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String art planner

Plan nail positions and thread order for a string-art picture

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String art planner with its default settings

Screenshot of the tool as it opens; it is a real capture, not a mockup.

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What is it?

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What it makes

A nail layout and a greedy-algorithm thread order for a string-art picture: a 1:1 PDF template (tiled across Letter or A4 pages with overlap trim marks, neighbour-tile labels and a 50 mm check square on every page) showing every numbered nail position, a Markdown list of the thread order grouped into easy-to-follow steps, a JSON file with the nail coordinates and sequence, and a PNG of the live preview.

How to use it

  1. Start from a quick start (bold owl, bold and quick, fine detail, or a square frame) or dial in your own frame size, nail count and line count.
  2. Upload a bold, high-contrast image, or leave the built-in owl sample loaded; adjust contrast and brightness so the shading reads clearly.
  3. Watch the preview build up the thread pattern live; it keeps going in the background while you tweak other settings.
  4. Download the nail template, print it at 100%, check the 50 mm square, and mark or nail every numbered point on a board.
  5. Follow the thread order list, looping the thread once around each nail in sequence, then trim and tie off.

Build notes

  • A subject that fills most of the frame comes out far clearer than a small scene with a lot of empty background — a thread can only run straight between two rim nails, so chords headed for the subject end up crossing bare space too if there's a lot of it.
  • The algorithm samples a downscaled grayscale copy of the image and repeatedly picks the chord that darkens the most remaining shading, which is the same greedy approach most string-art generators use, with a centre-distance penalty and a length-normalised score to avoid a dense moiré rosette in the middle.
  • The template only needs the frame shape, size and nail count, so it is ready to download even before a run finishes.
  • Works fully offline once opened; nothing is uploaded or fetched.