Author: cloudshovelling

Our initial research focused on several drawing machines from the Renaissance such as Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola’s Bi-Dimensional perspectograph (developed between 1527-1545), Jacques Besson’s Drawing Machine from Theatrum instrumentorum et machinarum (1578), Albrecht Dürer’s perspectograph (Dürer’s Door – 1525) and other machines that have since been reiterated by people such as JH Lambert in 1752 and recently for purposes of abstract art by Eske Rex.

 Inspired in most part by a machine developed by an unknown artist we saw on the internet, we became interested in developing a drawing machine that would generate the cams that could produce a 2-D drawing.

A cam changes the input motion, which is usually rotary, to a reciprocating motion of the follower. Cams can be shaped to change the way the follower moves. The shape of the cam is called the profile. If a cam rotates clockwise, the movement of the follower in 1…