Card Symbols
UPDATES! Since introducing this node I added several new shapes and symbols; see below...
A new node just to make some symbols: hearts, spades, diamonds and clubs.
Every now and then I need to draw a heart or, sometimes, the common playing card symbols. Each time I venture down a surprisingly deep rabbit hole and come up empty.
The playing card symbols are simple, generic and ubiquitous, but hard to come by free and clear. There are hundreds (thousands?) of versions available on vector and icon sites which claim to be free but which in fact cost money. If you dig deeply you can eventually find, on Wikipedia Commons and elsewhere, free versions, but these require attribution, a link to a license page, and other restrictions. As an artist myself I am usually in favor of attribution, but in this case, for something this simple, it seems over the top.
I did find one or two sites offering relatively unencumbered downloads, but was warned that these were probably frauds, copied illegally and offered to generate ad revenue.
I also tried looking for fonts that include these symbols. I'm sure there are many such fonts out there but I had some trouble finding one. The usual wingding fonts don't seem to have them. But even if I could find a font that was free, using a font would still prevent me from freely sharing any Nodebox creations I might make using one.
I think the reason for this is that, although these symbols are commonplace, there is some artistry involved in making them. If you do a Google image search you will find a hundred variations of each symbol, each one subtly different from the next, each ultimately made by someone. They are most commonly used on playing cards, and playing cards are commercial works of art that are often copyrighted to the hilt and fiercely defended.
But I just need a heart or a spade every now and then. I don't want to steal anyone else's work, but I also don't want to fuss with extra SVG files, readme files, special fonts, licenses and whatnot just share something that happens to have a common heart symbol in a corner somewhere.
What to do?
I finally decided that the only thing to do was to make these symbols myself out of Nodebox nodes, not by tracing or scanning anyone else's designs, but by making them entirely from scratch. So that's what I did. And I packaged them in a symbol node that I will publish in my library (attached).
Like the rest of my library, this node will be FREE TO USE AND SHARE WITH NO RESTRICTIONS. No licenses and no need for attribution.
I think these symbols look nice enough, but you are free to adjust them if you want. If you open them up you can see how I made each one. You can also recolor them or use them as masks to make more elaborate designs - whatever you want. Even use them to make a deck of playing cards if you want!
The symbol node itself takes 3 parameters:
- Symbol. Currently Heart, Spade, Diamond or Club. Choose one or pass a list of 0,1,2,3 to get all four.
- Height. The height in pixels. These four shapes are designed to be the same height and similar widths.
- Position. The position to center the shape at.
I may eventually add a few other handmade symbols, but have no intention of starting a library of emojis or icons.
Go forth and create!
John
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Symbols_Screenshot.png
372 KB
- card_symbols.ndbx.zip 26.4 KB
Symbols_Screenshot.png
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1 Posted by lastvector on 05 Aug, 2024 12:14 PM
Hi John
Nice Symbols.
So we can play Cards now in Nodebox
Here is my Hand :)
gottfried
Support Staff 2 Posted by john on 05 Aug, 2024 10:08 PM
Gottfried,
Nicely done! This is quality work.
The number cards are easy to make. It's the face cards that are hard to do. I have sometimes wanted to try my hands at pure vector face cards. One could try a minimalist interpretation of standard designs, OR go in a bolder direction and create something totally new.
Is anyone out there intrigued by this challenge?
John
Support Staff 3 Posted by john on 23 Aug, 2024 07:02 AM
UPDATE
I added one more symbol to the symbol node: yin yang.
As with all additions to this node, it is handmade in Nodebox - a single path (with four contours). I may eventually add an emoji or unicode node, but that will probably require an external code module. Symbol will always be pure Nodebox!
Support Staff 4 Posted by john on 22 Sep, 2024 05:25 AM
UPDATE
I just added ANOTHER symbol to this node: Reuleaux Triangle.
The Reuleaux Triangle is a shape of constant width with many interesting properties:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reuleaux_triangle
Attached is a demo which shows how a Releaux Triangle can roll like a wheel through a rectangle, maintaining constant height throughout. The screenshot shows a "time lapse" of the triangle part way through a full rotation. If you hook frame1 to integer1 and make a movie with 360 frames, you will see an animation of this effect.
In addition to adding the Reuleaux triangle, I also improved the positioning logic so that the Reuleaux triangle is placed at its true center by default.
I ALSO made some improvements to the true_center node. It can now find the center of a Reuleaux triangle and I also fixed a bug which, in rare circumstances, would misidentify a shape as a star.
All of these improvements will be included in the next release of my library,
5 Posted by lastvector on 22 Sep, 2024 09:15 AM
great !
I knew I knew that shape :)
From a German invention.
The Wankel engine uses this shape
instead of cylinders.
Here a Link.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wankel_engine
gottfried
Support Staff 6 Posted by john on 24 Sep, 2024 12:32 AM
Gottfried,
Yes, the gold old Wankel engine.
I rather like the little animation atop that Wikipedia page. It would be fun to recreate it in Nodebox! You could use my Reuleaux symbol and my Gears node.
John