain some message relative to some definite geographical point. The Paintmap team realizes that controlling this requirement is sometimes difficult or ambiguous and the contribution of the artist through his/her comments is then fundamental.
A nice example of this is the painting and the comment by Linda Brachach (http://www.paintmap.com/?item=631):
“These are some of my treasures that I left behind when I sold my cottage in Lanai City. I could not take them, but I wanted to remember them.”
This comment gives to the painting the information required to be considered a coherent contribution to Paintmap.
A purely conceptual painting, whatever its artistic value could be (the Paintmap team does not include art critic members) is outside the goals of Paintmap and we encourage conceptual artists to make use of the appropriate forums for their contributions.
Finally, we would like to note that some of the initial contributions to Paintmap could perhaps be considered of this nature because at that time we were observing the tendencies of people’s interest in Paintmap. After 500 paintings we have a more clear set of criteria to manage and decide about the adequacy of member’s contributions to preserve paintmap’s character but we will always be open to your comments and suggestions about this issue. Thanks!
August 8, 2008
New paintmap server. We move to Chigago, the greenest City for a Data Center.
This week, paintmap has moved all its services to a new dedicated server located in Chicago.
We have almost doubled the RAM, improved the drive arrays and got a CPU upgrade. Furthermore, we think the new location will be a good place to have a global coverage.
This way we hope to improve our visibility on search engines and give a better service to our American users.
Thank you for your patience.
August 4, 2008
NEW AND IMPORTANT: About paintings being moderated
As you have probably detected, after finishing the “beta” version we have considered that, in order to preserve Paintmap spirit (see our blog post, july, 28) moderating submitted paintings is a necessary step before these are definitively published.
One of the most common reasons to “freeze” a painting is the lack of a comment by the artist about its painting. In relation to this, we have to recall another blog post (June, 14, “A plea for describing painting subjects” ) including JoeKaz’s statement:
“It would be great if all artists added a description to their paintings - some do, but some do not. The subject may be very familiar to the artist, but not to someone else in the world. A short text saying what the painting is of, what landmark we are looking at, or some historic trivia, or anything that the artist thinks someone else would find interesting - this would add so much more value to PaintMap.”
We cannot, however, extend the strict application of this criterion of moderation to all the paintings of those artists who started to cooperate with Paintmap since its first beta launching. This is the reason why any of you can find some paintings published without the artist’s comment while you are being asked to add your comment before your work is published. Please, understand our position and goals whose only objective is improving Paintmap and making this a friendly and useful site for all painters concerned with the world around us.
July 28, 2008
Preserving the environmentalist spirit of Paintmap
Paintmap’s character and goals appear summarized in the frontal window of the site. Up to now, Paintmap’s collection includes some 350 paintings distributed all around the world and created following very different techniques and artistic styles, from figurative hyper-realistic to abstract. The basic premise was, however, always accomplished: that is, the subject can be related to some particular physical or environmental space. This is what characterizes Paintmap and makes it different from many other web sites where artists can show their creations.
Paintmap is in its first growing stage and it is now when deviations from its original character have to be careful controlled. The main problem appears to be related with the uploading of paintings that, because of their creativity origin, cannot be geo-positioned. It is important to note that this has nothing to do with the stylistic approach. A landscape can be expressed in many different ways; the important fact for Paintmap users is that they are faced up to some particular and geo-located piece of the environment (natural, urban, human…) through the creative approach of the artist. If the artistic work is of an exclusively conceptual character, it cannot serve the objectives of Paintmap independently of its artistic quality.
This is why the technical team of Paintmap has opened a way to moderate uploaded paintings. The process includes three possible actions:
(1) Geo-located paintings with a comment or, at least, a short sentence describing the subject: the painting is validated and published.
(2) Geo-located paintings without any kind of comment or with an inappropriate location: the author is requested to comment or to improve the map positioning before the work is definitively published.
(3) Non-geo-located, conceptual works whose subjects cannot be assigned to some particular geographical framework: sorry, but the painting will be considered unsuitable to Paintmap goals and its publication rejected. The same decision will be applied to paintings or comments including spam or promoting web sites of products.
The Paintmap Team apologize for the unavoidable implementation of this filtering process whose only objective is to preserve the spirit of the Paintmap project and to serve that parcel of artistic community concerned with the environment in a wide sense. We encourage other kind of artists to take advantage of the diversity of web spaces open to any kind of artistic production and acknowledge the interest they have shown in Paintmap.
June 27, 2008
Last improvements of Paintmap beta version
1. The management of “Friends” is fulfilled. You can build a list of “Friends” in “Your paintings, user” window together with your list of “Favorite places”.
2. The information about “Favorite places” is now public and can be examined from any user profile.
3. The user can now delete any of his own comments.
4. Problems with painting media “watercolor” and “digital art” are now eliminated. Please test or correct some of your information saying “not set”.
5. It is already possible to contact with any user through his personal file. Information about users remains confidential since no contact details arte provided. That information is protected against spam through our Catpcha (code of human control).
6. Several problems related with viewing paintings on the map have also been eliminated (particularly when surfing with a large scale zoom).
7. Some minor changes permit a better viewing of listings as well as to guarantee the compatibility with different browsers and OS.
In absence of relevant problems, with 300 paintings loaded and 60 registered users, many of them active Paintmap artists who have helped to depurate this first version, it seems to be the right moment to take out the beta stage and go ahead with a more stable site.
Thank you so much to all of you who help us with this startup!.
June 14, 2008
A plea for describing painting subjects
Because of its relevance, I would like to dedicate a specific post to a topic raised by JoeKaz in this blog (June, 13). Joe wrote:
“It would be great if all artists added a description to their paintings - some do, but some do not. The subject (bold cursive mine) may be very familiar to the artist, but not to someone else in the world. A short text saying what the painting is of, what landmark we are looking at, or some historic trivia, or anything that the artist thinks someone else would find interesting - this would add so much more value to PaintMap.”
And here was my answer (slightly improved):
“The comment by Joe is absolutely opportune. It is fundamental to the Paintmap goals that artists provide the kind of information mentioned by Joe. It would be also very nice that those users who have the ability to do it, go ahead from geography, ecology, history, etc and express their feelings about the subject painted or the painting experience. The posts by Sarah (e.g., http://www.paintmap.com/?item=359) are very nice examples of this ability. I realize that, personally, I lack Sarah’s ability to transmit painting feelings as she do so nicely, but many of you are surely able to go this step forward. In any case, we all should include at least some short site information that could not be derived from the map or from the pictures provided by Panoramio. This will without doubt be welcomed by Paintmap users.