I'm trying to stay faithful to the old machines, at least by generatin
g (plan to eventuall
y read from a file, too) triangle and sine pattern bar equivalen
ts, and then shifting the resulting patterns horizonta
lly and verticall
y like the machine does. Might add a bit of randomnes
s to look a bit like handmade. Simulatio
n might be an exaggerat
ion since I'm just creating the pattern and putting copies of it into the workspace, rather than actually tracing along it. The differenc
e is subtle, the actual machine uses a rubber moving against the pattern and the result is affected by the geometry of the point, my version could be considere
d to have an infinitel
y sharp rubber. The programmi
ng language I'm using (Processin
g) works in pixels, not sure how that carries over into the written svg files since a pixel is just over a quarter of a mm in their model. Still have to figure out how to do image masking/clipping to, although I might punt and try it in Inkscape for now. Couldn't figure out how to do it with Vexx or Carbide Create, might have something to do with multiple open paths clipped by a closed shape.
If I keep going I might have to either dredge up my ancient copy of visual c++, or see if vc express is good enough to do what I want, or maybe NetBeans after seeing Bill Oombs rose engine simulator
. Haven't found how to do either a pulldown list or spreadshe
et emulator in Processin
g to allow specifyin
g each line of a pattern, so I'm just inserting the appropria
te descripti
on and recompili
ng. Been a while since I've rubbed any programmi
ng neurons together, they've gotten a little gummed up. Wonder if they make a version of WD40 for that?
I found a copy of Alan Battersby's geometric chuck simulator on GitHub for a future project, avoiding the need to work out the math for a 7 gear train that moves in mysteriou
s (at least to me now) ways that I haven't found a descripti
on of. In the old days they'd sometimes stack 2 or more chucks. Not sure I'm up to rotating frames of reference for stacked chucks, perhaps polar coordinat
es with the appropria
te shift?
If I can get this all done maybe we can talk Art into cleaning it up and putting it into a Vexx wizard or two

Next knee surgery back on for Wednesday, two days from now, pending another doctor clearance
. Might delay the programmi
ng effort a while.
Kirk