Today I have been trying out StippleGen2 by Evil Mad Scientist. Stippling is when you create an image from little dots of the same color but with different sizes and with different density. StippleGen2 is built in Processing and uses an algorithm written by Adrian Secord. To try it out I used this classic picture of Louis Armstrong playing the trumpet. Once you load the picture you want to stipple the StippleGen2 starts crunching numbers and the algorithm continues to refine the result by applying the algorithm over and over again and the resulting image gets better and better.

After letting StippleGen2 crunch the numbers for a while I imported the resulting vector graphic file into inkscape and generated the G-code so that I could use my laser cutter to cut the image into a black paper. 2 hours and 23 minutes later I had a 20×20 cm piece of paper with about a 1000 holes in it and it looks awesome! Would be perfect for a lamp shade or just nice to put up in a window and let the sun shine through. I can highly recommend StippleGen2 it’s super easy and a lot of fun.