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Author Topic: Speedier Rasterbator (and StippleGen) Vector Drawings
kongorilla
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Posts: 362
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kongorilla
Post Speedier Rasterbator (and StippleGen) Vector Drawings
on: April 13, 2012, 08:38
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If your polargraph is tethered to your computer and you've tried to draw a "rasterbated" (or "StippleGened") image, you probably stopped the drawing before it was done. It takes a long time to draw those little vector circles.

But what if they weren't circles?

I've found if you convert the circles to squares (I do this in Inkscape), it will speed up the drawing considerably. A rasterbated image that I had previously tried to draw (that contains ~10,000 circles) and stopped when I estimated it would take over 90 hours to draw, took ~20.5 hours after converted to squares. (I said "speedier", not "speedy"). This time comparison is invalidated by the fact that I'm now using the new controller with faster communication, which I wasn't before. However, I've verified that even in the new controller those circles are much slooower to draw than squares.

Here's an example image with squared "dots":
Doggy Diner Vector Polargraph Drawing (detail)

If anybody is interested in more detailed instructions for the conversion process, let me know.
Morbo
Newbie
Posts: 10
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Post Re: Speedier Rasterbator (and StippleGen) Vector Drawings
on: April 14, 2012, 11:41
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I'm definitely curious :o...but I'm use illustrator...would the steps be close to the same? Well I suppose inkscape is free isn't it. write'm up and I'll try it out 🙂
sandy
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sandy
Post Re: Speedier Rasterbator (and StippleGen) Vector Drawings
on: April 15, 2012, 12:09
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It doesn't look much different to the circles Kong, and I don't think the exact shape is that important anyway - so quicker is better! Good stuff!

Morbo, not quite sure how to do it best in illustrator, if you select all the points in a drawing with the direct selection tool then there's an option to "convert selected anchor point to corner" and that does work for three points of the circle, but it still ends up with a round bottom. It looks like rasterbator creates its circles from plain lines (an open loop) rather than circular areas (a closed loop), so each circle consists of five points, with the two on either end being in the same place. And those end-points can't be converted to a corner so automatically.

Oh and stipplegen looks _cracking_ doesn't it?!

sn
kongorilla
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Posts: 362
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kongorilla
Post Re: Speedier Rasterbator (and StippleGen) Vector Drawings
on: April 15, 2012, 19:37
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In Inkscape:
1. Open the Rasterbator generated PDF.
2. Go "View/Display mode" and change to "Outline".
3. Delete all the unwanted shapes around the edges that Rasterbator makes, including circles so small you cant even see them.
4. Using the "Edit paths by nodes" tool (F2), select a batch of circles (if I select more than ~8k circles, Inkscape chokes on my computer, so I work in batches of ~2k-4k).
5. You should now see the "nodes" (control points) on the circles you've selected. Select all the nodes (cntrl/a is the easiest way).
6. Click the "Make selected segments lines" button, which is on the lowermost horizontal toolbar along the top (the icon is two nodes with a straight diagonal line connecting them). The circles should now be diamonds.
7. Mouse-click on your image to deselect the nodes, and then again to deselect the circles you've been working on.
8. Repeat until all circles have been converted and then save as whateveryouwant.svg

For vectors created in StippleGen:
1. Open the SVG.
2. All the circles are "grouped", so select the group with the "Select and transform objects tool" (F1) or just cntrl+a.
3. Do an Object/Ungroup command (shft+cntrl+g).
4. Delete all the unwanted circles around your image.
5. Cntrl+a to select all the circles.
6. StippleGen generates circle objects rather than round paths, so you need to convert them by clicking "Path/Object to Path" (shft+cntrl+c).
7. From here on it's the same as for Rasterbator circles, step 4.

I've found the StippleGen created vectors to be so large that when viewed in the controller I can't see them until I "scale vector" down, so don't be afraid if you don't see anything when you first load yours.

Image
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