OCEAN, Generative Pen Plotter Art

Ocean 1

Pen plotter servos move the pen up and down; they only last so many duty cycles before they fail.  If you make art that requires many pen movements, the servo could fail before the piece is even done (been there).  Also, the servo makes a sound that is a harsh to the ears when moving.  I decided to create a composition that would not require any pen lifts, I think there was a genuary prompt that was based on this previously.  I created a function that would rotate a list of points about the origin and another function that would translate those points.  I created a set of points representing an opened box shape, basically a rectangle with one of the 4 sides missing, a paradoxical 3 sided quadrilateral.  Crucially, the points retrace their steps, see diagram illustrating this concept below:

  Then I created a couple of loops that creates some x and y displacements, at each of those positions, I take the open box points, they are rotated by a certain angle which progressively increases and then translated to that point.  This list of open boxes is used to create a large single polyline in the SVG that is generated, with each open box connected by a line drawn from the point 0/point 6 to the next open box P0/P6.  I generated some outputs and discovered a range of angles that generated outputs that were the most visually pleasing to me.  I then added some more variability to the algorithm, so it would have some range of open box sizes it could draw, a range of angles, and whether a given open box would be shown or not.  The output has a flowing aesthetic reminiscent of generative art I have seen that is based upon 2D flow field vectors, but I think it has a unique appearance owing to being produced by a different approach and as a continuous line.  I decided to call this project OCEAN, I plotted several outputs in shades of blue, I like the contrasting mixture of turbulence and serenity conveyed.

Here is the python program from my google drive: ocean.py

Ocean 2

Ocean 3

Ocean 4

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