One continuous line. v99
New. The G-code now follows choc OS's own files (purge line, retraction and wipe, E per mm from the needle). Watch the first prints closely, and fine-tune the flow on the printer.
Only the part of the model between the two cuts is printed. Cut the top where it stops being flat (a dome or a point ends in a few tiny, wobbly last layers that don't hold their shape in chocolate), or the bottom of a round model so it stands on a flat first layer. The model's preview on the Trace tab fades the parts cut off and outlines the cuts; the Height above is the part that's left. Turning the model clears the cuts.
A model prints its outside contour only: the inside surface of a hollow model (a cup's inner wall) and any hole are not traced. Walls adds lines inside the outside contour, one spacing apart; how much of the inside gets chocolate is up to Base and Infill.
A bead can only reach a little past the layer under it (Overhang per layer, in Fine-tuning) before it has nothing to sit on. One continuous line can't print a separate support, so the support is the print's own wall, widened from the plate up, and it stays on the piece. Flared skirt: the support pulls back towards the model one overhang step a layer, from its far edge only, so it fans out under a cap and braces an arm back into the model at that slope (least chocolate). Thin wall: a wall the width of one narrow loop runs from the plate up under each overhang, into the model, and flares out near the top to hold the whole overhang (a standing r keeps its arm, with a thin wall under it; on a round model it is the same as the skirt). Each layer stays one loop. The ready list says how far the model steps out with Support off.
Fills every area the line encloses with more of the same line, still one continuous line. Density 100% puts the rows a line width apart, touching (solid chocolate); 50% two line widths apart; 0% leaves the inside open. Working out a fill can take a few seconds on a big drawing.
Fills the inside of the layers above the base, as part of the same line: 0% leaves them hollow (walls only), 20–30% is a light support, 100% is solid.
Numbered strips side by side, each the same small zigzag a few layers tall, with one setting stepped from strip to strip. A strip's number is the count of teeth in the comb printed in front of it, and strip 1 is on the left. The layers go round every strip before stepping up, so each has time to set. Print it, pick the best strip, and Use it.
Big models (hundreds of thousands of triangles) load, turn and slice slowly. Drag the preview to look around it. The 3D tab slices it into layers and fits each one with a Fourier series; set its height there. The line spacing below is the wall's.
Outlines and folds as seen from the preview's angle, hidden lines removed (like plotter.vision). At the far left every edge between faces that aren't flat together is drawn, a wireframe (the plotter.vision look); further right only sharper folds and the outline. Export SVG saves the drawing itself as vectors (every visible edge, at the model's size). Draw this view makes it the picture to trace, for chocolate or the 2D tab; a dense wireframe is more than one line can follow, so keep the angle up for tracing. Pick 3D model again to change the angle. Drawing or exporting a view takes a few seconds; a wireframe (far left) takes longest.
Single-stroke lettering: every letter is drawn with the same stroke at the same height. Even gaps keep the closest point between neighbouring letters at exactly the letter gap.
Or try a sample. The tools under the preview select an area, erase stray lines, set the start point or let you draw your own.
Shading lines join the same single line, so they need more terms.
The gap is the space left between neighbouring beads, edge to edge. The line keeps its parts at least line width + gap apart, centre to centre, everywhere: the doubled strands of a stroke, the loops at stroke ends, and the smallest size the print can shrink to (it grows rather than letting lines overlap). Only where strokes meet at a junction may they touch, so they join. For chocolate, the line width is the needle and the flow is set for a bead exactly that wide and one layer tall, so a gap of 0 puts beads side by side, just touching, without overlapping. A little gap (0.5 mm to start) leaves room for chocolate that spreads before it sets: raise it if beads merge, lower it if you want them to touch. Base and Infill at 100% density work the same way (rows one line width apart). For a pen drawing, the line width is the pen and the gap is only how much white you want between strokes.
The line can't stop or go back over itself, so it comes back from every stroke end as a narrow loop: out on one side, round a small loop, back on the other, one line spacing apart. A short connector, a straight strand across to a nearby loose end, can replace the way back (the line still doesn't stop).
Rounds sharp corners in the drawing to at least this radius, so the needle never turns tighter. Stroke-end loops, junctions and connectors keep their shape.
Removing a crossing reverses a short stretch of the line so the strands turn back instead of crossing. "Remove all" also keeps strands slightly apart; the gap between lines sets the real gap.
Drag to scale the print, type a width or height, or fit it inside a box. It can't go below the smallest size that keeps every line the spacing apart; bigger prints keep finer detail from the image. Aspect ratio stays locked.
For a pen plotter (the AxiDraw, through Saxi) and flat files. The pen can lift and go over a line twice, so this is the traced drawing itself: one stroke per line, no doubled strands or stroke-end loops, still one continuous line.
Pick a pen, then click a shape on the page to fill it; click again to clear. Each pen is its own layer in the SVG, for changing pens in Saxi. Spacing = pen width fills solid.
Where a line stops short of another, a bridge (dashed) closes the gap so the shapes split there. Bridges only bound the fills unless you draw them.
Shapes smaller than this join the neighbouring shape they share the most edge with, so slivers at junctions and inside small letters don't need clicking.
The page at the paper size in mm, the drawing at its size from the Trace tab, centred within the margins. Pen 1 (the drawing) and each fill pen are separate Inkscape layers with their own stroke colour, so Saxi can split them by group or by colour. Saxi sets the pen speeds. In Saxi pick the same paper; if your Saxi build scales drawings to its margins, the size will follow Saxi.
Start with "bug:" or "idea:" to say which it is. Tick a note when it's done. Notes are kept in this browser.
Each axis is its own series. A term is one axis at one frequency: a circle of radius ak (or bk) turning k times while t runs from 0 to 1, starting at angle φk (or ψk). Chain the X circles and the tip's left–right position is x; chain the Y circles and the tip's height is y; the pen is where the two meet. Terms are ordered by size across both axes, so the slider keeps the strongest first. z is the height above the print surface: 0 for a flat print, and later the climb of a continuous spiral.