Resources for my Virtual CC Fest 2022 session (Generate SVG for Pen Plotters using Python)
Here are the session slides and session recording: slides.pdf and recording.mp4
Here are the files for each task:
Task 1: SVG concepts -- 01-svg_concepts.svg
Task 2: py5 SVG -- 02-py5_svg.py
Task 3: Blender SVG -- 03-blender_svg.py
Task 4: Codeless SVG -- 04-codeless_svg.md
"py5 is a new version of Processing for Python 3.8+. It makes the Java Processing jars available to the CPython interpreter using JPype. It can do just about everything Processing can do, except with Python instead of Java code."
The Processing forum is also great for help with anything Processing + Python related.
A handy (but hardly complete) list of useful software for working with plotter art files:
- Beardicus' Awesome Plotters list -- a curated list of code and resources for computer-controlled drawing machines and other visual art robots
- Msurguy's 3d-engines-for-plotters list -- links to awesome 3D SVG exporters
- occult -- vpype plug-in to remove lines occulted by polygons from SVG files
- plotter.vision -- upload 3D STL files, interactively position them, then render them as SVG
- Processing Geometry Suite -- a software project that provides easy access to 2D geometric algorithms in the form of a Processing library
- UJI -- a minimalist generative art thing; press the buttons and play with the sliders
- vpype -- the Swiss-Army-knife command-line tool for plotter vector graphics
- vsketch -- a Python generative art toolkit for plotters
I recommend exploring drawingbots.net, which is on a mission "to become the central place on the web to discover the world of drawing robots, get inspiration, and talk to other drawing robot enthusiasts."
A few (of the many) artists creating inspiring plotter art --
Antoine Beyeler · Binaura · Gábor Ugray · Iskra Velitchkova · Jakob Glock · Julien Espagnon · Julien Gachadoat · Matthis Grunsky · Michael Fogleman · Sean Puckett · Sohan Murthy · thedotisblack
The Anne and Michael Spalter Digital Art Collection includes plotter artwork from several groundbreaking artists (Vera Molnar, Frieder Nake, Georg Nees, ...)
Also, check Twitter for #plottertwitter, #py5, and #generativeart + #blender.
Other useful plotter and Python creative coding resources:
-
Villares' comprehensive list of resources for teaching programming for artists, designers, and architects
-
PlotterFiles hosts free SVG files for plotters and drawing robots
Learn Python Visually is a book based on Processing.py, but it should be relatively straight-forward adapting the content for py5. Everything camelCase switches to snake_case -- so, colorMode() becomes color_mode(), and so forth. I plan hope to adapt the book for py5 in 2022.
- Learn Python Visually GitHub repository for the book's official resources and code, as well as solutions to challenges.