Pintograph update

In case you didn’t read the original article, Pintograph is a fun side project I created for generating complex line art. It is a free iPhone and iPad app. Version 1.5 is now in the app store.

The update adds a couple of new features, control of the machine configuration, and overall speed control. Here are some images drawn with the new version.

You can still use the app as before, generating random machines. Now, you can also edit the machine directly using the Controls screen, shown below.

The machine is effectively a chaotic device, where small adjustments of the settings or parameters can give you extremely different results. Controlling this machine is not an easy task, but it is very rewarding to see and understand why certain changes produce a new pattern.

The other new feature is the speed control at the top of the interface. This lets you slow things down so you can study a design take shape. Watching the pen move makes me feel like it has a mind of it’s own. It’s my favorite part of using Pintograph.

We have had a lot of fun using the images generated by Pintograph as input to other applications. Here are a couple of examples, one using Percolator and another using our very own Alt Photo iPhone app.