Got the same question as the op. The XY table and XY plotter are mentioned in contraptions-menu of the site, but there is not that much info on it :-)
My answer is: what accuracy can I expect? Ideally accuracy below 0.1 mm (what the human eye can see, but that demand is probably insane) but I would be pleased if it was no more than 0.5 mm - am planing to use multiple colors, so after one round of drawing I plan to change the color and start again (there goes the accuracy:-) ).
What I would like is the following:
- I want to be able to use real paint when reproducing a computer generated artwork and I would like to use different layers of paint, hence the accuracy. (I am planning to make my own paint markers, but this is the wrong forum for that)
- I suspect that my files are going to be rather on the big side because they will have lots of details. Think 10 to 20mb per color - about 250.000 vector points or more. (will probably use a program called vectoraster that converts images to black and white rastered eps files) And yes, I am aware that each round of drawing might take 10 hours or longer.
- I want to start small, A3 sized (17"*11") or maybe A2 (22"*17") and then perhaps go bigger - especially in the length (several meters) - so being able to reuse the components would be awesome.
- And of course, I am not rich, I work a shitty payed job a couple a days a week, make art on the side, so it should not cost too much :-)
So if there is any information anyone can give me, I would be happy - but you are of course also free to tell me that I am insane/ have to wait a couple of more years/ or that it is only doable if you invest like 10K and up and then maybe.
