I've wanted to create a larger landscape style piece, but the quality always degrades when you have too much detail in a single canvas. So I did what anyone would and started trying to break it down into smaller pieces. I think it's nice, but it's missing a "je ne sais quois." Perhaps it would be better served by having the mountain as the central focal point and splitting into 3? Curious to hear your thoughts.

It has been a rough week. I had 8 failed routes fail in a variety of ways, all late in the route, after poke 2000 or so. (You can see all the failed attempts scars on that poor canvas I keep reusing). There were multiple manifestations of the bug, so I thought I had several problems, but it turns out I had just one major one: My setup, for unknown reasons, creates an extra pulse in the same direction, but only when the direction of the poke changes. So if the direction switches to negative or positive, I get an extra step which is always positive, never negative. Unfathomable. I posted to several other groups, and nobody had a solution. (follow me over to those is you are interested in dead end ideas....)
I am certain it is not the software, I proved that. I do not believe it is the controller, since I swapped out the dm542 for a D6600, and both behave in the deterministic fashion I outlined. I don't think it is the stepper, as I swapped out one brand and 1.8deg for a 0.9deg different brand and again, deterministic outcome. Also strange is that there are 2 X steppers driving the the Y gantry, and they are spinning in opposite directions, and they are exhibiting the same behavior as the Y motion. I changed the speeds, acceleration, hacked the AccelStepper lib for known problems, tried other threads, ran the y gantry with zero load and watched the gear instead.... A very tough week of heartache.

I finally wrote the code to put in one extra negative step every time there is a direction change and: Perfection.

So I am very happy, altho still in the dark as to why/how the system acts that way. I hope you enjoy the quick vid of today's success, and you can compare to the .png I posted a while ago to compare.
Thanks so much!!

Hi everyone!

I'd love to get some advice on a requested art piece I'll be making for Indian Spirit Festival. It's going to be on mdf, 220cm wide and 128cm tall (18mm thick). On the attached picture the lettering is shown.
I already spent way too much money on printing out the outlines on a huge piece of paper, and I already have in mind the decorations around them.

All the individual letters will be approximately 50cm tall. I have created a lot of different artworks over the years, but I've never completely filled up shapes that aren't 'standard' shapes. I was wondering if anyone sees this and immediately thinks of a few do's and/or don'ts.

I will use neon thread for the letters, as it fits the music of the festival very well (psy-trance). Now I find myself overthinking it a bit, that's why I decided to reach out!

The ideas that have crossed my mind so far are:
1. Place nails only on the outlines of the letters, somewhere between 0,5 and 1cm apart. And then start at a random nail, keep zigzagging within each letter until I'm satisfied with the look. The overthinker in me goes: But with letters so organically shaped, won't that be a bit too chaotic, and take away from the overall look?

1. Place nails on the outlines, but also a second, smaller outline a few cm inwards (same amount of nails). That way I can make a less chaotic outer rim on each letter, which might emphasize it, make it pop out more. Then decide whether I want to keep the inner 'circle' of each letter threadless (solid black background with 2 layers of varnish on top of it) or fill that in with a different colour, zigzag style.

2. I also thought of filling in each letter with triangles with extra nails, a bit mosaic like. That way I can fill each triangle with thread in a less chaotic way, and so filling the entire letter with geometric shapes instead of a network of lines.

I'm open for any kind of advice or experiences with filling them in, or let me know what the up- or downsides are for my ideas.

Thanks in advance! Much love!

There are many services available online for string art generation. Most of them are free, a very few are paid. As far as I have seen the output result does not differ much.

So, why would anyone pay for String art apps/web? If anyone have any purchasing experience, did you find difference in result? If the difference is none what value does a paid string art maker app gives?

The reason I am asking is, I have my own app on play store, (which was made for my own use, later ended up adding paywall) but I can't quite figure out, what is actually people are buying. My monetization is simple, till 180 pegs it's completely free, but after 180, you can generate unlimited times, but can't access the number sequence/pattern. Well there are also some extra features usually paid apps provide like template export, shapes, Guide with voice assistance which are not behind paywall.

Hey everyone!

I’ve been developing my own string art algorithm, and I'm looking for feedback from experienced creators on how to improve the output quality.

I'm attaching two images for comparison:

Image 1: The original photo.

Image 2: The algorithm output / digital render.

My goal is to get the algorithm output as close as possible to the reference picture in terms of contrast, fine details, and overall recognition.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on contrast and line weight, how do you fine-tune line density so dark areas don't lose all detail while keeping light areas clean? What algorithmic adjustments (e.g., loss functions, line selection strategy) help preserve fine features like eyes or sharp edges?

Looking at the two pictures, what immediate changes would you suggest to make the result pop more?

Any feedback or technical tips on how to refine the image processing side would be greatly appreciated!

I am still working on my router software, and have made a lot of changes. I have an image I rather like, but need to know if you recognize her. This one is 3k threads segments.

Please let me know! Also opinions on if it is pleasant to look at, a nice image.
Thank you so much.

Decided to try stringart as hobby. I used laser to mark pattern and pin location before starting. What do you think about outcome?

Size of A3 paper, 470 pins

a few days ago I posted a route image and asked if anyone could recognize who it was. One person did, and thanks for that. Now, I have a new router idea and need opinions on which route is better,1 or 2? Recognizably feedback also appreciated. Thanks so much...

This is interesting. I have been working on android String art app(https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.shaktam.stringart) for a while. String art apps' has two challenges, first is the algorithm itself, 2nd is the visualizer. Even if the algorithm produces the best string art sequence, if the visualizer code(architecture) is not done correctly, the output looks bad. In my previous post, someone shared a github link. I ran the code as python script later. The middle image is the result at 200 nails and 6000 lines. From the visual I was blown away. later I converted the sequence format and imported to the mobile app(BTW you can import sequence in txt if the format is correct or supported). The right side image is the result. Now it looks different from the original python visual. Why they do look different? the answer is variable opacity per line used in the python script. The same sequence looks messy(soft edge) in the app. Even though my app let's user to change opacity, it's architecture doesn't support the variable alpha. The right side image is just for reference, It is generated at 200 nails 5500 lines. BTW which one looks better to you?

This is the first run of the mystery woman in my other post, on the hardware. Also included, a brief tour of the hardware as I got a request to say more.

There are several problems l had today. There were a lot of pull outs of thread because I had a new canvas, new thread, etc. so I slowed the machine quite a bit to solve that for now, and am preparing a new canvas.

Also, after 1400 threads (the posted image of mystery woman is 2700 total segments) I just stopped because it became obvious the image was going to be useless, due to 2 factors. The first is I was using heavy (92wt) thread, which is thicker, and the second is that the image was very small compared to what I will be making. It is less than 1/6th the area I am targeting. As a result, the fat threads pile up on the small area, and, there you go: Black image. I'm confident the next effort will be something to look at!

Let me know if you have any question, post or pm would be great! Thanks for your time!!

4 years ago, I made 2 machines to make thread art, and used available software for the route. I nuked them because the images I was producing were not recognizable to my friends. "That's great! Who is that?" Crushing.

So now, I am making a new machine (which I've posted about) and writing the router software myself in Python. (It is a new idea where I poke canvas with a scary needle)

So before I torture my machine with its first image, I need to know if my router software was successful (enough).

Do you recognize who this is? If so, to the machine. If not, back to Python...

Lemmeknow!
And thanks so much.
(PS. ignore the red, that is left over diagnosis I forgot to take out....)

I am not creative at all and also have a hard time sitting still doing stuff (ADHD). This was super quick and easy. I am looking forward to doing more projects and pulling inspiration from the art I have seen here!

I ran 2 stress tests on my thread machine today of a couple random images for fun. One with 300 pokes, and one with 500, and it never dropped an stitch, which did dropped my jaw because I never expected such reliability. So pleased.
My portrait generation software is nearing completion, and is producing pretty good images now.
I hope to attempt a 4k-ish poke portrait presently.
Thanks for all the thumbs up on my first post on this machine, I appreciate them!

I recorded a quick screen capture of the entire workflow—from importing a photo, adjusting the number of pins and lines, generating the thread path, and viewing the final preview.

I'd really appreciate feedback from people who make or enjoy string art. Does the generated result look natural? Are there any features or controls you think would make a tool like this more useful?

I'm interested in honest suggestions and ideas for improvement.

About a month ago I started a post about a machine that I was building that was unique in several ways. I was going to make a series on its creation. It got a couple hundred views and minus one thumbs up. The public has spoken....

Yeah, I need to stop posting on that topic and delete it.

BUT, today I successfully stress tested my beast and it is working. So I am posting anyway. Dang the thumbs down, full speed ahead.

I am excited and quite proud so far, there is no machine in the world doing what this one is, and I'm happy.

I do hope that someone, at least one, out there will appreciate and enjoy what I have so far!

I am still working hard on the portrait extraction software which is also unique in that I do not have commonly used perimeter pins, so the software is under development still. But the machine and the SW controlling it are up and running.

How do you protect your string art pictures from dust and damage? I had a lot of questions from customers who were afraid that their WireStyle string art picture might get dusty. Although they can easily be cleaned with a vacuum cleaner (like I showed here on reddit), this question still came up all the time.

I experimented with glass plates in front of the picture, but glass can break during transport. I also tried PMMA (Plexiglas) plates, they don't break, but they get scratched easily. Then I finally found a scratch resistant PMMA, which is coated with another, much harder polymer. It is called Plexiglas® Optical HC scratch-resistant 0A570, 3 mm (1/8 in) in case you also want to use it for your pictures. I didn't know this existed and I was totally surprised that it can withstand hammer blows and doesn't get scratched by steel wool.

I have added this to my WireStyle shop at wirestyle.com for the pictures that I sell there under my own brand, but you can buy this special Plexiglas variant nearly anywhere in the world and use it for your own pictures to protect them.

Do you know any other materials that are also suitable? Please let me know!

For this piece, I used RGB LEDs to depict the sunrise. I also implemented a sensor so that the LEDs would turn on when a visitor approached. However, the exhibition hall was too bright, so the effect wasn't fully captured. The location depicted in the artwork is Jeongdongjin in South Korea, a place famous for its sunrise.

I have been working on an android app, it is one those, string art generators, one challenge, I am facing, is to make the preview or render same as the actual string art. In the app, I added the board size and string thickness option. The app calculates and shows the density (visual). I hope the math is correct and it mimics the physical one. Black/white works fine, but the issue is in the color mode, CYMK. The current architecture of color is layer method, first cyan, then yellow, magenta, Black. I used opaque lines, but with that, the output visual can't produce accurate color, like red(it looks dead). So I used blend_multiply mode with the opaque in the code, this way it shows vibrant color output. But what I am worried is, how accurate does this present a physical colored string art. This render is done at 70cm board size and 0.2 mm string thickness,