Resources

The original list of resources and tools for plotter and drawing robot enthusiasts

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Commercial Plotters Plotters available for sale

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Title Description URL View
AxiDraw Simple, modern, and precise pen plotters. Use Coupon "DRAWINGBOTS" to get 10% off any order. https://axidraw.com/ Go
Makelangelo 5 Makelangelo 5 is a beautiful picture drawing robot. The Makelangelo can draw up to A1 sized pictures on a window, whiteboard, or easel with Sharpie or dry-erase markers. https://www.marginal... Go
Line-us Line-us is an portable internet connected robot drawing arm. https://www.line-us.... Go
Makeblock XY Plotter XY Plotter Robot Kit is a drawing robot that can move a pen or other instrument to draw digital artwork on flat surface https://www.makebloc... Go

DIY plotters and projects 3D printed, laser cut, or other home-made machines for drawing

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Title Description URL View
Open source turtle robot Open source turtle robot made with 3D printed materials and some circuits https://www.thingive... Go
ExtruDraw Extrusion-based Plotter A plotter/drawing machine that uses 20x40mm and 20x20mm aluminium extrusion for both structure and linear guides. https://www.thingive... Go
DIY Drawing Robot 3D printed Drawing robot. It is powered by an Arduino Uno controller, uses a CNC Shield, and GRBL firmware. The approximate cost to build this drawing robot is $100. https://www.thingive... Go
Unofficial archive of plotters In this forum post you will find a roundup of plotters and drawing robots from around the world. http://www.polargrap... Go
MidTBot Very small DIY plotter that you can 3D print and put together. https://github.com/b... Go

Community Where the party's at

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Title Description URL View
A huge list of resources A list like this one (an inspiration) https://github.com/b... Go
Subreddit For Plotter Art Subreddit For Plotter Art https://www.reddit.c... Go
DrawingBots Twitter Twitter account for Plotter enthusiasts (coming soon) https://twitter.com/... Go
DrawingBots Discord A place to talk about drawing robots and challenges https://discordapp.c... Go
DrawingBots Facebook A place to chat about drawing robots, share designs, links, etc https://www.facebook... Go

GCode Generators SVG to GCode generators

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Title Description URL View
openjscam TPLang (with modifications) -> G-Code in pure JavaScript https://github.com/m... Go
Halftoner and Reactor Two interesting free software packages (Windows only) https://jasondorie.c... Go

SVG Generators Tools that produce SVG files

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Title Description URL View
Patternodes A tool for creating graphical vector patterns, animations or illustrations using a node-based interface where you define a sequence of connected nodes that describe the design, each representing graphical elements, changes or repetitions. https://www.lostmind... Go
Differential Growth Experiments Series of visual experiments in JavaScript exploring the topic of differential growth as a method for generating interesting 2D forms https://github.com/j... Go
WaveFormer Turns audio recordings into a drawing https://www.misha.st... Go
Letters with QuickDraw SVGs and designs made with QuickDraw dataset http://frauzufall.de... Go
TemplateMaker Create designs for unique boxes, custom enclosures. Can be used with LaserCutting https://templatemake... Go
InkRays Circular designs generator http://thoka.net/ink... Go
MakerJS JavaScript library for creating and sharing modular line drawings for CNC https://maker.js.org... Go
Medieval City Generator Generates maps of imaginary medieval cities https://watabou.itch... Go
Map path generator Generates maps of the world https://pixelmap.amc... Go
Mandala Generator Creates Mandala designs http://mandalacreato... Go
Spiral Generator Generates Spirals with noise https://www.openproc... Go
Moire Patterns Some Moire patterns made with D3 https://codepen.io/m... Go
SVGUrt A few tools for creative image -> SVG conversion https://svgurt.com Go
Curved Polygons Generates Curved polygons https://codepen.io/m... Go
Delaunay Triangulator Image 2 Delaunay triangulation https://snorpey.gith... Go
Ln (3D line art engine) 3D Line Art Engine https://github.com/f... Go
CanvasSketch A framework for making generative artwork in JavaScript and the browser. https://github.com/m... Go
SquiggleDraw Processing app to create an SVG based on the brightness of an image transformed into sine waves. https://github.com/g... Go
SquiggleCam Browser tool for fast image -> squiggle drawing conversion https://msurguy.gith... Go
StippleGen Software that can create stipple drawings and “TSP art,” from image files https://github.com/e... Go
PenKit Tools for pen plotting in Python https://github.com/p... Go
Image 2 Hilbert Upload an image to generate a single line (Hilbert Curve) representation of it https://shooshx.gith... Go
Vectorizer A different kind of Spirograph http://blackholedesi... Go
Spirograph Spirograph made with Processing https://github.com/r... Go
MazeGenerator Creates SVGs of Mazes http://www.mazegener... Go
Kolam Generator Generates Kolam artworks https://www.openproc... Go
AsciiArt Image to ASCII generator https://pixlab.io/ar... Go
SpiralRaster Image to Spiral Raster generator http://paperjs.org/e... Go
Generative Artworks Some generative art generators made with Processing https://github.com/d... Go
City Generator Makes imaginary cities that look hand-drawn https://www.openproc... Go
Turtletoy Website where your can create SVG's using a minimalistic Turtle graphics API https://turtletoy.ne... Go
Juicy GCode Haskell tool for SVG 2 GCode conversion https://github.com/d... Go
SVGPath Transforms SVG Path Transformation library https://github.com/f... Go
Scribble Generator Drawbot_image_to_gcode_v2 https://github.com/j... Go
Circuit generator in 35c3 style Generative circuit generator in 35c3 style by Bleeptrack https://35c3.bleeptr... Go
Flower Generator Flower Generator from Bleeptrack https://blptrck.uber... Go
Linedraw Convert images to vectorized line drawings for plotters. https://github.com/L... Go
Scribbleplot Processing scripts to create different plottable versions of images https://github.com/b... Go
DullBits Drawbot Generates scribbly g-code from images http://dullbits.com/... Go
LumberSharp Stylized 3d scene to SVG conversion for plotting, inspired by Escher's woodcuts. https://github.com/d... Go
StippleGen (OSX port) A port of Evil Mad Scientist's StippleGen Processing app to full desktop Java https://github.com/f... Go
Mandala-esque Generator A Web Based tool for making of mandala-esque plotter pieces https://jan.jarfalk.... Go
ttf2hershey This tool converts the common True Type Font (.ttf) files to Hershey font format https://github.com/L... Go
Halftoner and Reactor Two interesting free software packages (Windows only) https://jasondorie.c... Go
Processing Boilerplate Processing Boilerplate with Gcode Export https://sighack.com/... Go

Algorithms R&D and innovations for drawing robots

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Title Description URL View
TSP Solver TSP Solver algorithm for optimizing pen travel https://bitaesthetic... Go
SVG2Gcode (Python) Python tool for converting SVG to GCode https://github.com/H... Go
SVG2Gcode (Python) Another SVG2GCode conversion tool https://github.com/S... Go
Centerline Tracing Tutorial Tutorial on making line artworks http://cleversomeday... Go
Penkit Optimizer Command-line tool for optimizing and visualizing the drawing order of SVG graphics for pen plotting. https://github.com/p... Go
SimplifyJS JS script for simplification of SVG lines http://mourner.githu... Go
PX2SVG Converts raster images to SVG, using color-run optimization. https://github.com/m... Go
FEngrave F-Engrave is a text or image to g-code program http://www.scorchwor... Go
Scribbleplot Processing scripts to create different plottable versions of images https://github.com/b... Go
DullBits Drawbot Generates scribbly g-code from images http://dullbits.com/... Go
Line Clipping Algorithm The Cohen-Sutherland Line Clipping Algorithm https://sighack.com/... Go
Medial (and Scale) Axis Transform library Medial (and Scale) Axis Transform library - SVG focused https://mat-demo.app... Go
Article about Generative art and plotters On fine art and generative line drawings https://www.tandfonl... Go
Algorithm for tiling of polygons A technique for tiling the plane with regular polygons https://observablehq... Go

Supplies Pens, inks, papers

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Title Description URL View
Exact Vellum Bristol, 11" x 17", 67 lb/145 gsm, White Exact Vellum Bristol, 11" x 17", 67 lb/145 gsm, White, 94 Brightness, 250 Sheets (80213) https://amzn.to/2UM4... Go

Plotter Control Software Software Solutions for controlling drawing robots

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Title Description URL View
AxiDrawJS "A complete solution for controlling AxiDraw via local server and browser application Comes with generators for a map, terrain and Lorenz attractor" https://github.com/u... Go
Axi Unofficial driver software for AxiDraw https://github.com/f... Go
saxi saxi is a tool for interacting with the AxiDraw drawing machine by Evil Mad Scientist. It comes with an easy-to-use interface, and is exactingly precise. https://github.com/n... Go
Processing Boilerplate with Gcode Export I had written up this Processing boilerplate for generating Gcode for my cheap chinese plotter based on GRBL. https://sighack.com/... Go
Makelangelo Software Makelangelo software that provides a beautiful, intuitive interface to drive your polargraph drawing robot https://github.com/M... Go
Processing Boilerplate Processing Boilerplate with Gcode Export https://sighack.com/... Go

Data for design generation Collections and repositories of designs or data that can be used for making designs for plotting

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Title Description URL View
TheDoodleLibrary Some line drawings as SVGs https://www.thedoodl... Go
Geometric artworks 3D prints that could be converted to SVGs https://www.thingive... Go
Circuit Board designs Circuit board designs can be drawn with plotters https://github.com/g... Go
Icons for maps Various open source map icons https://github.com/t... Go
TheNounProject Millions of vector icons https://thenounproje... Go
Single Line Fonts Fonts that are working well for plotters, drawing robots and laser engraving http://www.imajeenyu... Go
Some free DXF designs Lots and lots of ready to plot vector designs https://www.scan2cad... Go
Dimensions.Guide Dimensions.Guide is a comprehensive reference database of dimensioned drawings documenting the standard measurements and sizes of the everyday objects and spaces that make up our world. www.dimensions.guide Go
ttf2hershey This tool converts the common True Type Font (.ttf) files to Hershey font format https://github.com/L... Go

Articles Magazines, Writings and articles about pen plotters

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Title Description URL View
24 Plotter Comparison of 1994 Article Comparing specs and prices of 24 plotters https://bit.ly/2XMeZ... Go
From Lettering Guides to CNC Plotter A Brief History of Technical Lettering Tools https://www.typotheq... Go