BBest Ever

Computer Doodles- I wanted to try using the CNC router as a very fancy plotter so I cut this spring-loaded sharpie holder that could slide right into the 3/4" tool collet. I probably could have got the same results from just loading a sharpie in the collet itself but this way the load would be consistent and it would adjust if the sharpie point started to wear. I didn't have any good vector line work so I decided to see if I could make linework using adobe illustrator's live-trace feature. Rather than actually try to make linework from an image of line work I played around with starting with a photograph/engraving but using the "linework" tracing preset. This resulted in some pretty interesting paths and looked very cool when drawn on my makeshift CNC plotter. I created a preset for the image trace settings and hae been experimenting with different kinds of images and processing them in new ways. It seems photographs and engravings come out very well. I can also layer traces from the same image with different settings to get a fuller "value" in the trace result. By having illustrator join the short line segments I can also create some dynamic lines not unlike lay lines in a sketch- like in the pegasus above. Hope to try more of these and maybe make some prints.