Pen plotters/20240504 OSP Party

This is a page that will be used to facilitate the presentation at the 2024 05 04 pen plotting party at OSP in Brussels!

brainstorm pad

Crosshatching experiments

For dedicated pages on this topic, see Plothatching and User:Thijshijsijsjss/Pen_Plotting_Panache/Plothatching_Workflow

Inspired by https://hackaday.io/project/20585-upgrade-for-your-diy-plotters, Victor and Thijs wanted to do some crosshatched plots. They wrote a processing script to convert images to crosshatched versions. By doing this for an image's different CMYK color channels separately, it is possible to create intricate multicolor plots.

Plot of the Fishmans LONG SEASON album cover

Plot of 2001: A Space Odyssey's movie poster

Plot of Miles Davis's Bitches Brew album cover

Some more examples can be found at User:Thijshijsijsjss/Pen_Plotting_Panache/Gallery
The workflow can be found at User:Thijshijsijsjss/Pen_Plotting_Panache/Plothatching_Workflow
A dedicated page on the code can be found at Plothatching

Pen Holders and Alignment Tools

For a dedicated page on this topic, see Pen_plotters/Pen_Hacking

There are 'real' pens, meant for pen plotting. These tend to work nicely, are very friendly to use, and often provide nice results. However, they are limited in color selection and pen texture. Therefore, one might consider using their own pens. These pens need to be loaded in a holder. One can modify a 'real pen' for this purpose, or alternatively 3D print a holder.

An example of pen hacking:

A broken pen (right)	Take a toothpick	Push the toothpick
Push harder with the toothpic	Keep pushing	You might need help from a knife

Not all pens allow for their intestants to me removed so easily, in which case a knife is required.

You can also 3D print custom holders. This is a reliable way of obtaining a large number of holders, which has the benefit of being able to have one holder per pen, so that you don't have to align them each time you switch pens.

This is a GitHub repo with many stl files. The one I have tried did not work for me, however (too slim for the pen specified, or not aligned properly).
We have modelled new ones (specifically for stabillo 68 / 88 pens), the stl files for which can be found here on Gitea.

Vertical alignment rig with 'real' pen (left) and custom pen holder (right)

When using a custom pen, it is crucial to align it properly heigh wise. This can be done by hand, by comparing a pen in a custom holder side by side with a 'real' pen. To make this process more reliable and less tedious, we have also modelled a rig for veritcal alignment. These files can be found here on Gitea

Twitch Plays Plotter

For a dedicated page on this topic, see User:Thijshijsijsjss/Pen_Plotting_Panache/twitchplaysplotter

twitchplaysplotter is a project inspired by TwitchPlaysPokemon in which a pen plotter can be controlled through the chat of a Twitch livestream. This project, worked on by Rosa, Victor and Thijs, was initiated both to experiment with the collaborative and performative nature of plotters, and to facililate participation of pen plotter enthusiasts who were not able to make it to the 2024-02-12 pen plotting party physically.

A Git repository containing the project can be found here
The twitch channel can be found here

Pen Plotting Party (2024-02-12)

After a testrun during the XPUB party in December, there was a dedicated pen plotter party on February 12, celebrating the collaborative, performative and expertimental practise we've been exploring so far at XPUB. We showcased lots of examples (like a horse zine and Crosshatching experiments), had interactive activities (like pen plotted mazes, twitchplaysplotter) and published a zine

Video documentation can be found here
More photo's can be found at here

Plotting volume levels

For a dedicated page on this topic, see User:Thijshijsijsjss/Pen_Plotting_Panache/Volume_Plotting

Plotting the volume levels during zinecamp

Web interface for volume plotting

At Machinecamp, an event accompanying zinecamp, Victor and Thijs gave mini penplotter workshops to visitors. During the event, they wrote some javascript code to capture ~2 minutes of audio and translate the volume levels to HPGL. This was then sent to a plotter.

It is available with a web interface as part of the SI23 quilt.

The code can also be found at the dedicated wiki page.