DrawingMachines.org

PLOTTERS  [Automated drawing output]

 Pantographs

The original Xerox copier, capable of reducing, enlarging, and mirroring an original drawing.

 Roulette Geometry (Spirographs)

Drawing cycloids, epicycloids, hypocycloids, trochoids, and involute curves. You might know it as a Spirograph, but its history goes way back.

 Ellipsographs

Machines for drawing ellipses, in more methods than you could imagine.

 Geometric Drafting

Tools assisting in making complex curves for mechanical drafting.

 Signatures/Handwriting

Automated signature machines, handwriting duplication, and machines for synthetic script.

 Harmonographs/Pendulographs

A stylus at the end of a swinging pendulum.

 Integraphs

Mathematical drawing instrument for plotting the integral of a graphically defined function.

 Coordinates/Etch-a-sketch

Manually controlled X-Y axis plotter. You know, an Etch-a-Sketch.

 Perspectographs (Plotter)

Automating linear perspective drawing.

 Surveying/Topography

Automatically generating topographic maps.

 Anamorphosis

Machines for drawing anamorphic illusions or oblique perspectives.

VIRTUAL IMAGES  [Shadows or projected images for tracing]

 Camera Obscura

Small hole (or lens), plus a dark room (or box) equals an inverted projection of real life.

 Camera Lucida (Prisms)

A beam-splitting prism on the end of an adjustable stand. Look straight down into the edge of the prism and you see your subject and your hand at the same time. Perfect for tracing from life.

 Camera Lucida (Mirrors)

Combinations of mirrors and glass to create a virtual image for tracing. Like the prism camera lucida, but using mirrors instead.

 Mirrors

Concave mirrors focus an image of a bright scene onto a surface in a darkened room.

 Glass/Spectrographs

Using reflections to create virtual images for tracing.

 Silhouettes/Shadows

Shadows: the oldest everyday virtual imaging technology.

DELINEATORS  [Directly trace from life]

 Perspectographs (Delineator)

Your stylus movement corresponds to a traveling sighting element. It’s a complex operation coordinating your eye and your hand, mediated by the machine.

 Offset Pointers (Board Parallel)

A sight aligns a pointer to tracing from life while the stylus draws on the adjacent drawing board.

 Sighting Pantograph

A combination of Board Parallel Offset Pointers and Pantographs to manage real-time scaled drawings from life.

 Physiognomy

Tracing the human form, directly from humans.

COORDINATE TRANSLATORS  [Point-by-point translation from life]

 Sighting Grid

A gridded mesh to break down a scene into digestible chunks to draw.

 Sportello (Dürer's Door)

A length of string. A swinging door. Lute optional.

 Orthographic

Translating perpendicular points for dimensional accuracy.

 Jamnitzer's Device

The outlier machine that deserves its own category. For drafting perspectives of imagined design objects.

 Offset Pointers (Sight Parallel)

A sighting element parallel to a stylus plotting points on a perpendicular board.