Recreate Amazing Images With StipleGen’s Stipple Diagrams #Eggbot

NewImage

StippleGen’s easy to use software generates high quality stipples for Eggbot via Windel at Evil Mad Scientist

One of the perennial problems that we have come across in a variety of contexts, including CNC artwork and producing artwork for the Egg-Bot, is the difficulty of creating good-quality toolpaths– i.e., vector artwork representing halftones –when starting from image files. One of the finest solutions that we’ve ever come across is Adrian Secord’s algorithm, which uses an iterative relaxation process to optimize a weighted Voronoi diagram, mathematically producing a set of points (stipples) that can closely approach the appearance of a traditional stipple drawing.

Another important technique is TSP art, where the image is represented by a single continuous path. You can generate a path like this by connecting all of the dots in a stipple diagram. Designing a route that visits each dot exactly once (and minimizing the distance travelled) is an example of the famous Travelling Salesman Problem (or just “TSP”), and an optimal TSP path can give a surprisingly good grayscale representation of an image. From the standpoint of toolpaths (for the Egg-bot and most other CNC machines), a TSP path is even nicer than stipples, because little or no time is spent raising and lowering the tool.

StippleGen is easy-to-use software that can generate TSP and stipple drawings from input images. It saves its files as editable, Eggbot-ready Inkscape SVG files, which can in turn be opened by other vector graphics programs, or re-saved as PDF files for use in other contexts. It can also generate a TSP path from the stippled image, and either save that path as an SVG file or simply use that path as the order of plotting for the stipple diagram.

You can read an extended introduction to StippleGen at Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories. An introduction to StippleGen version 2 is also available here.

It is worth pointing out, right up front, that our software does not fill a vacuum. StippleGen is not the first, fastest, or most accurate software yet developed to produce stipples or TSP paths. Rather, it is designed to be easy to install, easy to use, and easy to modify. It is capable of producing excellent quality output with up to 10,000 points, when speed is not a primary concern.

While Adrian Secord’s own stippling software is no longer available for download, there are a few other codebases worth of note. In particular, the weighted voronoi stippler at
saliences.com has a Windows executable, and runs as a command-line utility. And there are also a number of fast TSP solvers, including Concorde, which is available with a GUI for Windows.

Read More


Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards

Join Adafruit on Mastodon

Adafruit is on Mastodon, join in! adafruit.com/mastodon

Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.

Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.

Join us every Wednesday night at 8pm ET for Ask an Engineer!

Join over 36,000+ makers on Adafruit’s Discord channels and be part of the community! http://adafru.it/discord

CircuitPython – The easiest way to program microcontrollers – CircuitPython.org


Maker Business — “Packaging” chips in the US

Wearables — Enclosures help fight body humidity in costumes

Electronics — Transformers: More than meets the eye!

Python for Microcontrollers — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: Silicon Labs introduces CircuitPython support, and more! #CircuitPython #Python #micropython @ThePSF @Raspberry_Pi

Adafruit IoT Monthly — Guardian Robot, Weather-wise Umbrella Stand, and more!

Microsoft MakeCode — MakeCode Thank You!

EYE on NPI — Maxim’s Himalaya uSLIC Step-Down Power Module #EyeOnNPI @maximintegrated @digikey

New Products – Adafruit Industries – Makers, hackers, artists, designers and engineers! — #NewProds 7/19/23 Feat. Adafruit Matrix Portal S3 CircuitPython Powered Internet Display!

Get the only spam-free daily newsletter about wearables, running a "maker business", electronic tips and more! Subscribe at AdafruitDaily.com !



No Comments

No comments yet.

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.