Celtic Knots and Interlaced Patterns

[Alan Peterson]

There is a neat little freebie program out there called "Knotter" for the Open Source / Linux community. It generates Celtic knots and Islamic interlacing for folks looking to quickly and accurately create such a decoration. It does a pretty good job of laying out carved and incised soundhole rose patterns as well.

http://www.knotdraw.org/

It is still in first public release, so it is bound to have a couple of clinkers in it. Also, having been written for the Linux operating system, it doesn't install as easily as a Windows or Mac program would. But it's one more cool tool for the design bench and may yet be useful.

FWIW, the Linux community also has a pile of other cool tools going for it, including LinuxCNC; free machine control software for the day you want to cut out those necks and solid bodies by robotic means >>> http://www.linuxcnc.org/

[Chuck Tweedy]

Thanks for the link Alan. I did some simple (crude really) knot inlays not long ago, and I wish I'd had that to lay them out.
Yea Linux!

[Patrick Kirkham]

That's really cool. I had just learned how to do it by hand with a grid.

[Alan Peterson]

Its been a few months since this has been mentioned, but I'm seeing where the author of KNOTTER has freshened things up a little bit.

Version 0.9 is now out -- again for the Linux operating system (sorry Mac/Win users) -- and has a few new features worked in.

See details and a neat little demo video at http://libregraphicsworld.org/blog/entr ... notter-0.9

BTW, having a Linux box knocking around might be useful down the road. Look back on my first post regarding the free CNC suite for Linux available on the web.

[Jim McConkey]

Looks pretty cool, and I have been looking for a knot designer. You could also just run Linux on a virtual machine under either Windows or Mac. And the development source code is also available and written for the Qt cross-platform development system, so recompiling for either Windows or Mac should not be a difficult task for anyone who knows how to do it.