User:Alessia/Plotter art

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intro

Pen plotters are iconic pioneers of digital graphic reproduction, magical devices that left an indelible mark on the history of design, visual art, computer graphics and engineering.
Wonderful tools, extremely satisfying to watch, amazingly hypnotic, they are vector printing devices. Nowadays sadly disused, replaced by large-format inkjet printers, or led toner based printers.
In today's art world, a fresh wave of artists is enthusiastically adopting pen plotters again to delve into the realms of algorithmic aesthetics, generative design, and the fusion of art and technology. Their exploration ranges from intricate line drawings to immersive installations, pushing the limits of the medium and erasing distinctions between the analog and digital realms, as well as between handmade and machine-generated art.

Modern digital plotters, which are still in use today, evolved from analog XY writer plotters, output devices designed as precision measuring instruments and output devices for analog computers. The XY writer was a plotter that operated along two axes of motion, making it the most efficient way to draw vector graphics.

Historically, plotters were made with practical applications in mind like drafting blueprints, graphing data, or drawing large format maps, offering the fastest way to produce very large drawings or colour high-resolution vector-based artwork when computer memory was too expensive and processor power was too limited.

Pen plotters were very time consuming and difficult to use, users often found themselves concerned about the ink in their pens running dry If one pen dried out at the end of a plot, the total plot had to be redone most of the time. In spite of these limitations, the extreme resolution and colour capability of pen plotters made them the favourite output device until the late 80’s.

A number of printer control languages were created to operate this kind of machine, to transmit commands to move the pen itself. Three common ASCII based plotter control languages are HP-GL, the successor HP-GL/2 and DMPL.

History + Models

One of the earliest plotter was Konrad Zuse's computer-controlled Graphomat Z64 in 1958, a punch tape or punch card controlled plotter, driven by two gears.
It was used for fully automatic plotting for geodesy, meteorology and road construction. A remarkable artist that used this particular machine for his works was Frieder Nake, who explored computer art in the 60.

File:Photo to add Graphomat Z64

File:Photo to add punch tape

File:Photo to add example of Pantograph

File:Photo to add homage to Paul Klee, Nake (1965)

One of the first mechanical and commercial plotter was the CalComp 565 from 1966, a drum plotter that worked by placing the paper over a roller that moved the paper back and forth for the X motion and the pen moved back and forth for the Y motion.

http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/calcomp/CalComp_Software_Reference_Manual_Oct76.pdf

A key hardware piece for the development of CAD applications is the Computervision's Interact I, it used an attached ball point pen to draft pantographs (mechanical drawing aid based on parallelograms). It was really slow and required a lot of space, it was anyway useful as a digitizer (processing information to a digital format).

Another type of plotter was the flatbed plotter. instead of wrapping the drawing surface around a drum, they laid it out flat. This was a preferred type of plotter for cases where you needed to see the whole piece while it being plotted.

Tektronix produced flatbed smaller plotters between the 60s and 70s for “home-use”, they were popular for desktop business graphics and in engineering laboratories, their pens were mounted on a travelling bar.

Hewlett Packard was the biggest manufacturer of pen plotters, their first plotter was the 9125A flatbed plotter, introduced in 1968.
Their HP 7470, in the 80s, was the world's first small format paper moving plotter (the advantages are higher speed and lower costs) that coudl switch between 8 pens. The chosen pen was mounted on a carriage that moves back and forth in a line between the grit wheels.

Other important mentions: ColorPro, DraftPro and the 7600 series (electrostatic plotters)

Plotters were also used in the Create-A-Card kiosks that were available for a while in the greeting card area of supermarkets that used the HP 7475 six-pen plotter.

Another interesting application of the plotter magic was that of the electronic or microfilm plotters. They worked in a similar way as the mechanical plotter, but instead of a pen they used electron beams and instead of paper microfilm.
The first known computer animation was created by the SC-4020 titled “Simulation of a Two-Gyro Gravity Gradient Attitude Control System” by E. E. Zajac, 1965.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBlQb6Me_1k&ab_channel=UltimateHistoryofCGI

File:Photo to add Calcomp 565

File:Photo to add Stromberg Carlson SC-4020, 60s

File:Photo to add example of Pantograph

File:Photo to add grit wheel mechanism

File:Photo to add create a card Kiosk from the 80s

Plotter are still versatile tools due to their ability to produce large-scale prints across various media types, they are still used for POP adverts in supermarkets, data visualisation, other niche application of plotters are braille embossers, used to create tactile images on special thermal cell paper, vinyl cutters (that still use HPGL language), and writing-homework-machines
https://www.scmp.com/yp/discover/entertainment/tech-gaming/article/3060907/chinese-schoolgirl-caught-using-robot-write

After 2000 artists began to rediscover pen plotters as extragavant, customizable devices, even if the support for driving pen plotters directly or saving files as HP-GL has disappeared from most commercial graphics applications. Vermes is one of the last companies that makes pens for all HP pen plotters, even the earliest models. Usually pen plotters use fiber pens, but ball-point plotter pens are sometimes available, with refillable clear plastic ink reservoirs.

Modern day plotters used by artists around the world include: the AXidraw (flatbed plotter) by Evil Mad Scientis Labs, its firmware is open source: https://github.com/evil-mad/axidraw.
(lista instagram)
https://blog.dbalan.in/blog/2019/02/23/resurracting-an-hp-7440a-plotter/index.html

making art

Writing about pen plotter art without mentioning computer and generative art is impossible. Pen plotters undeniably played a significant role in the evolution of both these fields, as they were among the earliest digital tools available to artists.

One of the first computer art exhibitions, that featured pen plotter generated artworks, was held at the Howard Wise Gallery in New York in the 1960s. The exhibition featured the works of two Bell Labs researchers, Michael A. Noll and Bela Julesz, who used the SC-4020 microfilm plotter for their creations. Bell Labs was all about pushing boundaries, encouraging the development of new softwares that could be used beyond art to scientific purposes.

In the early days of computer art, computers were accessible mainly to mathematicians, scientists, and programmers, so they were the ones that explored creative expression through digital mediums.
Continuing into the 1970s, a growing number of artists started to have access to computer labs, fuelling some fruitful collaboration between art and science. One of those fields collision happened between Katherine Nash, professor of art, and Richard Williams, professor of computer engineering: they developed the programming language ART 1 (original Processing), created specifically to instruct computer science students in the creation of basic computer graphics.

Some of the pioneers of computer and generative art that used pen plotters are: Manfred Mohr, Frieder Nake, Georg Nees, Herbert W Franke, Vera Molnar, Harold Cohen, Mark Wilson, Peter Beyls, Roman Verostko, Jean-Pierre Hébert, Casey Reas.

op art exhibit titled The Responsive Eye in 1965 held by the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
The Cube: Theme and Variation Series by Edward Zajec
Mechano Drawing by Zoran Radović
Dioximoirékinesis by Irving John Good and Martine Vite
Computer-generated images by Irving John Good
Matrix Multiplication by Frieder Nake, , 1967. This visualisation of a mathematical process was plotted using a GRAPHOMAT plotter
SkewR34 by Mark Wilson, 1983.
Coded Algorithmic Drawing (#9) by Joan Truckenbord, drawing was generated with FORTRAN and drawn by a CalComp plotter
The Field by Grace C. Hertlein http://recodeproject.com/
1969 plotter piece by Edward Zajec titled RAM 1311

Pavlovpulus, Matt DesLauriers, Tyler Hobbs, Zancan, Landlinesart, Alida Sun, Joanie Lemercier, Shedrawswithcode, Sougwen Chung, Julien Gachadoat, Rev Dan Catt, Lars Wander, Frederik Vanhoutte, Arno Beck, DiDiffArt, LIA, Targz, Jürg Lehni and Loackme.

Acrylcode Berlin (Felipe Infantino), Algorigraph (Fabian Eck), Antigoon, Frank Aubry + Andreas Rau, Barbe Generative Diary (Peco), Martin Bauer, Arno Beck, Deniz Bicer, Chris Bly (machine.arm), Bondtruluv, Geoffrey Bradway (Chromatocosmos), Bustavo (Gustavo Muñoz), Joel Cammarata, Dan Catt (Revdancatt), CEK (Giorgio Cecatto), Michelle Chandra, Sougwen Chung (Studio Scilicet), Desmond Clarke , Andee Collard, Dirk Dallas (Dirka), Matt DesLauriers, DiDiffArt (Diana Becker), The Dot Is Black (David Mrugala), Kristine Erstad Vegard, Julien Espagnon, Allen F, Sven Björn Fi, Hiromasa Fukaji + Horikawa Junichiro, Julien Gachadoat (v3ga), Pablo Garcia , Generative Artworks, Kjetil Golid (Kgolid), Greweb, David Guerrero, Cory Haber, Licia He, Tyler Hobbs, Matthew Hughes, Jessica In (Shedrawswithcode), Ralf Jacobs, Jenslabs (Jens Clarholm), JMY (Jimmy Herdberg), Floris de Jonge, So Kanno + Takahiro Yamaguchi, Simon Kirby, Daniela Kröhnert, Guillaume Lagarde (Entropismes), Land Lines Art, Beatrice Lartigue (Lab212 Collective), Tom Lauerman, Sunjoo Lee + Ko de Beer, Jürg Lehni, LIA, Loackme, Lenia Mascha, Simone Mauer, Kyle McDonald + Matt Mets, Arjan van der Meij, Liz Melchor, Huw Messie, Emre Meydan (Thresfold), Mmachine, Cezar Mocan, Moodsoup (Stefan Reyniers), Ivan Murit, Sohan Murthy, Kris Northern (phidelity), Noumenal, Dimitri Otxa, Pierre Paslier, Pavlovpolus (Pablo Azóçar A.), Abe Pazos Solatie, Arnaud Pfeffer, Playmodes, Paul Prudence, Paul Rickards, Meg Rodger, Con Ryan, Catalin Sandu, Heliodoro Santos Sánchez, Lisa Schwalbe (Gridtheline), Marcel Schwittlick, Seohyo (Seo Hyojung), Sfd.Art (Andreas Schönfelder), Luke Shannon, Shih Wei-Chieh , Spatial Matters (Nicola Lorusso), Strano (Marcel Giannoccaro), Studio Joanie Lemercier , Studio Strauss , Alida Sun, Maksim Surguy, Targz, Tofa (Christopher Noelle), Patrick Tresset, Frederick Vanhoutte (Wblut), Benjamin Vedrenne, Lars Wander, Victor Wong, Zancan.

http://www.horst-zuse.homepage.t-online.de/z64.html https://computerhistory.org/ https://ethw.org/First-Hand:Howard_Wise_Gallery_Show_of_Digital_Art_and_Patterns_(1965):_A_50th_Anniversary_Memoir (Computer Program for Artists: ART 1 Katherine Nash, Richard H. Williams) https://www.jstor.org/stable/1572264

languages

HP-GL
HP-GL stands for Hewlett-Packard Graphics Language, and it's basically a set of commands created by Hewlett-Packard to control their pen plotters. Initially, it was specifically for HP plotters, but now it's become the go-to standard for many CAD programs and plotters out there. standard command.
In HP-GL the coordinates are at the center. The language allows negative coordinate values.
HP-GL/2, which is much more powerful and efficient, has become the standard.
example of HP-GL script drawing a line:

SP1;                 (Select Pen)
PA500,500;           (Plot Absolute, x/y coordinates)
PD;                  (Pen Down)
PR0,1000;            (Plot Relative, units in y direction)
PU;                  (Pen Up)
SP;                  (Select Pen - back in the stall)

HP-GL/2
Unlike its predecessor HP-GL, which was tailored for pen plotters, HP-GL/2 introduces advanced drawing functionalities specifically oriented to raster plotters. Moreover, HP-GL/2 extends its capabilities beyond HP-GL by offering several additional features like enabling printing in color or grayscale, ability to print data containing both vector and image data, creating files that are 2 to 5 times smaller.. HP-GL 2 places the coordinate origin at the top left corner of the page and does not support negative coordinates (in absolute mode).

NP = number of pens (pens are numbered from zero, not one)
PC = pen color (0 white, 1 black, 2 green, 4 yellow, 5 blue, 6 magenta, 7 cyan)
PW = pen width

HP RTL
HP RTL is a graphics language created specifically for rendering image data, (bitmaps). Basically, image data consists of dots that form a visual representation. When integrated with line drawings created by a standard plotter, this combination allows for vivid illustrations. In particular, HP RTL facilitates fast drawing processes by compressing large image data for efficient output, allowing for high-speed rendering.