Ribbons

2020-12-01

All pieces here were rendered by my AxiDraw V3/A3.

“Ribbons” are rendered by tracing a 3D curve with a fixed width, applying an isometric projection, and using occlusion to filter any overlapping sections. The next two pictures give a sense for how that works:

All the
unfiltered lines are shown. — All lines are drawn, resulting in moire patterns where the ribbons overlap.

Lines are
filtered, and colored. — Overlapping lines are filtered, removing any lines that are obscured by higher ribbons.

It’s surprising how much depth is added by dropping a few lines.

Unlike real-life ribbons, these “Ribbons” can intersect and pass through one another. Many interesting patterns appear when you start trying to draw many “Ribbons” on top of one another:

Groups of ribbons forming tangled bands.

Ribbons modulated in decreasing frequencies.

A few of my favorite outputs were inspired by the idea of making a “basket-weaving” of ribbons: