Geometry-based settings

HenrySkup commented 3 years ago

I was wondering if it would be possible to "pull out" machine settings on a geometry / layer level. Something similar to AxiDraw's Layer Control. If the interface is predictable, then it could be some pretty powerful functionality.

Use cases: you are creating an SVG of hash lines each line you want to set to a different pen speed (would get different ink bleeding)

nornagon commented 3 years ago

To clarify—are you suggesting specifying the machine settings in the SVG? Perhaps something like this?

<path saxi:speed="100" d="..." />
<path saxi:speed="150" d="..." />
<!-- ... -->

HenrySkup commented 3 years ago

yes, something like that for sure. 👍

Sorry for the long read, but just wanted to get some thoughts down:

seems like Layer Control allows for control over :

'pen-down-speed'
'pen-down-height'
'delay-before-pen-down'
'do-not-plot'
'pause-for-button-press'

This could be expanded, of course, these things come to mind :

other settings which might be useful:
- 'delay-after-pen-down'
- 'delay-before-pen-up'
- 'delay-after-pen-up'
- 'pen-down-height'
- 'pen-up-height'
- 'curve-resolution'
- 'pen-up-speed'
- 'pen-lower-speed'
- 'pen-raise-speed'
change plotter state (nodecount, other settings)
you could imagine triggering all sorts of actions/settings at certain geometries or (even vertex points along paths)
- UI prompts (perhaps message with the 'pause-for-button-press')
- make EBB commands (activate other pins)

Two things about the Layer Control implementation which seem sub-optimal :

Applicable Elements

It only works fo and not geometry elements -- your suggestion above (along with the ability to mark up svg container elements) is what i was thinking

Inheritance

The "inheritance" model doesn't seem supper intuitive. Right now there is no inheritance, i would think that something more DOM/CSS like would make more sense for people.

My suggestion

There would be "root" level settings that could be overridden at a container or geometry level. Some settings would be inherited, others (ex. 'pause-for-button-press') would not.

It could be interesting to also have the option to do something like

<saxi:settings>
    <saxt:preset name="fast" saxi:speed="200" ... /> 
    <saxt:rule for="circle" saxi:resolution="0.8" ... /> 
</saxi:settings>

<!-- ... -->
<path saxi:preset="fast" d="..." />
<path saxi:speed="150" d="..." />
<circle ... />
<!-- ... -->

or even

<saxi:settings>
    .fast {
        speed : 200;
    }
    circle {
        resolution : 0.8;
    }
    .slow circle {
        resolution : 0.9;
    }
</saxi:settings>

<!-- ... -->
<path class="fast" d="..." />
<path saxi:speed="150" d="..." />
<circle ... />
<g class="slow">
    <circle ... />
</g>
<!-- ... -->

I don't know if this is "reinventing" CSS, but it would allow for specifying settings across the hierarchical inheritance. Though I can imagine that it could complicate things?

nornagon / saxi