Scan-Able-Ass
Okay, so, I am a huge fan of qr codes or anything that can add layers of information. I am excited for the day when there is like a public registry of works that allows a person to scan like any artwork and have it be a address or something.
All that aside, been thinking on a scan-able-ass for sometime. Like how fun would it be to be able to scan someones ass. So I did it.
Learn how I did it.
Okay first things first I had to make the website:
I am getting pretty dang fast about building sites wowow
The website and QR code I can made using changemaker
After making the QR code I used a free and open source software (FOSS) software called inkscape to make the svg file needed to create the pattern for the embroidery machine.
The embodier plugin that I use to create the .pes file for the embroidery machine is this awesome thing called inkstich. My favorite part about this software is it gives you a preview animation of the stich before you even get it to the machine and again is FOSS. More info on best inkstich parameters below.
I tried using that longer url right off the start https://thatreallyblondehuman.com/aq1/ however I was finding my original design, it was just too much info in the url to get across right:
So did try and print that out and it was just too much. The test I did I was not able to get the right about of detail out of the embrodery machine to make it work.
So I went back to the drawing board. Decided to break up the qr code and the want-a-taste designs. So the want-a-taste is now a new design that was more simple and to the point:
Next up I got to thinking more about the qr code. From the first failures I knew that we needed a less intricate design for the code. So I quickly registered a new domain and mapped this new domain as a mirror to the original site.
So I purchased trbh.org and configured the domain to mirror thatreallyblondehuman.com. That way I could get the shortened url trbh.org/aq1 to work for the qr code; which is like a 1/3 of the size of the original url.
At this point though, I kinda ran out of time, and had to leave the operation to be completed the next day. Folks where itching to get out the house and do some dancing:
Today I got going on really finessing out the qr code:
I got a half decent print out of the qr code on scrap so then I moved it onto the pants. For whatever reason though the fates decided that this was not going to print to the pants well. The material was just too thick for the machine to get the detail needed.
So ran into the qr code getting messed up on the pants directly, which is super annoying because to rip out a stich is a pain.
So I decided to try and print the qr code on a patch and then sew the patch onto the pants. I also did a tonne of tweaking to the qr code to make it more readable.
Settings for the QR Code Patch
I found that you want to just use just fill, not stroke, for the qr code creation in inkstich. I also did a pretty decent underlay. The settings I tweaked were:
- Underlay Max Stich = 2.5mm
- Underlay Row Spacing = 0.5mm
- Fillstich Max Fill Stich Length = 2.5mm
- Fillstich Spacing Between Rows = 0.2mm
So anyways, after all that aude, I did get the stich to print to the patch and then sewed that patch onto the pants.
And it works! I am pretty tired after having done all that labor so will write up a newsletter on this soon too. 😴 😄