I browsed through an image search of designs created using TurtleStitch, a program that lets users procedural generate files that can be embroidered on fabric. After looking for a source of inspiration, I finally came across some spiral designs that I really liked. Initially, I was going to do something resembling a spiral galaxy, but I decided that I would rather do a Nautilus shell of circles.
It took me numerous attempts running the code to get the spiral to work in a way that I was satisfied with. I still did not manage to get the spacing and rotation to repeat in a way that I was completely satisfied with. I’m sure that there are algorithms that I could have made use of that would have produced a more consistent pattern without the need for trial and error, but I wasn’t really sure where to begin looking for something like that.
After I created my TurtleStitch design, I moved on to BeetleBlocks, which allows users to create procedural 3D artwork that can then be printed as a physical object with a 3D printer. It is very similar to TurtleStitch and TurtleArt, and an understanding of the block-based coding used in each program is easily transferable between them. The major difference is that BeetleBlocks adds a third dimension to the programs.
I looked for some inspiration again before settling on a design for a DNA strand. I created a base for the DNA strand and then had the code loop through a barbell shape that would be moved up and rotated slightly on each new pass. I choose a fairly gentle rate of rotation since a 3D printer would struggle to print a structure with much overhang. This print might still need a significant amount of support structure to print successfully.
In the bowl example, I had the program extrude concentric tubes. I struggled quite a bit with this since I never really understood the logic of how to get the turtle to perfectly rotate around a fixed central axis through the code. Again, I found myself using a lot of brute force coding to approximate what I wanted. I tried several different designs that frequently produced undesired results. I tried a spiral extrusion that I eventually abandoned because nothing I did seemed to work.
