I was rootling around a directory of Apple II diskette images and came across a program whose output I thought would make a neat drawing gadget. I can't remember its origin or even really "what" it does. It's some diffusion pattern among circles.
- Output from AppleWin emulator
So I made one. Instead of plotting a white pixel at a particular X,Y point it will draw a circle of a user-defined diameter. (Gadget results images here are for a 24 by 24 inch job.)
- ca=1.6803; cb=3.1415; side=7.5; xres=150; yres=150; circ dia=0.125 in; gap=0.03125 in; 11,225 holes.... Stipple Drilled with 90 deg v-bit
- Drill toolpath with 1/8" end mill (material 1/16")
The resulting circles could be used for:
- a drilling pattern if the material is thin enough?
- pattern for a "V-Carve / Engraving Toolpath" or by using my Stipple (Half Tone) Drilling gadget (especially if you use a negative gap between circles)?
- a quick engrave in acrylic?
- exported to laser cutting software to laser circles in other material such as paper. Either for cut outs or raster engraving?
- something else...?
- Gadget run twice. (22,600+ holes!)
For now the DELETE button doesn't work. I didn't realize the drawing a circle was immediate unlike contructing a curve from contours.
Installation Instructions
Because the forum software doesn't allow attachments with ".vgadget" extension the file is uploaded as "Circle_Pattern v1_0.zip". Installation instructions are the same for both new installation or in upgrading a previous version:
Instructions for Aspire and VCarve Pro versions v9.x and above:
- download the gadget attached below as: Circle_Pattern v1_0.zip
- rename it to: Circle_Pattern v1_0.vgadget
- in Cut2D Pro, Vectric Pro, or Aspire click on then menu option: Gadgets -> Install Gadget
- navigate to where the downloaded and renamed file is
- select it and click Ok.
Note: after downloading the ZIP file do not extract it but continue on to the rename operation (unless you are running Aspire v4.5 or VCarve v8.x or lower in which you need to manually unzip and move the folder to where your gadgets are stored).
This gadget has been tested to work in Aspire v4.5 and versions 9 to 11 and in VCarve Pro versions 7 to 11.
I have not tried it in version 10.x but as that version uses the same toolpath selection as v11.x it should work. Choose a tool and if you get no errors it should work.
Running the Original Applesoft Program
Here's the original BASIC program:
Code: Select all
10 TEXT: HOME
15 PRINT: PRINT: PRINT
20 I = 0: J = 0: Y = 0: C = 0: XX = 0: X = 0
30 INPUT "CA (try 0.1): ";CA
35 INPUT "CB (try 0.1): ";CB
40 INPUT "SIDE (try 10): "; SIDE
50 HGR2: HCOLOR= 3
60 SD = SIDE / 100
1050 S = 1: E = 279: F = 191: FOR I = S TO E
1060 X = CA + (I * SD): XX = X * X
1070 FOR J = S TO F
1080 Y = CB + (J * SD)
1090 C = INT (XX + Y * Y): C = C - INT (C / 2) * 2
1100 IF C = 0 THEN HPLOT I,J
1110 NEXT: NEXT
This is much faster than the original 1 MHz Apple ][ which takes 22 minutes to run a complete display. We were much more patient in 1980.
Steven