Spiralator

A spirograph drawing tool. Free, online, mobile-friendly. Designed to help explore and express the beautiful geometries of circles rotating in circles. Inspired by the old spirograph toy but not constrained by its practicalities.

Instructions

The vertical sliders set the disc and pen configuration. Draw by dragging the moving disc around the fixed disc. Double-clicking in the main window starts and stops auto-drawing.

Some tips: Press the "Demo" button to watch a random series of shapes being drawn; when you're experimenting, the "Show Preview" button is useful to immediately see the effects of altering the parameters; "View Gallery" in the "Share/Save" menu for inspiration; for a "light mode", the "Set BG" button enables changing the background using the colour sliders.

Sliders

Fixed Size

Set the size (number of teeth) of the fixed disc or ring. Together with "Moving Size" below governs the rotational symmetry.

Moving Size

Set the size (number of teeth) of the moving disc or ring. The moving disc size may be greater than the fixed disk size if it is circular or inverted.

# Sides

Number of sides of the moving (arc-) shape. 1 is circular, 2 is ovaloid, 3 is triangloid etc.

Arcness

Non-circularity of the moving arc-shape. 0% is circular, 100% gives fully pivotal internal motion. Only effective when the number of sides is greater than 1.

Pen Radius

Distance from the centre of the moving shape to the pen.

Pen Angle

Angle to the pen from the 0-tooth via the centre. Interesting when combined with non-circular moving shapes.

Line Width

Pen thickness.

Hue, Lightness, Saturation

Adjusts pen colour unless "Set BG" is toggled when they control the background colour.

Buttons

Show Preview

Dynamic preview of the fully completed path. See how pen and disc adjustments affect the completed path live.

Nudge +/-

Shift the discs by one tooth (without drawing).

Complete

Draw a fully complete path.

360°

Draws one revolution of the moving disc about the fixed disc.

Undo

Erase the last drawing action.

Share/Gallery

Opens share menu. "Share URL" Can be used to save and share an in-progress design. "Share Image" and "Download Image" create image files. "Upload to Gallery" and "View Gallery" allow interaction with a public Spiralator gallery.

Demo

Draws a randomized sequence of configurations to completion. Hide discs and UI and relax.

Hide UI

Hide the user interface. Bring it back with a double click.

Hide Disc

Toggles the discs - you can still draw when the discs are hidden.

Rand Discs

Randomizes the disc and pen position configuration.

Rand Cols

Randomizes the pen hue (with matching background hue).

Clear All

Erase all drawing. Not undoable!

Set BG

Toggle to change background colour using the colour sliders

Lock Ring

The fixed ring is locked in position by default. Untoggle this button to permit moving of the fixed ring.

Reset Position

Reset the moving ring to its original position in the fixed ring

Invert

Flip the moving disc to the outside of the fixed ring. And back again.

?

Brings up these docs.

Thanks!

If you enjoy Spiralator you may also be interested in Harmonata. Other stuff: suprdory.com

Contact me: suprdory@gmail.com