Tracing the Line is a book of plotter art available for preorder now, coming out this November. Many of our featured artists are included in the book, and AxiDraw makes several appearances in the video teaser. Looks like it will be fantastic!
Linkdump: August 2023
- Space Elevator (Also, from the same site: Password game)
- The Amazing Story of How Philly Cheesesteaks Became Huge in Lahore, Pakistan
- Early computer art in the 50’s & 60’s
- Maryland License Plates Advertising Filipino Casino
- My Benihana, Myself
- How much does animation cost? A price guide
- Cats apparently recognize their names
- A rubber block that can count
- SmarterEveryDay takes a tour of a Progressive die stamping facility (YouTube)
- From back in 2018: DOOMBA: Automatically generate DOOM level maps for your house from Roomba tracking data
- The mystery of the Bloomfield bridge
Hidden line removal for AxiDraw
We’re pleased to note the release of AxiDraw software version 3.9 this week, with a couple of neat new features. One of them is that the “preview mode” button — which lets you simulate plotting to see how the results will come out — is now accessible no matter which function is selected. The other, the big one, is that AxiDraw now supports hidden-line removal as a standard feature.
There’s a full changelog up on GitHub, which also notes a few new features for users of the AxiDraw CLI (command-line interface) and AxiDraw Python library, including the ability to resume a plot a little before where it was paused.
But, let’s talk more about hidden-line removal.
Continue reading Hidden line removal for AxiDraw
Linkdump: April 2023
- The CRUMB Circuit Simulator, a breadboard simulator
- Deep Fried Coffee Beans
- Conserve the Sound: “Your Museum for endangered sounds.”
- Furby source code
- What is the price of a Big Mac across the country?
- Floppy disk costumes for SD cards
- De visdeurbel (Fish Doorbell; Dutch language.) When a fish in the canals needs the lock opened, you can send the lock keeper a photo to let them know.
- Near infrared, in situ imaging of chips: An inexpensive method to see inside certain types of integrated circuits.
- An Aperiodic Monotile, and a talk about it, from the National Museum of Mathematics.
- The Tabloid Programming languate, and an implementation in Racket.
- The Electronics Flea Market returns to Silicon Valley this weekend.
Linkdump: November 2022
- Video shows florescence, showing how electrical signals move down the leaves of sensitive plant Mimosa pudica
- Reenacting wear patterns on recreations of medieval book illustrations
- E-ZPass reduced the rate of premature births to mothers who live near toll booths by 9.1%
- How to understand cough medicines, including why some cough syrups don’t really have active ingredients
- Python 3.14 Will be Faster than C++
- OpenRCT2 an open-source re-implementation of RollerCoaster Tycoon 2
- The Peking Duck Exemption
- How shaders render bottles in the game Half-Life: Alyx (YouTube)
- How one unwilling illustrator found herself turned into an AI model
- About the “baseline” scene in Blade Runner 2049
- Fast line hiding with a WebGL shader for pen plots
- A linear stepper motor PCB racetrack
Open Circuits: Now available
Earlier this year, I wrote about my then-forthcoming book, Open Circuits: The Inner Beauty of Electronic Components, co-written with our regular collaborator Eric Schlaepfer.
Open Circuits is a coffee table book full of close-up and cross-section photographs of everyday electronic components. And, it’s now shipping! As of today, it’s available in hardcover from your local bookstore, as well as to purchase online and in electronic versions.
We also just launched a new website for the book, with links of where you can purchase it as well as lengthy galleries of images from the book and of outake photos.
We put up a list of sellers on the website, including direct from No Starch and our own store, where signed copies are available.
Flickery Halloween Fun
Shane from Dark Illusion Studios shared this video using our candle flicker LEDs to make skull sconces. Our flickering LEDs are great for lots of different Halloween projects.
If you still need some inspiration, check out our Halloween Project Archives:
Halloween is one of our favorite holidays, and … we’ve organized dozens of our Halloween projects into categories: costumes, pumpkins, decor and food.
Windell and Eric talk about Open Circuits on Embedded.fm
Windell, along with Eric Schlaepfer, was recently on the Embedded.fm podcast talking about their book, Open Circuits. You can listen to the episode or read the transcript. You can still sign up for the Embedded newsletter by the end of July and be entered to win a copy of Open Circuits or a Three Fives Soldering Kit.
Linkdump: July 2022
- Reversible sequin clock
- How a man discovered that his wife was world’s best Tetris player
- Origami Cafe is a virtual meeting spot for folders
- A youtube playlist of Calculating Device Demonstrations
- Animations embedded in 3D printing
- Big Clive tells us about the “Most deadly project on the internet“, high-voltage art, made with microwave oven transformers.
- Is this the simplest (and most surprising) sorting algorithm ever? Preprint
- Fossil crinoid with its tracks
- Edible tape for your burrito
- Open source design for a magnet and piezo based stick and slip micropositioner
- Robocop on set and getting suited up for the 1987 film.
- Spigot: A command-line streaming exact real calculator.
- The Julia Roberts paradox of Ocean’s Twelve
- Weaving book with integrated loom
- History of salt production in the South Bay and the current state of wetlands reclamation
Open Circuits
I’m very pleased to announce my forthcoming new book, Open Circuits: The Inner Beauty of Electronic Components, co-written with Eric Schlaepfer.
Open Circuits is a coffee table book full of cross-section photographs of electronic components, along with photos of those components in context, and descriptions of how they work. It’s coming this fall from No Starch Press, and is available now to pre-order.
From the rear cover:
Open Circuits is a photographic exploration of the surprisingly beautiful design waiting to be discovered inside everyday electronic devices. Through painstakingly prepared cross-sections and stunningly vivid close-up images, the book reveals a hidden world full of elegance, subtle complexity, and wonder. From simple resistors and capacitors, to cutting-edge circuit boards and retro Nixie tubes, the authors’ arresting imagery transforms more than 130 electronic components into awe-inspiring works of art that will delight engineers, artists, designers, and photography enthusiasts alike.
My co-author Eric Schlaepfer has been our regular collaborator on projects such as the Three Fives and XL741 soldering kits, as well as the MOnSter 6502 and our Uncovering the Silicon project.
Open Circuits is coming this fall in hardcover, and is available now with a pre-order discount and early-access PDF from No Starch Press.
It’s also available to pre-order at your local bookstore — who we sincerely encourage you to support — as well as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other major booksellers.
