Drawing Spirograph curves in Python

I was looking back over an old blog post and noticed some code in the comments that I had overlooked. Tom Pollard gives the following code for drawing Spirograph-like curves.

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from numpy import pi, exp, real, imag, linspace

def spiro(t, r1, r2, r3):
    """
    Create Spirograph curves made by one circle of radius r2 rolling 
    around the inside (or outside) of another of radius r1.  The pen
    is a distance r3 from the center of the first circle.
    """
    return r3*exp(1j*t*(r1+r2)/r2) + (r1+r2)*exp(1j*t)

def circle(t, r):
    return r * exp(1j*t)

r1 = 1.0
r2 = 52.0/96.0
r3 = 42.0/96.0

ncycle = 13 # LCM(r1,r2)/r2

t = linspace(0, ncycle*2*pi, 1000)
plt.plot(real(spiro(t, r1, r2, r3)), imag(spiro(t, r1, r2, r3)))
plt.plot(real(circle(t, r1)), imag(circle(t, r1)))
 
fig = plt.gcf()
fig.gca().set_aspect('equal')
plt.show()

Tom points out that with the r parameters above, this produces the default curve on Nathan Friend’s Inspirograph app.

from John D. Cook https://ift.tt/2Nb6HQF
via IFTTT