Homepage
Site Update
This site is currently being transferred to a new host, and generally being improved and redeveloped. During this process various things might not work properly, please bear with me!
As of 28th September 2011 the status of the site is as follows:
- The biographical pages (“about me” etc.) are all OK, as are most of the other text-only pages
- There is a new home for drawshield! Please take a look at www.karlwilcox.com/drawshield. The site is not completely populated yet but has an exciting new look and features, with more to come. A new version of the drawshield code was recently uploaded.
- Parker’s Heraldic Dictionary (parker) is complete and should be fully functioning
- The contact page is working, although the formatting needs improvement.
- Everything else may or may not work, I’m working on it!
Welcome to the personal website of Karl R. Wilcox. I am a freelance lecturer in Computer Science, with interests in heraldry, 3D graphics, art, architecture and science fiction. You can find out more about me here, including a resume and services that I can provide.
This website hosts a number of projects and ideas that I’m working on. I hope you find something useful!
Drawshield
Drawshield is suite of open source programs to help with the understanding of heraldry, in particular, “blazonry”, the special language used to describe heraldic shields. Within the suite you will find interactive programs that teach the meaning of blazonry terms, games to match shields to their descriptions and tools for creating a shield by typing in a blazon.
The Drawshield Page contains links to all these programs, along with links to the program source (hosted on Google Code), detailed release notes and documentation and lots of other heraldry information.
Brickwork
This section, currently under construction, aims to increase awareness of brick work patterns in architecture. It will be home to my collection of photos entitled “Brickwork of Lincoln” and the place to find my interactive tool to create brickwork images for use in 3D or 2D graphics images. There is much more to brickwork than simply laying them end to end!
3D Graphics
I enjoy creating 3D images using low cost and free tools. In this section you will find examples of my rendered images and links to tutorials and other information. I especially like E-on Software’s Vue products for landscape visualisations, Sketchup for quick and simple buildings and objects; and the fantastic open source program Blender for almost everything else.
Other Stuff
I have wide ranging interests and some of my other stuff can be found here. It includes a standalone web page The news section is the place to find out what is new on the site. In particular you will find here notification of new versions of Drawshield and my other programs, and any new things added to the Other Stuff pages. Part of the reason to create this website is to keep my technical skills up to date. I have used many sources of help and information in this, the main ones I have listed in my acknowledgements page. I originally wrote my own, very simple Content Management System in PHP which used flat files – but this is no longer maintained. In late 2010 I transferred the whole site to WordPress and have produced some authoring guidelines to remind myself how it all works. In 1894 James Parker published his Glossary of Terms Used in Heraldry. This was made available in an online version by "Saitou" and Jim Trigg, which I have provided in an updated and easier to navigate version.
to assist with timing examinations, and information for my Open University students. Anything might appear here, so watch this space. New items will be announced in the blog!
News
About This Site
Heraldic Glossary