saxi

##### make plot good

saxi is a tool for interacting with the AxiDraw
drawing machine by Evil Mad Scientist. It comes with an
easy-to-use interface, and is exactingly precise.

- automatically scales & centers your drawing to fit on the paper
- minimizes pen-up travel time by reordering & reversing paths
- uses a custom motion planning algorithm (inspired by axi) that's smooth & fast
- automatically splits apart layers based on SVG stroke colors or group IDs
- has a web-based UI, so there's no need to muck around with installing X11 and Inkscape
- can run on a Raspberry Pi or similar, so you don't need to be tethered to your plotter while it plots

!a screenshot of the saxi user interface

$3

``
$ npm i -g saxi
$ saxi
Server listening on http://0.0.0.0:9080
Connecting to EBB on /dev/tty.usbmodem1461
`
If you encounter an EACCES error when installing the package globally, see Resolving EACCES permissions errors when installing packages globally.

#### Raspberry Pi
To install saxi on a Raspberry Pi, first install node.js if you haven't already:

`
$ curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_12.x | sudo -E bash -
$ sudo apt-get install -y nodejs
`

and then proceed as above :) If you connect to the raspberry pi over ssh, you might want to run the saxi server inside a tmux or screen session to have it stay running even if your ssh session disconnects.

#### CORS
If you want to connect to saxi from a web page that isn't served by saxi
itself, you'll need to enable
CORS, otherwise
GET/POST requests will be denied by the browser. CORS is disabled by default as
a security precaution, but if you need it it's available. Just launch saxi with
the --enable-cors flag.

$3

saxi makes use of the low-level LM command introduced in EBB firmware version
2.5.3 to carry out highly accurate constant-acceleration motion plans. If your
AxiDraw is running an older version of the firmware, saxi will fall back to the
less-accurate (but still pretty accurate) XM command.

To check what version of the EBB firmware your AxiDraw is running, run saxi --firmware-version:

`
$ saxi --firmware-version
EBBv13_and_above EB Firmware Version 2.5.3
`

To upgrade your AxiDraw's firmware, see here.

$3

To work on saxi, you can clone this repo and then run npm start:

`sh
$ git clone https://github.com/nornagon/saxi
$ cd saxi
$ npm run dev
``

This will watch local files for changes. If you change the server code, you'll need to restart manually.

$3

saxi's motion planning algorithm is heavily inspired by Michael Fogleman's
axi project.

saxi's UI would be an ugly mess if it weren't for @kylestetz's discerning eye.

Thanks to Evil Mad Scientist for designing
and building such a lovely machine!

---

Made with saxi

These images were plotted by folks using saxi. If you'd like to add something you've made here, shoot me an email!

by Julien Terraz (@targz)	by Antoine Beyeler (@abey79)	by Lionel Radisson (@MAKIO135)
by Daniel Feles (@daniel_feles)