Home › Evil Mad Scientist Forums › Software Tools › Stipplegen vs Inkscape bug (?) › Re: Stipplegen vs Inkscape bug (?)
February 21, 2017 at 11:30 pm
#22853
Shel
Participant
Yes indeed, I’ve been having fun tweaking the code. (Sometimes I think that coding is more fun than actually using the code.)
I really like the spirals that can be drawn in your newer version. I especially like your clever use of a spiral turning into a circle as fill. I still wanted a way to visualize the effect of pen width plotting without having to leave the StippleGen environment. I think I have achieved that, plus a few other things, in the file StippleGen2_4_1_5.pde
I haven’t actually printed from the new version, but in just fooling around with it I think my workflow will be substantially smoother.
Previous workflow:
1. Use StippleGen2, adjusting # of dots, min.size, size range for best possible appearance. This is not the appearance which will be created when a finite-width pen plots the result, so “best appearance” is really a guess. Save .svg.
2. Import .svg into Inkscape. Do a long complicated process to account for pen width stroked onto my target object. Evaluate (guess) where the density or contrast of the image needs adjusting to give a better result.
3. Open image again in Photoshop, and apply the results of the evaluation.
4. Go back to number 1 above.
New workflow:
1. Use StippleGen2+. Select “filled circles on output” (woohoo!). Select “add pen width to display circles”. In addition to the original three controls, also modify contrast by using the “dot gain” slider and the “scaling by area/diameter” toggle. Adjust til it looks good. This is the way it will look on the egg.
2. If results of 1 can’t be made good, go to Photoshop with a very clear idea of where to make changes, then go to 1 again.
Change Log:
v 2.40.01.05
* Cleaned up by removing test cases, etc.
* In general, uses “///” to mark areas that need attention.
v 2.40.01.03
* GUI controls to save and load control values for next time, using named saves.
(if this feature stays in, it really needs a dropdown selection list)
(Actually, it might really be better to store the values in the svg file if this is feasible, no need for save/load)
* Add gamma (aka “dot gain”) control to modify dot size modulation i.e. local_contrast = f(brightness).
(Computation is at back end, so needs no restart-on-change.)
v 2.40.01.01
* Compiling in Processing 3.3
* Increased vertical extent of GUI back to 800, for more accurate visualization of typical eggbot print area.
(did this on the theory that v 2.0 reduced extent for typical screen sizes of the day, but that screen sizes have typically increased since then.
* Increased control area by two rows, for additional controls
* Add GUI option to make StippleGen display visually match the results of plotting with specified pen width. (Add pen stroke width to display of filled circles)
* Minimize spiral path lengths in output, iff pen width being used in display,
when generating filled circle.
* Decrease default # of stipples in order to make the interface more responsive when first loaded.
(should/can we save and restore when shutdown???)
