This experimental page is dedicated to providing design tools for turners who want to embellish their work. These tools can help you create patterns to inspire your art or just for fun.
All the utilities were developed using the Gemini AI. Eventually, each tool will have a user manual accessible via a help button, which will include links to videos and example images. Most of these tools allow you to download an SVG file, which is compatible with graphics software like Inkscape, Affinity Designer, Adobe Illustrator, and Corel Draw. You’ll eventually be able to save your work as a JPG, PDF, or SVG.
Flower Design Utility
This utility helps you create simple, symmetrical flower designs with up to five rows of concentric petals. You can also:
- Print multiple flowers in a circle on a letter-sized page and save the result.
- Choose from basic petal shapes or design and save your own to use for future projects.
- Flowers
- Flower Petals
Hypotrochoid (Spirograph) Utility
This interactive spirograph generator creates two types of circular patterns:
- Lines that show the circumference of interacting circles.
- Lines that connect the centers of two rotating circles.
You can drag the sliders to change the pattern and use the “Draw Vectors” button to switch between the two pattern types. To see individual changes, click once on the slider and use your keyboard’s arrow keys. Once you find a design you like, you can save it as a
PDF, SVG, or JPG. This utility offers over 14 billion possible patterns.
Spirals and Whorls
This tool lets you set the colors, the number of lines, and how much the spiral expands with each rotation.
Kaleidoscopes
With this tool, you can select the number of symmetrical replicas you want, then drag your mouse over the canvas to see a pattern appear. You can also mix patterns with different degrees of symmetry by changing the number of lines before clearing the screen. Designs can be saved as an SVG or a JPG using a screen capture.
Kaleidoscope Plus allows you to load an SVG vector image and replicate it along with your hand-drawn lines26. This is intended to help you lay out artwork for bowls, plates, and platters.
Plate Rim Decorator
This tool is designed for decorating the rim of a plate or platter. You can define up to five curved lines and repeat them up to 100 times around the rim. You can choose different diameters for each line to create a concentric design or use the same diameter to overlay them. Sliders let you visually see the impact of your changes. Once you’re finished, you can save the output as an
SVG file for final editing and printing.
Platter Layout Tool
This tool helps you evenly space things in a circular pattern for plates and platters35. You can print a polar grid on a transparency to find the center of a turning blank or to make marks around the edge of your workpiece36.
Vessel Panel Generator
This utility helps you map a flat image onto a curved surface like a bowl or vase. You can trace a profile of your vessel from a photo, and the tool will generate an image file with strips that will approximately fill the curved space when placed side by side.
Image Slicers
After creating your vessel panels, you’ll need to clip your artwork to match their size42. These two programs can clip either
SVG vector files or JPG image files into strips.
This program also lets you slice either
JPG or SVG files into a grid so you can print a large image on multiple pages.
Plate Rim Visualizer
This tool helps you visualize what a plate or platter’s rim would look like at different percentages of the overall diameter.
Color Assistant
If you are working from a photo and want to compare it with the current state of your artwork, this utility compares the hue, saturation or value at all points of two photos, the original reference and your artwork in progress. The output is rendered as a heat map showing the difference in one color dimension (hue, saturation or value) between two corresponding points in the photos. The differences are shown interactively as you move your cursor around the heat map. Click on any point to output the values at that point.