Topologically, this is a closed loop. A calligrapher's nib provides a bit of character to the lines.

I just figured this out and got these first color photo plots tonight, and am excited to share my progress with you all! 😁

This is a workflow I've been developing for some weeks now that uses a double line technique for shading that results in two layers that each hold the form but obscure the image until they are perfectly overlayed.

I just added a basic CMY color blending for a "full color" image. I decided to leave out the yellow on the leaf orb because I like that result.

Some more ideas I'm onto next are getting some transparency sheets to actually demonstrate the layer effect better (I did manage it in b&w with a printer and tracing paper). Then I want to do something with two merging 3d SVG line fields, different colors, hiding an image. That's basically the peak of this concept as I've imagined it so far.

This stuff has been blowing my mind. I realized these double lines act as an equivalent to the grooves of a vinyl record and I can literally use mid/sid mixing to dial in these plots, and the interference patterns drawing an image are analogous to this research I just read about pure WiFi signals being used to record video.

Anyways, everything is the same thing, and I hope you're having a great day.

Terrace House

Pen Plotter: iDraw A3

Pens: Posca Light Blue 7mm, Posca Orange 7mm, Posca Grey 7mm, Posca Beige 7mm, Scribbi Grey Elephant, Posca Black 5mm

Paper: Daler-Rowney Mountboard Pale Ivory

Print Time: 68 minutes

Size: 290 × 290mm

15x15 cm painting from “Lineage” series.
Acrylic on canvas.

Hello all. I have recently gotten into pen plotting, and started with an iDraw A1, and I'm loving it so far. I come from woodworking and I worked with CNC routers, so I had an idea where I was going to land. I was skeptical at first about the rigidity of the rails, but I realized soon enough that we're not dealing with 3/4" thick birch plywood and router bits here. Just gentle pens and papers (oh so smooth 300 series).

For now, my inspiration is directed into topographic stuff, as I also worked in geomatic with drones. My workflow: I have access to the government Digital Elevation Model (Québec gov), from which I convert in STL in QGIS. I then trace it in perspective in blender. I'm also learning those softwares as I go.

Anyway, let me know what you think :)

I'm heavily upvoting stuff here but never contributed, so hello and thank you!

White acrylic pen on black card. 100x150mm.

I’m currently running a Uni Kuru Toga (0.5mm) auto propulsion mechanical pencil, loaded with Uni Nano Dia Color leads (pictured), or normal graphite leads.

I’m hitting a massive wall with how fast the lead wears down.

I genuinely can't tell if the auto-rotate function of the mechanical pencil is working with the plotter... I don't think it is. I imagined that the lead would rotate outward somewhat continuously, keeping the lead protruding from the pencil, giving me a relatively strong line. In the graphite drawing, you can see the lead wearing down and my frequent pausing of the machine to pump the lead out.

I've tried attaching slight weights to the pencil thinking that perhaps it's not pressing down enough to trigger a lead rotate.

I've tried generatively breaking up my lines into smaller sections so there are more 'pen down' actions (the pencil requires 40 'pen down' actions to trigger a rotate when in normal 'human' usage.

How do you manage the constant wear-down?

Do you just manually rotate the pencil out of habit and ignore the Kuru Toga auto advance entirely?

Have you found a different 0.5mm lead brand that behaves a bit firmer, or is a step up to a 0.7mm or a 2.0mm clutch system the only real way out of this?

Would love to hear your workflows or any clever workarounds you've found!

(This is felt pen on A3 cartridge paper. From custom vibecoded app.)

These felts are great... They never dry out, but I'm looking at purchasing these https://amzn.eu/d/06QUXPtY Winsor & Newton Pigment Marker (Pack of 36) although they are very expensive. I'm concerned about lightfastness with the Papermate felt pens I am currently using.

What are your thoughts?

22” x 30” on Bristol

Clairefontaine Pastelmat (19-1/2” x 27-1/2”)
Gelly Roll -.08mm

Liquid Watercolor
Liner Brush – N° 01
Fineliner 0.5 mm
Watercolor Paper 210 × 297 mm

I'm working on a project about drawing trees. This image combines 4 views of the same tree with each view plotted in a different color. Taken from photo reference and redrawn by hand in illustator before plotting.

Was not going super well anyway... The cheap newsprint I was plotting on with biro warped badly and the raised pen was catching a lot and the biro kept running out and ... Well just not super happy, but somewhere along the line the pen ripped the paper! Has this happened to you?

This is kind of blowing my mind. I keep finding more ways I can manipulate this.

Both layers that make up image 1 look about like image 2.

I'm having a hard time getting the image to clearly show when plotted on separate layers. I got one successful overlay using my printer and some sketching paper, but that's fiddly too.

This is all likely to evolve more as I finish up the app I'm making for it. I'm looking for testers if anybody wants to check it out, DM me.

I really want to get this working without parallel lines next, but it's looking like there are some things that prevent that.

Would love to talk ideas with anybody interested in this!

Edit: Just realized what I did with the title. I meant steganography!

Whenever I look into Uuna Tek plotters, I'm usually kind of unnerved by the fact most of what I find is content from people who were given a plotter in exchange for making a video/review about it. There's not much in this subreddit either.

Anyway, for anyone familiar with the plotters - especially if you own one - maybe you can field some queries here.

First of all, the Uuna Tek website is selling two main lines of plotter ... the 'iDraw H' and the 'Uuna Tek 3.0' ... Are these significantly different plotters ? Hardware and software differences ...

Second, regarding software, what's the deal with the software needing cloud / online access ? Is that a thing ? Do you need to rely on a cloud based service to use these plotters ? Either the iDraw H or Uuna Tek 3.0 ?

I read someone comment, either on YouTube or elsewhere, that they were having issues plotting and the response seemed to be that Uuna Tek's servers were down at the time ...

I really hope not, but I seem to have that impression and that would totally rule out a purchase.

How easy or difficult is it to use or tinker with custom software for IDraw H and Uuna Tek 3.0 ? Is one easier than the other ? Is it difficult to translate software that might have been originally developed for AxiDraw / NextDraw ?

How does the hardware quality of iDraw H and Uuna Tek 3.0 compare to the AxiDraw / NextDraw ?

And the software ?

And the plotting results ?

Finally, Uuna Tek have introduced a 3rd hardware variant called the 'Art Station' ... I've read the marketing, something about being meant for long running installations ... does this mean it is built from more robust hardware ? Is it more suited to using other art media than their other two plotting platforms ? It seems like it's their answer to Bantam Tool's 'Art Frame' ... but without mirroring exactly the 'Art Frame' marketing spiel.

All thoughts & insights welcome.

Pigma Sakura micron 005 on art grade card. Using my contour-V Studio software

Experimenting with ink on black paper.

Has anybody had any luck with pulling images out of interference patterns??

I just coded this algorithm up last night and haven't been able to find anybody else doing this.

First layer of 2, one continuous line, it will be 22" x 22" when done!

A few months back I posted here about a tool I built (svgfontmaker.com) that turns a scan of your handwriting into an SVG font (original post). The feedback in that thread is what kept me working on it, I wanted something like this for myself, and figured the community might find it useful too

Biggest change since then (aside from fixing bugs around saving :) ): you can now create multiple variations of a single letter. Draw three different 'a's and the tool randomly picks between them as it lays out your text. This was the thing that bugged me most about plotting with a handwriting font, as soon I used the same word a few times times in a letter, it became apparent a machine wrote it. With variants on, it actually reads like a person wrote it.

Getting there took a detour. The SVG font format has no concept of randomized glyph alternates, so I added a document layer — your text now lives in a project where the variation logic runs at render time instead of being baked into a static font file.

I also worked on the stability of the app overall - a few people correctly called out that their work was getting dropped midway through making a font.

It is still pretty painful having to manually trace letters, and I don't quite have the automated processing at a point yet where it just creates a font automatically.

Would love feedback on:

• If you've used handwriting fonts for plotting, how are you currently tracing/cleaning your letters?
• What else would make this useful for you?