Technical info on the pictures

DATA SOURCES

The information is gathered from the cited sources, on the Internet where possible, but more often (still) from books. The Statistical Abstract of the United States (annual) is central. Extremely interesting to data and history freaks is the two volume set published in 1976 by the U.S. government for the Amercian bicentennial called 'Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970.' These and many other publications can be found at the U.S. Goverment Printing Office. Fair warning: much useful and interesting government information on the Net is buried in unsexy gopher and ftp files.


CAD SOFTWARE

Once organized the data is used to dimension the elements of the sculpture in MiniCad 6.0. I cannot praise this affordable, capable and easy to learn CAD program enough. The saved wireframe image is exported as a .DXF file.


RENDERING

The .DXF file is imported to RayDream Designer, another inexpensive and capable program (with a slightly longer learning curve) for color, textures, shadows and whatever other effects seem desirable. The rendered image is saved as a Photoshop file.


PHOTOSHOP

For editing and touchup. Photoshop? What needs saying?


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