Plotted Postcards

Happy Thanksgiving!

This was a 40+ hour plot. I went into this thinking that I’d plot of of these for each of my loved ones but the duration was too long for that many copies in the days I had before the holiday.

The duration was caused by the Drawbotv3 settings that I chose. This was on purpose from a visual perspective, when I started plotting I didn’t realize the duration impact of those changes. I let it run to completion to make sure there wasn’t a problem or something else. It completed successfully. It has a very nice texture from the ball point pen that was used.

A few weeks ago, I was in an airport. There was a person walking down the concourse towards me. On their feet were black boots with tell-tale yellow stitching. This made me smile and long for my boots. I didn’t have mine on at the time since I can never track the TSA rules. I imagined this. Since being home, I’ve been wearing my 1460‘s here and there.

AI Generated Image ; plotted with a bic cristal pen.

I’m particularly please with this one as I think it does a nice job of capturing the motion of the propeller and the wind.

The positioning of the image on the card is just a little bit off. Oh well. I’ll get that sorted at some point.

AI generated fan art for one of my favorite YouTube channel.

AI generated image

This required a bit more time in the image processing that I thought it should. Part of the issue is the density of dark space. When there is a low amount of light space mixed into the areas of dark space the image crosses a line between definition and obscurity that I think hurts the recognition and the connection with the observer. In other words, shadows and shading are important.

Welcome to Plotted Postcards.

This site is a collection of post cards that I have created. I generally make these and mail them out. If you want one, send me your US postal address and maybe I’ll send you one.

If you liked this, and want one, you can do so here. I’m happy to send one to you that you can send to someone else, or send it directly to your recipient. If you want me to send one to someone else, you are welcome to provide a message to them. If you do not provide a message, I will include a basic greeting and will include your first name.

Venmo: @advroadtrip 

Paypal: @sendsandnow 

Etsy: https://plottedpostcards.etsy.com 

plottedpostcards@gmail.com

Not all of the plots work out the first time. In this case I changed the the platform and then had to adjust everything. I was being too cautious with the z-axis height and so there are lighter spots. I thought I had it fixed for the second. The third is better. If I do another I may adjust further to get better lines.

The top pen is brand new out of the package. The bottom pen is what the same type of pen looks like after it has plotted itself nearly to the end. This one still writes. It has been taken out of the plotter and will be used manually until it stops.

I didn’t track exactly how many hours this was used. It was > 60 hrs for certain. I’m tracking that new pen’s life. As of the time of this writing, the current pen has about 10-15 hrs of usage. My current setup does not allow for the volume of ink to be seen while plotting. I’ll have to consider the setup to see if I can improve it.

Bic says the cristal pen can write 2-3 km.

https://penvibe.com/how-far-will-a-ballpoint-pen-write/

A BIC Pen Can Draw A Line Over Four Times Longer Than The Height Of The Empire State Building!

AI Generated using https://bing.com/create ; GPT-4

black and white; pen and ink; abstract; generative line art; Japanese inspired; a piper archer flying through the sky with light layers of clouds; perspective is also from mid-air slightly below, left, and behind the airplane

The basic answer is that a picture is proceed in a tool that makes gcode. That gcode is then sent to a CNC machine that holds a pen.

My basic setup is to create or generate an image. This may be a downloaded image, an AI generated image, a photo, or something else. I then process these images with DrawingBotv3 to create the gcode. Then I used Universal gcode Sender to send them to the plotting machine. The current plotting machine is a Genmitsu 3018 CNC with a 3d printed pen holder. I typically use bic crystal pens in black. The postcards are basic pre-printed postcards that are typically heavyweight paper that meets the USPS postcard standards.

Depending on the image and the settings that are used in DrawingBotv3, the plots take some number of hours. 5 hours is typical. My longest is 40+ hours.

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