I remember before small CNC machines became popular I would see engraving pantograph system in all of the small engraving stores in the mall. They had large letter blocks which could be traced and the result would be a tiny accurate letter engraved onto whatever was under the cutting head. When I first saw the picture of this Electronic Sketching Pantograph by Laura Harris I was wondering what the wires were for since I thought the user would simply trace the images on the right and they would be reproduced on the left on a different scale. Upon further investigation I am quite impressed by the idea. It uses a photo-eye to detect if the paper under the sensor is white or black, when black is present the sketch motor is activated to start sketching with the marker. This is simple and fun looking!
Via: Build Lounge
“It’s a pantograph with an opto-electronically actuated pen. Instead of the tracing stylus that most drawing pantographs use, this one has an optical pickup. You manually scan the pickup over the original art that you want to enlargen and sketchify, using sketching motions in whatever direction you desire (thus the “sketchifier” moniker).
The whole thing runs on 9 VDC and about 300mA when the pen is down. One of the improvements for the next version is to narrow the sensitive area so that smaller features can be resolved.”
