I can't stop watching that video. If I had one of those machines, I'd never get anymore work done.

I once used it to plot the entire globe and didn't get much else done that day!

> If I had one of those machines, I'd never get anymore work done.

Hint: The entry level is at USD475. ;-)

Very interesting machine, thanks! I wonder if it does an analysis on input to determine where the start/end marks on a stroke with a fountain pen are.

the drawing software is actually pretty simple and draws "plots", with each stroke being a single plot and the pen lifting after.

What that means is you cannot scan a signature and reproduce it, because the machine won't know where to start and where to lift the pen. We used something like documented here: https://wiki.evilmadscientist.com/Capturing_Handwriting#Capt...

This produces SVGs which have those individual strokes that the machine can reproduce.

jSignature looks interesting. I wrote something like that for capturing signatures on Android years ago, where you work out each plot until the user lifts their finger.

I wonder if you could recreate signatures by examining the depth of the ink where the person lifts their pen, since that typically has the largest deposit of ink at that point, particularly with a fountain pen.

That’s actually surprisingly cheap. If I had more space I might be tempted to get one.

You can get a laser engraver or 3d printer for half the cost of those devices that's much more versatile.

These are based on the EBB board which uses a custom command set rather than the more common GCode command set which is the basis for most CNC machines.

If you're interested in CNC I'd recommend going with something that is based on GCode as it's much more transferable. GCode is used in everything from $100 PCB engravers up to multi-million dollar HAAS milling machines.

I appreciate the advice, but I doubt the laser engraver or 3D printer are going to hold a pen, so it wouldn’t really do what I wanted (of course they’re great to have in their own right).

There are countless examples on the internet of people adding laser engraver modules and pens to their 3d Printers. They're designed to be modified, they use an open source control language utilized by industry, unlike that pen device using a proprietary language.

The $150 laser engravers from Eleksmaker for example have an unused servo pinout on their control boards specifically for adding an accessory like an actuator for a pen. It would be trivially simple to swap out the laser module, which is held in by thumb screws, and replace it with a pen.

Comic Sans in their website title. That's a bold move.