I read (most of) the article and was thinking "got to be the only guy in the World", and the first comment on HN is another guy doing the same thing. World is a big place and HN is def a selection.

hehe, if anyone's interested, I built a similar machine around 2018-2020 [1], although I never automated the nail pick-and-place part of the process. I also used epoxy instead of plaster.

[1] https://www.instagram.com/string.art.bird/

I would suspect you could make some reasonable side money with a large scale version of this, maybe with colored wire, especially with commercial art in mind.

Did you ever consider it?

I did consider it, and I think you're exactly right RE the direction I would go into (colored wire, larger pieces, etc). But then I had a bunch of other things happen in life and so I had to put it all on pause.

The world of art (and especially commercial / corporate art) is very foreign to me, but I bet exploring it would be a fun challenge, so I am planning to do that in a few years.

Some people see innovative ways to combine art and technology.

Some people see money.

I work in automation. My livelihood is making things, unattended. I see my career.

Personally, I think artist should be compensated well. The whole "starving artist" thing isn't just a trope, and I don't think they should be punished like that, "in the name of art!". There are people in my family who were some of the most creative people I know, with art degrees, who have to spend time waiting tables, rather than on art, because because they have stomachs, and don't like the rain.

Money isn't bad, especially if it's from making beautiful things that others value.

Some people see Hacker News internet points.

They are the ones we remember.

Every now and then I remember I'm reading a VC-funded news aggregator.

Nice.

Did you build the CNC yourslef? Do you have any docs about it?

Thank you.

The guy from Stuff Made Here makes incredible machines, but they're mostly pointless; he seems to choose his projects based on difficulty alone (for instance, a machine that solves huge puzzles made of blank pieces).

This is useful and beautiful, so it's more interesting IMHO. I would totally buy that machine, or even order something from it.

How much would you pay for a 20x20 inch piece?

funny reading about the strength of nails comment for this. for a couple of years in a former life, i was doing 3d string art sculptures for "festival" type events out of UV reactive string. depending on the lumber/size/shape of the frame, there were times i put too much tension on the system, and the frame would bow/bend causing the string i was so concerned about keeping taut to loosen. i had to learn the right tension so it would be taut enough to not look sloppy.

Aww man, I added this idea to my project todo list last month when I saw another string art post: https://imgur.com/gallery/ljoJeal I have a small CNC engraving machine that I'm planning to use for this. I'm sure I'll get around to it one day

This looks like such an incredible engineering project, thanks for documenting it so well and sharing it with the world!

Kind of the opposite algorithm behind CT/MRI, if every string required nails at the edge.

It seems to be a popular programming challenge, generating an arbitrary image using a circle of nails and a continuous length of string:

https://github.com/halfmonty/StringArtGenerator

https://github.com/kaspar98/StringArt

Apparently an eager algorithm seems to come up with decent results. Now how to prove that it is (not) optimal?

I have a bunch of EDM wire and thought a machine like this might be a good use for it.

Amazing! Nice work.