# Plotter generator

A sheet as an early pen plotter drew it: one fine line weight, tone only from spacing, and string-art nets crowding against quarter circles.

Open the generator: https://morph.ogeny.app/plotter/

## Design choices

- **All-over field** (`layout.all-over`): No focal point; the whole surface is filled evenly, like a textile. “Organisation”: Repeated module. https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/all-over-field/
- **Framed panels** (`layout.framed-panels`): Content held in borders, cartouches or compartments. “Organisation”: Ruled tiles. https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/framed-panels/
- **Line illustration** (`image.line-illustration`): Outline drawing, engraving, pen and ink. “Organisation”: Your drawing. https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/line-illustration/
- **Repetition & rhythm** (`space.repetition`): Repeated units create a visual cadence. Set by “Repetition & rhythm”. https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/repetition-and-rhythm/
- **Generous white space** (`space.generous-whitespace`): Emptiness is an active element: wide margins and quiet areas. Set by “Generous white space”. Measured on the opening picture, from 0 to 1: ground showing 55% → 69%. https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/generous-white-space/
- **Limited spot colours** (`color.limited-spot`): Two or three flat inks. “Colour”: By role. Measured on the opening picture with “By role”: hues besides black, white and grey 3. https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/limited-spot-colours/
- **Monochrome** (`color.monochrome`): A single hue, or black and white. “Colour”: One pen. Measured on the opening picture with “One pen”: hues besides black, white and grey 0. https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/monochrome/
- **Geometric primitives** (`form.primitives`): Circle, square and triangle as building blocks. Always. https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/geometric-primitives/
- **Non-representational** (`form.abstract`): Pure form with no depicted subject. Always. https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/non-representational/
- **Generative imagery** (`image.generative`): Code-, algorithm- or AI-generated pictures. Always. https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/generative-imagery/
- **Generative & AI** (`medium.generative-code`): Code, parametric systems or machine-learning models. Always. https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/generative-and-ai/
- **Rational & objective** (`tone.rational`): Clarity, neutrality and order above personality. Always. https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/rational-and-objective/

## How it works

- Everything is a stroke of one constant fine weight, and tone comes only from how close the strokes sit: no fills, no line that swells or fades.
- Every curve is a quarter circle ending on a cell corner, so neighbouring arcs join, and string-art nets crowd against those arcs until the edge shows.
- Bare paper is a shape: a lens between two knots, or the empty quarter disc a web closes around.
- Your own drawing follows the same rule: it is never traced as a thick line, only filled and echoed in the one pen.

It never does:

- No thick line, solid area, gradient or shadow; nothing bleeds off the sheet, and no mark is scaled up to be the focal point.
- It copies no known plot: modules, tiles and colours are made by rule from the seed, and the word is one small line in a corner.
- In motion the pen adds each line once a loop and the sheet clears once a loop, so nothing flickers.

## Controls

- `drawing` Your drawing (default ""): Draw with your mouse or finger, and the plotter redraws it in pen lines. A line that ends near its start becomes a shape to fill; any other line becomes a ribbon of parallel lines. Links keep the drawing.
- `organisation` Organisation (module | tiles | drawn; default module): A module of arcs, hatches and knots repeated in dropped columns; square tiles in a ruled grid, each holding a fan or a net; or your own drawing in pen lines.
- `fill` Pen fill (mixed | hatch | echo | net; default mixed): How a drawn shape fills: parallel lines, copies shrinking to its middle, or string-art chords whose crossings draw a curve. Mixed takes them in turn.
- `grid` Repetition & rhythm (3–10, default 6): Grid size: how many cells across the sheet. The strokes stay as close together, so bigger cells hold more of them.
- `spacing` Line spacing (6–16, default 9): The gap between arcs, hatch lines and fan ribs, in thousandths of the sheet’s width. Closer is darker: the only way to make tone.
- `pen` Pen weight (0.6–2.6, default 1.9): The width of the one pen line used for everything, in thousandths of the sheet’s width.
- `net` Net density (6–26, default 15): How many lines each net has for every tenth of the sheet’s width. Higher nets are darker and crowd harder against their arcs.
- `voids` Generous white space (0–1, default 0.4): Share of voids. In tiles, how many hold an empty quarter disc; in the module, how many cells stay bare, and whether hatches stop at their disc. Measured on the opening picture, from 0 to 1: ground showing 55% → 69%.
- `colour` Colour (role | patches | one; default role): By role, the pen follows a cell’s place in the module, or the way a tile faces, so colour keeps a rule; in patches, colour wanders in runs of a few cells; or the whole sheet in one pen. By role: Measured on the opening picture with “By role”: hues besides black, white and grey 3. In patches: Measured on the opening picture with “In patches”: hues besides black, white and grey 3. One pen: Measured on the opening picture with “One pen”: hues besides black, white and grey 0.
- `word` Word (default "FIGURES"): Left as “FIGURES”, each variation picks its own word; type yours to set it, or clear it for none. One small line in a corner.
- `movement` Movement (draw | slide | flow; default draw): The pen draws the sheet stroke by stroke, pen by pen, then the sheet clears; or the sheet stays and its nets, or all its lines, slowly move on by a gap.

## About Early Computer Art & Plotter Graphics

In the 1960s and 70s, computers drew on paper through a pen on a moving arm or drum. A program set out a small repertoire of lines and repeated it by rule. The pen could not swell or fade, so a darker area could only be made by putting more lines closer together. Early plotter graphics take their look from that limit: fine even strokes on a light sheet, with the rule left readable.

This generator builds every sheet on the quarter circle. Concentric arcs, hatches stopped by a quarter disc, leaf fans and nets all end on a cell corner, so neighbouring curves join up, and bare paper reads as a shape. Choose a repeated module in dropped columns, with knots of near-black net, or ruled square tiles. Grid size, line spacing, pen weight, net density and the share of voids change the sheet, and colour follows each mark’s role or wanders in patches.

In motion, the pen draws the sheet stroke by stroke, one pen after another, then the sheet clears and it begins again; a still is always the finished sheet. The strokes are merged into one path per pen, so the SVG stays small enough to send to a real plotter.

You can also draw on the picture yourself, with a mouse or a finger. A line that ends near its start becomes a shape, filled with parallel hatching, copies shrinking to its middle, or straight string-art chords whose crossings draw a curve nobody drew; any other line becomes a ribbon of parallel lines. Everything stays one pen weight, the pen can replay your drawing stroke by stroke, and a link keeps the drawing as its points.

Early Computer Art & Plotter Graphics in Stylogeny (1963–1980): https://stylogeny.com/styles/early-computer-plotter-graphics/

## Recipe

```json
{
  "tool": "plotter",
  "v": 1,
  "seed": 1,
  "format": "portrait",
  "params": {
    "drawing": "",
    "organisation": "module",
    "fill": "mixed",
    "grid": 6,
    "spacing": 9,
    "pen": 1.9,
    "net": 15,
    "voids": 0.4,
    "colour": "role",
    "word": "FIGURES",
    "movement": "draw"
  },
  "palette": "early-computer-plotter-graphics"
}
```