Scroll saw bowl reborn

Ok so quick update, I’m heading out but just got something working. I’ll go into more detail later.

Javascript and SVG libraries are a little above my level of tinkering. After spending half a day yesterday pound away, I got a something. I think my major problem is the coordinate system. I need to figure out how to shift it from being 0,0 in top left to being centre, centre, 0,0. Preferably with top right side being positive, positive. I plan to get back to that later.

I use to know Excel and VBA so I resorted to that. The process I have at the moment is:
1 - VBA macro to generate table of points(was able to reduce my level of accuracy and still keep my lines)
2 - same macro(or manually) creates a XY scatter graph with lines
3 - macro then turns off axes, legend, etc
4 - save graph as PDF
5 - open in Inkscape, fiddle and/or resize if need be, save as SVG

I tried to just save the points as CSV and figure a way to convert to SVG, but found nothing easy. Also with excel, I found it easy to make all my variables easy to change to get different results. Next step is to figure away to do different equations. Batman equation maybe?

I am sure OpenOffice could do the same. I just prefer Excel. Also with Excel I can see my numbers and understand what’s going on. With Javascript, I was stuck writing a word document and praying. I would really like to do a Javascript version. Anyone more familiar with that stuff, please contact. Would love to try to create a something.

Cheers all

If you haven’t tried Scratch from MIT you should give it a look. Many of the sample programs are easy to tweak to get interesting loops and whirls. They really are easy to program. The images can be saved as a .png and worked with after that. here are some parametric examples. iOS need not apply at the moment because it’s Flash dependent but that will change soon. I’ll highlight specific ones when I move to a Flash friendly device later on.

I’d try Processing or Python, which have more extensive libraries and are more powerful in many ways than scratch. I realize programming languages are like religions…

Learning curve on Scratch is pretty small. I use that for teaching coding basics for elementary students. So for a math novice that hasn’t made it to sine and cosine, regular polygons can give some cool things. Once the students know a polygon’s angles add up to 360, there are simple routines that generate them. Such as this one. Just changing a few of the numbers can do some neat geometry.

Most of the school around here are using Processing for teaching. Google has been pushing that locally; again there is no right language, but the one you successfully build your program in.

Here’s a 5 mins example of this in Fusion 360. (Very quick, thrown together example)

Basically created one tangent curve then use that to create a pattern. Then made a offset of that pattern every 10mm.

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The language choice is a deep subject. It’s the baby duck syndrome for me. However as @henryhbk pointed out, some are more novice friendly. This appeared at Make magazine today and seems custom made for those just getting started in programming and design. http://makezine.com/2015/11/09/learn-to-make-interactive-graphics-with-updated-getting-started-with-processing/

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@marmak3261 For novices they (all these “magical” languages) are great as you can get started quickly and get the general idea of how to program, and are great for quick-and-drity apps like this case. As an enterprise developer, who cut his teeth on IBM 360 and PDP-8 assemblers, I’m not a huge fan of “magic” since I now develop mission critical healthcare applications, where bugs can actually hurt people. I prefer strictly typed languages without any magic (ruby-on-rails I am staring at you!) since I don’t want some library call “deciding what I meant” if I make a mistake (mostly work in Java).

@henryhbk well it would be nice to be able to code from the ground up and know all the tricks, I spend 40 plus hours a week on a saw and workbench. I don’t have time or energy to learn the very depths of coding when all I need is a pretty picture generated. So “rails” , fences, barbed wire , frameworks or what ever, I’m more then happy to be lead by the nose. After all worse comes to worse my programs can’t kill anyone(well I assume , we will see how the beta testers do).

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@karaelena cool! I do something slightly different. I haven’t thought about doing it with a flowerish type pattern.

******Updated: Attached now, @dan thanks for the file fix. I am working on trying to figure out how to write an equation, with references to cells, in a spread sheet. Then have the equation transfer to the VBA coded. Ideas welcome! ****

So I put something together for this bowl. It is an Excel spreadsheet that can make a graph, based on an equation, and then offset it. The first sheet is where you can add variables as you see fit. The second sheet, named sheet5, is where the graph appears. The graph can be saved as a PDF, then imported into Inkscape, where it can be manipulated as you see fit.

The equation in this is the heart equation from above. Feel free to modify it as you want. I cannot figure out how to make it easy to change the equation from the cells. So you have to go into the developer tab, and open up the macro, and change it there.

Oh, allow or enable macros for this to work. I am sure this would of been better with Open Office, but I know Excel better, and I think Open Office uses Python. I do not know Python, I barely know VBA.

On the first page:
Base radius is the size of the first iteration. I set this bigger for other equations, 0 is fine for this one
Distance is the space between each iteration
Loops is how many times it goes out
Counter is how much the equation counts up to. I have it set to count in 0.1, this can be upped

I apologize for the shoddy code, I build boxes, not programs. So a first time making something like this, and this complex. Stack overflow, Google, and blogs were my friend on this one.

Enjoy! I hope someone finds this useful. I plan to use this for my bowls.

heart1.xlsm (54.0 KB)

I’m going to see about finding a place where SVG, XLS, and the like can sit for us.

Problem solved - can now upload .XLS and XLSX.

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@dan Thanks Dan! Not trying to be ungrateful, but can you add “.xlsm” to? its the macro version of excel. Thanks for taking an interest.

@dan Can you also add DXF?
Thanks

XLSM is in there. Our experience so far with DXF is that it’s less consistent from platform to platform so I’d recommend for folks to interchange in SVG, AI, and PDF. Spike, do you have the ability to export in other formats?

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I know this is a bit of a specific tool, but I hope it can be expanded. Excel is user friendly, with a large community. And I like the equation driven designs I see here and there, and were posted earlier by @marmak3261.

Only reason for this over OpenOffice is that I don’t know python. But if someone wants to put that together, go for it!

Thanks for doing this, especially for opening up the file upload feature more. Thank’s @dan for making this possible.

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@dan I can export to pretty much anything but SVG, so I will give AI a shot.
Thanks

Looks great @marmak3261. That the idea . Now in the macro you can go in and change the equations.

I’m excited to see what else others come up with.