Recreating a Spirograph in TouchDesigner – Another TouchDesigner Tutorial

Check out part two of the Recreating a Spirograph in TouchDesigner series here: https://youtu.be/30rQCGbyO7U

Learn to create a drawing program with TouchDesigner that outputs Spirograph-style drawings.

As you build this network yourself and post the results to Instagram and other platforms, tag your images/videos with the hashtag #tdspirograph so that we can all see the results. I’m excited to see what sorts of variations other people make using this technique.

Check out part two of this series to add additional drawing modes that further replicate the functionality of the original toy.

The references that I used for the epicycloid/Spirograph formulas were found on the webpage of David Little of the Mathematics Department at Penn State University, located at https://www.personal.psu.edu/dpl14/java/parametricequations/spirograph/ and https://www.personal.psu.edu/dpl14/java/parametricequations/spirograph/SpiroGraph1.0/index.html. These are great resources for learning about the mathematic concepts behind the Spirograph and the variables used within the functions.

The same formulas and some more information about them can be found on the Wikipedia page about the Epicycloid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicycloid.

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00:00 Intro and Overview
03:26 Mathematic Foundations
06:05 CHOP Network – Speed Control, Function Constants
13:40 CHOP Execute DAT – Python Code
26:41 Trail CHOP
28:03 SOP Network – Limit SOP, Material SOP
33:32 Geo, Camera, and Light COMP
34:16 TOP Network – Render TOP
34:55 Trail CHOP Visualized
36:36 Feedback Loop, Finishing TOP Network
41:43 Modifying Slider Settings
42:24 Drawing Speed
44:36 Closing Comments, Outro

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If you have any questions as you implement this technique, feel free to reach out.

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This is the third video in the series called Another TouchDesigner Tutorial. Check back soon for new content.

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