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Life & fun · alternatives · 2026

24 alternatives to My Pen Plotting Journey

Generative art coded in p5.js and pen plotted using an AxiDraw V3/A3.

My Pen Plotting Journey is a personal project documenting one creator's experience with pen plotters and generative art. The blog shares technical insights, artistic experiments, and the learning process behind… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. My Pen Plotting Journey launched in 2023; newer entries below may have overtaken it.

  1. 1

    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.

    2024 · lostpixels.io · its alternatives →

  2. 2

    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 →

  3. 3

    Create AI art that drives 10x more conversions

    2023 · shushantlakhyani.gumroad.com · its alternatives →

  4. 4

    Major step forward with photorealism and in-image text

    2023 · its alternatives →

  5. 5

    Visualize your whole life through a 3D Timeline

    2024 · myjourney-timeline.com · its alternatives →

  6. 6

    The smartest, most beautiful, most coherent model

    2025 · midjourney.com · its alternatives →

  7. 7
    Drawww▲661

    Real time AI drawing optimized for the iPad

    2023 · drawww.app · its alternatives →

  8. 8

    Create plotter-like line drawings from your images.

    2021 · javier.xyz · its alternatives →

  9. 9

    A simple, modern, precise, and versatile pen plotter

    2016 · shop.evilmadscientist.com · its alternatives →

  10. 10

    Explore the frontiers of imagination

    2024 · midjourney.com · its alternatives →

  11. 11

    Create your own unique pen plotter map art

    2018 · literalstreetart.com · its alternatives →

  12. 12
    Plot▲148

    Collaborate with your design team in a new way

    2018 · plotapp.co · its alternatives →

  13. 13
    Diya▲300

    Create timeline animations directly in Sketch

    2017 · its alternatives →

  14. 14

    Vector art generation with AI

    2023 · recraft.ai · its alternatives →

  15. 15

    Turn hand-drawn design into a HTML with AI. By Microsoft.

    2019 · learn.microsoft.com · its alternatives →

  16. 16

    Convert hand-drawn diagrams into digital schemes

    2024 · sketch2scheme.com · its alternatives →

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  18. 18

    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 →

  19. 19
    AxiDraw▲92

    Personal drawing and writing machine

    2016 · shop.evilmadscientist.com · its alternatives →

  20. 20

    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 →

  21. 21

    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 →

  22. 22

    AI4Animation in javascript & three.js. Contribute to sneha-belkhale/AI4Animation-js development by creating an account on GitHub.

    2019 · github.com · its alternatives →

  23. 23

    Turn your Sketch prototypes into user flow diagrams

    2020 · github.com · its alternatives →

  24. 24GR

    Realistic handwriting generator. Convert text to handwriting using an in-browser recurrent neural network. Choose from various print and cursive styles. Customize the outputs and download as SVG.

    2020 · calligrapher.ai · its alternatives →

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