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I Programmed A Robot To Draw Single Line Drawings With A Pen
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I Programmed A Robot To Draw Single Line Drawings With A Pen

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After seeing cool robots that can draw like e-David I wanted to try it out myself. Since I can not afford an industrial robot I bought a simple plotter that can hold a pen and started programming. Because the plotter can hold only a pen it can only draw lines with a constant width, so there is not a lot of variety… not a very promising start. But after some time I came to love the simplicity of a simple line and utilized it in the drawings. I shared my results with people and they liked it, some even asked me to make custom drawings for them.

Because it all started with a simple line I called my shop LinesLab.

Here is one of the styles I implemented. These drawings are made with one single line that goes around in a spiral. The line is drawn with black pen that makes very thin strokes.

My plotter needs about 30 minutes for the small drawings.

For the large drawing I used a Japanese brushing pen, that is very sensible and has to be moved mush slower. It took the plotter several hours to draw the large version of “The Great Wave off Kanagawa”. The small drawings are about 6×6 cm big, the biggest is 30×30 cm.

More info: Etsy

Emma Stone

The iconic dance scene from LaLa land

Ryan Gosling

Drawing of a panda

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Charlie Chaplin

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The Great Wave off Kanagawa as miniature drawing

Close up of The Great Wave off Kanagawa

Unbroken line portrait of Audrey Hepburn

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Miniature drawings as tribute to LaLa land. I used the very same pen as in the image

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cathybinder avatar
Cathy Binder
Community Member
6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

ok, this is officially the coolest thing i've seen all week, and that's including a drug dealing pigeon!

fabiolasanchezpintado avatar
Fabiola SANCHEZ PINTADO
Community Member
6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

love this because i can see how you've used creativity and thought about your idea

lizettewong avatar
sergejsto avatar
Community Member
6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Thanks! This particular style did not take too long, maybe three weekends. There is an optimization involved that makes the drawings as as similar as possible to the input images, so that part took a bit. But this does not include the time needed until I was able to control the plotter with my code.

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jacluckycat avatar
jacluckycat
Community Member
6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I can't even wrap my head around how one comes up with such an idea, nevermind implementing it. I'm amazed.

martinw avatar
Martin
Community Member
6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Very nice job, did you use an off the shelf plotter or build your own... any chance of showing us the machine!

sergejsto avatar
Community Member
6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

The small drawings of LaLa Land and Audrey Hepburn where made with a self made plotter. The Audrey Hepburn was actually the first drawing I made, you can see that it is not very precise. The newer drawings of the great wave and the panda are made with a plotter that I bought. I used Silhouette Cameo, which is not too expensive but has terrible software. I guess any hobby plotter would to a similar job.

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amazinghuman avatar
Mr.Fly
Community Member
6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I can't even write one line of code without messing up! Amazing! And all those waves, I wouldn't even be able to imagine something like this, let alone make one. :D

cathybinder avatar
Cathy Binder
Community Member
6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

ok, this is officially the coolest thing i've seen all week, and that's including a drug dealing pigeon!

fabiolasanchezpintado avatar
Fabiola SANCHEZ PINTADO
Community Member
6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

love this because i can see how you've used creativity and thought about your idea

lizettewong avatar
sergejsto avatar
Community Member
6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Thanks! This particular style did not take too long, maybe three weekends. There is an optimization involved that makes the drawings as as similar as possible to the input images, so that part took a bit. But this does not include the time needed until I was able to control the plotter with my code.

Load More Replies...
jacluckycat avatar
jacluckycat
Community Member
6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I can't even wrap my head around how one comes up with such an idea, nevermind implementing it. I'm amazed.

martinw avatar
Martin
Community Member
6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Very nice job, did you use an off the shelf plotter or build your own... any chance of showing us the machine!

sergejsto avatar
Community Member
6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

The small drawings of LaLa Land and Audrey Hepburn where made with a self made plotter. The Audrey Hepburn was actually the first drawing I made, you can see that it is not very precise. The newer drawings of the great wave and the panda are made with a plotter that I bought. I used Silhouette Cameo, which is not too expensive but has terrible software. I guess any hobby plotter would to a similar job.

Load More Replies...
amazinghuman avatar
Mr.Fly
Community Member
6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I can't even write one line of code without messing up! Amazing! And all those waves, I wouldn't even be able to imagine something like this, let alone make one. :D

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