Try walking +4 inches, -4 inches.

Idea: Paint in black?
Idea: Suggest running auto-color extension?
Idea: Add option setting, that allows you to specify which color un-named content will be painted in.

Currently, the "PAINT" height is used both for getting paint and painting on the paper.

USB serial port appears to work normally once after disconnecting and reconnecting USB cable.

Perhaps the port is not being closed correctly within pyserial?

seems like a timeout or test for serial connection might be missing?

Just like in real painting by hand it is very common to wipe out a drop of excess paint/water after the brush got refilled. This results in a way more precisely drawing experience.

It would be fantastic if the inkscape add-on could handle such behaviour.

One of the three water container could be abused as an dispose container for
those excess drops. A new brush remove-excess-drop-position would be necessary too.

The moment of the wipe out should be right after the refill, after the brush got dipped/wiped into the paint.

Right after the refill the brush moves to a empty water container and moves down to a position where the brush's hair is slightly beneath the edge of that container. In the next step the brush moves across that edge and wipes away the drop of excess paint.

From here starts the actual painting process.

The installer assumes Inkscape is in /Applications . It should be using Launch Services to find the path to the installer.

Workaround: move Inkscape to /Applications . Install. Put Inkscape back where you wanted it.

Don't drill a hole in the paint

As reported here: http://forum.evilmadscientist.com/discussion/329/y-motor-not-moving-backwards

1. Upon "pause" (PRG) button press, stop moving and raise pen. Do not return home.
2. For resume tab: Behavior upon "Apply" determined by choice of radio button:

-- Option A: Return to home corner (only)
-- Option B: Resume (Still at paused location)
-- Option C: Resume (From Home Corner)

Trying to paint at exactly 8x11 inches can lead to bumping into the walls, depending on exact robot dimensions and calibration. Possibly revise total print area down slightly, or change location of print box slightly.

Due to the length of the bristles (default brush), when the carriage lifts to reink, then sets the brush back down to complete a given line, you are left with a gap in the line that does not get painted.
This may be acceptable for shorter bristled brushes, pens, pencils, etc., but i believe it would be a "nice-to-have" option in the WCB extension to backtrack from the reink point % (var.) inches before setting back down. This should close the gap.

• May move some objects when transferring between layers
• May not correctly identify "water wash" elements

Produces an "unknown developer" message.

In Inkscape, when I go to the extension menu> Control WaterColorBot extension> the window appears> I click "apply"> it gives this error message:

Inkscape has received additional data from the script executed. The script did not return an error, but this may indicate the results will not be as expected.

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "wcb.py", line 1843, in
e.affect()
File "C:\Program Files\Inkscape\share\extensions\inkex.py", line 268, in affect
self.effect()
File "wcb.py", line 374, in effect
self.plotToWCB()
File "wcb.py", line 880, in plotToWCB
self.recursivelyTraverseSvg( self.svg, self.svgTransform )
File "wcb.py", line 1057, in recursivelyTraverseSvg
w = float( node.get( 'width' ) )
ValueError: invalid literal for float(): 100%

My WaterColorBot is plugged into a power source and my laptop. I have Inkscape and the Control WaterColorBot extension downloaded. I have restarted the laptop several times and unplugged the bot several times. Each time I open the test file with some shapes and font to test the above message appears and the device does not print. What can I do to resolve this message? Thank you for any help!

Likely a viewbox or unit scaling issue. Template at 11x8 inches works well. Others do not, and give improper initial scaling.

Currently, layer name is used only to manage which color will be painted. It could also be used to control give per-layer control over water dipping while in Watercolor style painting modes.

For example,
2@-Red
3&-Orange

Where the symbol following the number would be interpreted to control that layer's water usage in watercolor or watercolor+post-dip modes.

Suggested symbols:
Symbol "&" : Force water dip after re-inking brush (that layer only)
Symbol "@": Disallow water dip after re-inking brush (that layer only)

Totally annoying.

When painting from the Layers tab, say, layer 6-blue, with watercolor style enabled, the robot re-inks and washes with the color for each previous layer, rather than skipping directly to the blue paint.

Inkscape 0.91 will be released soon ("weeks to months"), and we would like to be ready. The current installer is not compatible with Inkscape 0.91.

Todo:

Check compatibility of Inkscape extensions with 0.91
Update installers with new file locations for 0.91.

For MacOS, the location of extensions in Inkscape 0.48.5 is:
/Applications/Inkscape.app/Contents/Resources/extensions/

However, in 0.91 the new location is:
/Applications/Inkscape.app/Contents/Resources/share/inkscape/extensions

See also evil-mad/EggBot#19

Do not let WCB go beyond limits of page, even if the drawing does

When I click Apply (for anything), I get the following error:

Traceback (most recent call last): File "wcb.py", line 1586, in <module> e.affect() File "/Applications/Inkscape.app/Contents/Resources/share/inkscape/extensions/inkex.py", line 265, in affect self.getposinlayer() File "/Applications/Inkscape.app/Contents/Resources/share/inkscape/extensions/inkex.py", line 207, in getposinlayer x = self.unittouu( xattr[0] + 'px' ) File "/Applications/Inkscape.app/Contents/Resources/share/inkscape/extensions/inkex.py", line 351, in unittouu return retval * (self.__uuconv[u.string[u.start():u.end()]] / self.__uuconv[self.getDocumentUnit()]) File "/Applications/Inkscape.app/Contents/Resources/share/inkscape/extensions/inkex.py", line 304, in getDocumentUnit p = param.match(svgwidth) TypeError: expected string or buffer

Future versions of Inkscape will support a feature called "powerstroke" that allows for creating and editing strokes with variable width. This could potentially be used to control the height of the paintbrush above the paper, during each stroke.

Take a drawing with multiple colors represented, and automatically split it into layers.

To compensate for effective backlash due to flexing of a brush or brush tip

The wash "cycle" doesn't seem to be aggressive enough to prevent tainting the palette - I'm wondering if there is a way to send a separate brush-up/down amount to the device for a wash. For example if the default up position is 60 and the default down position is 21, then those numbers would apply to pre-dip, re-ink, and plotting, however, for the wash cycle, perhaps use 60 and 10 so that the bristles spread out on the bottom of the petri dish. This should allow for the paint in the brush to be rinsed out more completely at the end of the cycle before going to the next color in the palette.

To "preview" how a plot will appear.

possibly also EBB driver

Three dips -- predip, main dip, post-dip. All could be combined into a single dip.

A4 and US letter at a minimum; test to ensure proper operation.

Issue reported when using Hershey Text. New "text" (actually curves produced by the Hershey Text extension) produced off page.

Produced a "crash" (python error) when trying to print this on the WCB.

More data needed: After pause and resume, re-inking may not work correctly.

Using the Y, O, R, G, B, V, Br, Bl order offers cleaner colors and less contamination on the palette.

Rather than plotting 8-1, use 4, 3, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 1 to accomplish this order. Maybe just added as an option tick-box?

Likely as a separate extension, perhaps not even under the WCB umbrella.

One option: use existing Seymour extension:
http://pzwart3.wdka.hro.nl/wiki/Seymour_(Inkscape_Turtle_Graphics_Extension)