Generative Art Starter Kit: 10 Python Generators for Pen Plotters

Most generative art tutorials give you a script that makes pretty patterns on screen. They don't tell you how to make those patterns work on a pen plotter, where stroke ordering matters, ink coverage needs to be in a specific range, and tiny details get lost in the mechanical precision of the pen.

This kit comes from 105+ experiments running an autoresearch loop across 75+ generators, scoring thousands of outputs to find what actually plots well.

What you get:

10 working generators (all ship as standalone Python files, all share a common plotter_utils.py module):

1. Flow Field, Perlin noise particle traces, stdlib only
2. L-System Tree, 5 presets (oak, willow, fern, bush, sierpinski)
3. Voronoi Cells, Lloyd's relaxation (requires numpy + scipy)
4. Spiral Patterns, Archimedean, logarithmic, hypotrochoid
5. Reaction-Diffusion, Gray-Scott (spots, worms, coral, maze, zebra presets, requires numpy)
6. Subdivision Grid, Vera Molnar-inspired recursive cuts
7. Subject-Driven Hatching, NO background hatching, bring your own image or use the built-in mask
8. Space-Filling Curves, Hilbert, Heighway dragon, Gosper flowsnake
9. Topographic Contours, multi-octave noise with ridged-multifractal mode (requires numpy)
10. Cellular Automata, 1-D elementary rules (30, 90, 110, 184, etc.)

30 pre-plotted example SVGs (three seeds per generator) in content/examples/, each with its seed, parameters and plot time recorded in a MANIFEST.md alongside PNG previews for every file.

5,700-word plotter-focused guide (content/guide.md) with:

• Measured stroke-optimization before/after numbers (17-19x air-travel reduction on real output)
• Four mermaid diagrams (scoring pipeline, stroke-optimization comparison, L-system expansion, generator-selection tree)
• Failure-mode gallery (feed rate, wet ink, scoring rejects, re-plot cost)
• 30 named parameter recipes (three per generator, copy-paste CLI ready)
• AxiDraw + iDraw setup walkthroughs with pen pressure, feed rate, paper pairing
• An FAQ and a "common gotchas" section from nine months of autoresearch

Production features:

• SVG output optimized for plotters (single-stroke, no fills)
• Shared nearest-neighbor stroke ordering with measured 17-19x air-travel reduction
• Built-in plot-time estimator (+/- 15% vs real wall clock)
• Configurable paper sizes (A5, A4, A3, Letter) with margin-aware layout
• Metadata embedded in every SVG (seed, full parameter dump, path count, draw travel, air travel, plot time, pen)
• AI scoring script with Gemini and OpenAI providers, plus a real scoring log from a 10-piece gallery run (average 7.2 / 10)

Scoring rubric from 105+ experiments:

• 6 dimensions: composition, complexity, coherence, ink coverage, plottability, uniqueness
• Quality gates: 8+ = print immediately, 6-7.9 = worth plotting, < 4 = rework
• LLM scoring prompt included, run it on your outputs

Who this is for:

• Developers with pen plotters (AxiDraw, iDraw, etc.) who want algorithmic art
• Creative technologists exploring the intersection of code and physical art
• Anyone curious about generative art with a focus on real output, not just screen renders

Who this is NOT for:

• If you want Processing/p5.js sketches, this is Python-only
• If you don't care about physical output, you won't use half the features

All generators are Python 3.10+. Core generators have zero dependencies. Advanced generators need numpy/scipy.