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

#### For Raspberry Pi 2 / 3 / 4 / 5

1. Install Node.js (if not already installed):

``bash
$ curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_20.x | sudo -E bash -
$ sudo apt-get install -y nodejs
`

2. Install saxi globally:

`bash
$ sudo npm install -g saxi
`

If you encounter an EACCES error when installing the package globally, see Resolving EACCES permissions errors when installing packages globally.

---

#### For Raspberry Pi Zero / 1 (armv6l)

The official Node.js builds don’t support armv6l. Use an unofficial build:

1. Download and extract Node.js v20 for armv6l:

`bash
$ wget https://unofficial-builds.nodejs.org/download/release/v20.5.1/node-v20.5.1-linux-armv6l.tar.xz
$ tar xf node-v*-armv6l.tar.xz
$ export PATH=$PATH:$PWD/node-v*-linux-armv6l/
`

2. Install saxi:

`bash
$ npm install -g saxi
`

If you encounter an EACCES error when installing the package globally, see Resolving EACCES permissions errors when installing packages globally.

---

$3

Start the saxi server from the terminal:

`bash
$ saxi
Server listening on http://0.0.0.0:9080
Connecting to EBB on /dev/tty.usbmodem1461
`

Then open a web browser:

Go to http://localhost:9080 if you're using the same computer where saxi is running.

Go to http://:9080 if you're on a different device.
(You can find the IP address by running hostname -I on the computer running saxi.)

---

$3

If you're connecting to your Raspberry Pi via SSH, it’s a good idea to keep the saxi server running inside a tmux session so it stays active even if your SSH session disconnects.

#### Install tmux (if not installed)

`bash
$ sudo apt-get install -y tmux
`

#### Start a tmux session and run saxi

`bash
$ tmux new -s saxi
$ saxi
`

To detach from the session (leaving it running), press:

`
Ctrl + b, then d
`

To reattach later:

`bash
$ tmux attach -t saxi
`

To list sessions:

`bash
$ tmux ls
`

To terminate session:

`bash
$ tmux kill-session -t saxi
`

---

#### 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:

`bash
$ 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/alexrudd2/saxi
$ cd saxi
$ npm run start
`

This will not 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)

SVG-IO For AI-Generated Images

Use the SVG IO integration to generate images with AI using a text prompt. Enable it by passing the --svgio-api-key
paremeter when running on the server:

`sh
npm run build
node cli.mjs --svgio-api-key
``