Month: May 2014

QuiltBank

Our Thousand Dollar Quilts now have a web site of their own. Offered at face value.

QuiltBank.com

Interestingly, money is not culture; currency is. More on that in my essay Culture is Anti-Rivalrous (scroll down to part IV). And here I am, a Free Culture advocate minting money on my quilt plotter. My impulse to share source files is mitigated by this. Free Culture readers of this blog: how can I best share the culture of this project without compromising the identity of the bills themselves? I like to share the “source code” of my projects once they’re out there, but I don’t see how I can do that with this one.

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resampling DST files

sampling_demo3

Our Quilt Plotter’s rather frustrating software automatically resamples DST files, for no explicable reason. While we struggle to communicate with its manufacturers to overcome this “feature,” I attempted to explain the problem in pictures.

1. A line, or vector file, is not a DST file yet. A DST file is comprised of many points, like so:
1. A line, or vector file, is not a DST file yet. A DST file is comprised of many points, like so:
2. This has a high sample rate, because there are many points spaced close together.
2. This has a high sample rate, because there are many points spaced close together.
3. Above is a lower sample rate, with "stitches" in black. There are fewer points and they are spaced further apart. The machine always, always, automatically RESAMPLES DST files, which inevitably degrades line quality. Here's a resample at the same sample rate (frequency/spacing of points):
3. Above is a lower sample rate, with “stitches” in black. There are fewer points and they are spaced further apart. Here’s a resample at the same sample rate (frequency/spacing of points):
4. Every time the path is resampled, it moves further from the original line. This happens even if it's resampled at the same sample rate, as shown here.
4. Every time the path is resampled, it moves further from the original line. This happens even if it’s resampled at the same sample rate, as shown here.
5. Same sample rate, worse fidelity because of resampling.
5. Same sample rate, worse fidelity because of resampling.
6. If we resample enough times eventually our path won't resemble the original line.
6. If we resample enough times, eventually our path won’t resemble the original line.
7. Not what we want.
7. Not what we want.

 

 

 

sampling_demo30008
THIS is what we want the machine to read. We can control all the points in the DST file in Mathematica. We just want the machine to not resample them, to keep the points in the original file we give it. Here the points are evenly spaced except at corners and curves to preserve fidelity.
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