So I’ve written a tool that can turn any parametric equation into a series of Roomba movement commands. Mostly, anyway. The parametric equations I’m predominately focusing on are the hypotrochoid series of equations used in a Spirograph.
To explore the space of hypotrochoid curves I created SpiroExplorer, a simple Processing applet that lets you to adjust the equation parameters in real-time. You can do the following things while it’s drawing:
- left/right arrows change “r”, the radius of the inner moving circle
- up/down arrows change “d”, the pen’s distance from center of the moving circle
- ,/. changes “R”, the radius of the big fixed outer circle
- +/- changes scale
- [/] changes “dtheta”, the increment size (resolution, essentially)
- space bar randomizes parameters
- return key clears the screen
Click the below to play with SpiroExplorer:
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