Circles do not exist

Post by waffletower » Tue, Sep 19, 2023, 9:59 PM UTC

pkulak wrote: post #64

waffletower wrote: post #61

I thought the article would go further and posit that Circles do not exist in reality as they are approximations of a mathematical ideal. But the author does present the raster image as a bonafide circle, rather than the approximation that it truly is -- more resolved than others or not. A zoomed in excerpt of the author's rasterized circle approximation clearly shows that scale is key in perception of reified ideals…

That statement is just one of a million in the "calculus does not exist" realm, and is not nearly as interesting as this article was. EDIT: apologies for the tone; came off very snide on second read.

Post by photonerd » Tue, Sep 19, 2023, 10:06 PM UTC

itishappy wrote: post #53

NegativeK wrote: post #11

> This is a laser cutter that takes its "print jobs" as a PDF file and uses its vector drawing commands to drive the cutting head. This means that it is impossible to use it to print a wheel. You'd need to attach the output to a lathe and sand it down to be round so it actually functions as a wheel rather than as a vibration source. Respectfully, I don't think you're limited by the PDF format if you're talking about…

Epilog claims (up to) 1200dpi resolution. Another comment mentioned the "standard bezier curve representation" is accurate to 0.03%. This means errors should start being observable with a circle as small as 3in. These are probably wildly optimistic assumptions, but it's still 10x smaller than the bed of their largest unit, and there's nothing to stop people from creating arcs of circles with radii even bigger than th…

Post by johnnyworker » Tue, Sep 19, 2023, 10:13 PM UTC

    In 1952 I spoke of the civilization of make-believe, the one we must shake off, myself, the the first of all! I spoke of columns of gray men on the march toward sterility and self-destruction.
    The same year I used the term "transautomation" to show the way beyond the rationalism of technocrats toward a new creation in harmony with the laws of nature.
    In 1953 I realized that the straight line leads to the downfall of mankind.
    But the straight line has become an absolute tyranny.
    The straight line is something cowardly drawn with a rule, without thought or feeling; it is a line which does not exist in nature.
    And that the line is the rotten foundation of our doomed civilization.
    Even if there are certain places where it is recognized that this line is rapidly leading to perdition, its course continues to be plotted.
    The straight line is the only sterile line, the only line which does not suit man as the image of God.
    The straight line is the forbidden fruit.
    The straight line is the curse of our civilization.
    Any design undertaken with the straight line will be stillborn. Today we are witnessing the triumph of rationalist knowhow and yet, at the same time, we find ourselves confronted with emptiness. An aesthetic void, desert of uniformity, criminal sterility, loss of creative power.
    Even creativity is prefabricated.
    We have become impotent. We are no longer able to create. That is our real illiteracy.

Post by notatoad » Tue, Sep 19, 2023, 10:15 PM UTC

bee_rider wrote: post #48

codexb wrote: post #45

As someone who's spent a decent amount of time writing "output to pdf" routines, I would never in a million years choose pdf as an interchange format for anything at all.

Unfortunately PDF is, like, one of the most reassuring file formats. https://xkcd.com/1301/ What would you put at the top? .PS is pretty fancy, although, just because it is probably saying “this is basically a PDF but from the olden days.”

Post by robocat » Tue, Sep 19, 2023, 10:25 PM UTC

neilk wrote: post #20

If you use the standard way to approximate a circle with Bezier curves, it will differ from a true circle by about 0.03%. The human eye is not capable of seeing the difference, and, as the OP mentioned, most people can't accurately eyeball a perfect circle anyway. This post shows the math behind that, and then shows that it could be made even better with a few different choices. https://spencermortensen.com/articles/…