Category Archives: Software

AxiDraw and TouchDesigner

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We’ve noticed a few artists on twitter and instagram using TouchDesigner as a tool in their workflow toward creating output with AxiDraw.


David Braun has been posting beautiful, and sometimes mindbending artwork on twitter.


Chris Hall posted this piece using sound waves to create scenes.

Some like it plot . . . . . #inktober #axidraw #touchdesigner

A post shared by Hard Work Party (@hardworkparty) on


Noah Norman has been posting geometric plotting videos.

#axidraw #touchdesigner

A post shared by Matthew Ragan (@raganmd) on


Matthew Ragan has been taking advantage AxiDraw’s ability to draw on just about anything, and plotting over already printed materials. He also has published his tools on github for getting vectors out of TouchDesign. He describes it as:

A pipeline for handling the SOP to SVG pipeline. This is especially handy for using procedurally generated geometry for paths to be cut or plotted.

We’ve added a link to his repository on the AxiDraw documentation wiki. We love it when folks share their tools and would love to hear what tools and processes people are using or creating for working with our plotters.

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AYAB v0.90 is here!

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AYAB (all yarns are beautiful) Logo

The All Yarns Are Beautiful project has just released a new version of the AYAB software, v0.90!

It’s a bugfix-release, that means it fixes mostly known issues and no additional features are introduced. This is necessary to get more stability in the software and to have solid foundation for future developments.

If you’re using our AYAB Interface, we’d encourage you to upgrade. If you want to contribute to this project that brings new life to old Brother knitting machines, head over to the announcement to read more.

This entry was posted in Electronics, EMSL Projects, Software, Vintage Technology and tagged . Bookmark the Permalink.

Holiday Cards with AxiDraw

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Pitch Interactive, a data visualization studio, sent out “Happy Holidata” cards made using the AxiDraw.

This year’s card features a snowflake that uses two data points in its generation: how long we’ve known the recipient and the air quality where we’re sending the card. It is unique to the person we sent it to, and no two snowflakes are alike.

After getting some inspiration from dozens of photos of snowflakes, we brainstormed about the different types of symmetry and shapes that would make our design. We then generated the snowflake with a script that draws a certain number of radial spikes based on how long we’ve known the person we were sending them to. Other parameters for the generation rely on random numbers, ensuring that each generated snowflake was completely unique.

They’ve published the code on github, as well as a set of svg files.

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Hilbert Curve Cat

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Shy wrote in to tell us about a tool he created to generate Hilbert curves from images for plotting called Image2Hilbert. (Main GitHub project link, here: )

Shy says:

I added a calculation in the interface and this line is approximately 35.881 meters long and it took about 45 minutes to draw.

Thank you, Shy, for sharing this tool! We look forward to seeing what people make with it.

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Politicians To Poop: A Chrome extension

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Politicians To Poop

Politicians To Poop is a new extension for the Chrome web browser that replaces the names of presidential candidates (US, 2016) with the “pile-of-poo” emoji. Options allow you to “poopify” the names of Democrats, Republicans, or both.

Politicians To Poop is available now, for free, at the Chrome web store.

Screenshots:

Politicians To Poop

Politicians To Poop

Politicians To Poop

Applications:
Possible reasons that you might want to use this extension include:

  • You are from outside the US, and don’t need to hear these names every day.
  • You are temporarily overloaded by the amount of poop that the candidates sling at one another.
  • Because it is funny.

No judgement upon any of the named individuals, nor their platforms, parties, or beliefs is either implied or intended. This is intended to be an equal-opportunity text replacement tool, for the good of all humanity.

More information:
This project was inspired by Millennials to Snake People. Much more information including source code, the list of names, and additional attribution is available at our GitHub repository.

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Meggy Jr RGB + WaterColorBot

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Meggy Jr RGB controlling WaterColorBot

Our friend Schuyler hooked up our Meggy Jr RGB hand-held video game platform up to control the WaterColorBot. He wrote on twitter:

I got the @EMSL Meggy Jr RGB working with the @MakerSylvia WaterColorBot. My code is here. https://github.com/docprofsky/meggyjr-cncserver.

WaterColorBot art made using Meggy Jr RGB

The output looks great, too. Thanks for sharing your code, Schuyler!

This entry was posted in Art, CNC, Electronics, Microcontrollers, Software, WaterColorBot. Bookmark the Permalink.