Texas Bird's-Eye Views

The "Texas Bird's-Eye Views" is an exhibition from the Amon Carter Museum in Texas. It took place on February 18 - May 28, 2006. So, old news.. These bird's eye views prints were drawn in the 19th and early 20th centuries. It wasn't an easy process since there was nothing to based it on while on the ground. Basically, what the sites tells us is, to create the bird's eye view, the artist would draw from an idled hot air balloon in the air. These panoramic maps were usually over 3 feet wide. They usually were drawn by hand using a two point perspective, and later used these to make a three dimensional rendering. The exhibit presents many of these drawings. There is so much more details and additional information about the process under "Bird's-Eye Views: Brief History". It's actually an interesting material to read about.

These maps are all of Texas' towns. Galveston which is currently under Ike, is here also. The maps are categorized, so it should be easy for you to look up for a certain town. There are bios of eight artists. It is incredible knowing that they had to use special process to make these maps, without all the advantage that we have today. Furthermore, they had make them accurate.

Here the first map from the bottom is of Houston, and the one on the top is of Waco.

Texas Bird's-Eye Views
http://www.birdseyeviews.org/index.php