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jeffeb3 / sandify

web based user interface to create patterns that could be useful for robots that draw in sand with ball bearings.
MIT License
187 stars 34 forks source link

pen plotting advances #198

Open jeffeb3 opened 3 years ago

jeffeb3 commented 3 years ago

I appreciate that this is mainly for sand machines, but I wonder how useful this would be with a few improvements for pen plotting.

Just adding lifting/dropping gcode (between patterns and at limits) would be pretty cool. But what about splitting patterns up into different color pens?

https://twitter.com/v3ga/status/1354102588787011585?s=09

20210126_103700

I am just not sure how best to add in these components, while keeping the simple creation aspect for sand tables.

ilikecheese commented 3 years ago

I just made a pen plotter and love using Sandify! For the pen users, how about a few simple ;Start Perimeter and ;End Perimeter comments around perimeter moves. I was thinking this wouldn't be too difficult to implement, and then it's a simple copy/paste for the pen users.

jeffeb3 commented 3 years ago

Thank you for sharing. I appreciate the pen users too.

The structure of the code doesn't work well for just adding those comments. Mostly because the concept of "on a perimeter" is lost before we decide to output in gcode or thr.

I want to have a more clever vertex type, that either includes what kind of point it is, or maybe split them into groups and have the groups have that attribute. Then we can do penup or pendown gcode snippets when changing types or just skip the perimeter moves altogether.

ilikecheese commented 3 years ago

I'm digging into the code and trying to follow along. Would you do that when the mask clips the shape (Machine.js), or where do you see that happening?

bw4257 commented 1 year ago

I use sandify, with a wall hanging pen plotter, all the time. It's a really fun activity for the kids. Has there been any more thoughts about adding a "pen lift" feature? The ability to insert some gcode between layers, similar to the "program start code" and "program end code" when exporting could work for pen lifts, color changes, etc.

Thanks for developing this software, it's so fun and amazing!

jeffeb3 commented 1 year ago

I would love to at least be able to add gcode between patterns. I am currently working on some other stuff with Bob. But it will eventually happen, just not ready to promise when.