Dev tools · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to I built an interactive plotter art exhibit for SIGGRAPH
I'm enthralled with using pen plotters to make generative art. Last August at SIGGRAPH, I built an interactive experience for others to see how code can be used to make visual art. The linked blog post is my trials and tribulations of linking a MIDI controller to one of these algorithms and sending its output to a plotter, so that people may witness the end-to-end experience.
This project demonstrates an interactive art installation that connects generative algorithms to physical pen plotters. Visitors use a MIDI controller to influence code-based visual designs, which are then plotted in… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. I built an interactive plotter art exhibit for SIGGRAPH launched in 2024; newer entries below may have overtaken it.
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Generative art coded in p5.js and pen plotted using an AxiDraw V3/A3.
2023 · adamfuhrer.com · its alternatives →
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Hey HN, I want to share a personal project: I made a tiny pen-plotted book for my wife. I did everything myself—drawings (with some help from Midjourney), plotting, cutting, and binding. I even used a 3D printer to make a helper tool. It's absolutely over-engineered, but I enjoyed it a lot. Multi-disciplinary projects, especially those with a physical output, are a lot of fun for me. The post covers the process in detail, but if you're interested in anything specific, let me know. Cheers!
2025 · muffinman.io · its alternatives →
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Create plotter-like line drawings from your images.
2021 · javier.xyz · its alternatives →
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This is a little toy project of mine that lets you simulate digital logic graphs. It was inspired by Minecraft's Redstone and the Piet esolang. It's got some serious drawbacks-- you write circuits as PNGs and simulate them with a Python interface. It's slow to run and slow to experiment with. And it is certainly difficult to use for people with any kind of color blindness. But despite that, I hope this can still be a fun toy!
2022 · github.com · its alternatives →
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In the past I've used declarative diagram generation tools like Mermaid.js a lot for quickly drawing up things but for presentations or deliverables I find that I have to then move the generated diagrams over to a tool like Lucidchart which allows full control of the organization and customization. Therefore I am now working on this to combine the benefits of both into just one tool which can do both functions. The project is certainly in the early stages but if you find yourself making architecture diagrams I'd love to hear your thoughts on the idea or even a Github issue for a feature…
Oct 2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
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Hi HN! We're working on an AI studio product, and have been experimenting with the recently-released ControlNet (https://github.com/lllyasviel/ControlNet) After wasting hours with it, we decided to put together a quick fun project. "Sketch" allows you to draw anything (works w/ touch inputs on mobile too), enter a prompt (it can be as simple as "drawing" and it'll try to guess) and you get something out fast. Keeping it all on a public feed as well, to serve as inspiration. Hope anyone here finds it fun :-)
2023 · clio.so · its alternatives →
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Creating high-quality scientific figures can be time-consuming and challenging, even though sketching ideas on paper is relatively easy. Furthermore, recreating existing figures that are not stored in formats preserving semantic information is equally complex. To tackle this problem, we introduce DeTikZify, a novel multimodal language model that automatically synthesizes scientific figures as semantics-preserving TikZ graphics programs based on sketches and existing figures. We also introduce a Monte Carlo Tree Search-based inference algorithm that enables DeTikZify to iteratively refine its…
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
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Sketch2scheme▲208Convert hand-drawn diagrams into digital schemes
2024 · sketch2scheme.com · its alternatives →
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2019 · brachiograph.art · its alternatives →
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I have been dreaming of creating things (arts, games, etc.), but that wouldn't be possible because I can hardly draw anything. But now with Stable Diffusion everything is hopeful again, so I further collected the AI magics that I considered necessary in creation activities, and integrated them into an Infinite draw board (like Figma). Hope that I can hear from you, any advice or suggestions will be really appreciated!
2022 · github.com · its alternatives →
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Inspired by games like Turing Complete/Virtual Circuit Board/Logic World, I tried to make a mix of aseprite and wiredworld/wired-logic, the idea being the user can build a digital circuit using a "fullstack" pixelart creation workflow. The circuit is just an image. The primitives are (i) connected wires which have undefined, 0 or 1 state during simulation (displayed brighter or darker in function of the state) and (ii) NANDs, which are little pixel triangles. During simulation the user can interact with any wire by clicking on it, toggling its state, which is cool for messing…
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
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An AI-powered drawing canvas for your imagination
2023 · svg.now · its alternatives →
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2020 · amydyer.art · its alternatives →
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The future of Sketch and the story of how we got where here
2016 · layout.fm · its alternatives →
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I’ve been working on a project to bridge the gap between AI generation and my AxiDraw, and I think I finally have a workflow that avoids the usual headaches. If you’ve tried plotting AI-generated images, you probably know the struggle: generic tracing tools (like Potrace) trace the outline of a line, resulting in double-strokes that ruin the look and take twice as long to plot. What I tried previously: - Potrace / Inkscape Trace: Great for filled shapes, but results in "hollow" lines for line art. - Canny Edge Detection: Often too messy; it picks up noise and creates jittery paths. -…
Jan 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
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Hi all, This is a generative art project I worked on over the past year or so consisting of about 100 little artworks generated using P5.js. I have an overview and technical write up here: https://dannyking.uk/artwork/colororbs You can play with my interactive demo and make your own here: https://dannyking.uk/artwork/colororbs/designer And the gallery is here: https://dannyking.uk/artwork/colororbs/gallery This project came about after reading a HN post about a year ago…
2022 · dannyking.uk · its alternatives →
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A few years ago I made a pen plotter attachment for Prusa MK4 (https://www.printables.com/model/827264-pen-plotter-attachme...) and at the time I didn't have a good way to turn artwork into G-code for it, and I put the project on ice for a while. I recently wanted to dabble in line art again and made a small browser app to make it easier. As agentic AI tools of 2026 are quite addictive, it rather quickly grew into something quite a bit more - an integrated browser CAD/CAM for pen plotters that covers everything from importing existing artwork, creating artwork from…
Jul 2026 · kurvengefahr.org · its alternatives →
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Sketch 47's new native shared symbol library
2017 · sketch.com · its alternatives →
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Generate flow diagrams from Artboards in Sketch.
2017 · abynim.github.io · its alternatives →
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A new online course from Sketch Master
2017 · sketchmaster.com · its alternatives →
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Hey HN! We’ve been experimenting with integrating multimodal models directly into creative workflows, and ended up building an AI-first image editor using OpenAI’s new `gpt-image-1` (from GPT-4o) inside our SDK. Instead of prompting in ChatGPT and pasting outputs into a design tool, this lets you generate, edit, and remix images all in one canvas. This allows for really interesting new workflows, like quickly mixing multiple images, or creating visual prompts by using annotations and reference on the canvas. Some key details: - Built with our plugin system in CE.SDK (CreativeEditor SDK) -…
2025 · img.ly · its alternatives →
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Hi HN! The children in my family love to draw and are beginning to explore digital drawing tools, but they've been somewhat discouraged by the complexity of popular software like GIMP, Photoshop, etc. I was motivated to create a tool that encouraged their artistic creativity and also piqued their technical curiosity. With the release of SDXL-Turbo in late Nov 2023, it became feasible to perform text-guided image to image generation in real-time on a consumer grade GPU. Inspired by this progress and my little cousins' artwork, I put together a web app that integrates an interactive canvas &…
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
Also compare
- My Pen Plotting Journey alternatives
- I made a tiny book using a pen-plotter and AI alternatives
- Tool that turns your images into plotter-like line drawings alternatives
- I made a little digital circuit simulator that operates on PNGs alternatives
- Diagram as code tool with draggable customizations alternatives
- Convert sketches into images using ControlNet alternatives
Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →