GD Studio — Generative art, made to plot.

Design generative line art for pen plotters on your Mac: pick a pattern, shape it with live controls, layer in text, SVG, and photos, then export a plotter-ready file — or plot straight from the canvas.


At a glance

- Platform: macOS (Apple Silicon and Intel)
- Core capability: Design generative line art for pen plotters — 50 patterns, live parametric controls, layers, and plotter-ready export
- Honest preview: Every design is built from continuous strokes, so the canvas is an exact preview of the pen's path — what you see is what the pen draws
- Best for: generative artists, designers and makers, educators, and anyone curious about pen-plotter art


What GD Studio does

GD Studio — short for Generative Drawing Studio — turns mathematical patterns into designs your pen plotter can draw, without writing a line of code. Choose from 50 patterns across 8 families, shape them with live controls, layer in text and imported SVG, turn a photo into plottable line art, and export plotter-ready SVG, PDF, or print — or plot straight from the canvas with Plotter Hub.


Key features

Dozens of patterns, endless variations
- 50 patterns across 8 families: Curves, Shapes, Points, Multi-line, Tilings, Grids & Packing, Generative Systems, and Simulation — from classic Trochoids and Harmonographs to tilings, packings, mazes, flow fields, and differential growth.
- Many patterns include several built-in Types, each a distinctly different design, multiplying the variations several times over.
- Start from curated presets, then make each design your own: adjust parameters, change how it's drawn, apply modifiers, split it across colors, or combine multiple patterns in layered compositions.
- Shuffle and reset controls for quick exploration.

Design mode and Formula mode
- Design mode gives high-level controls; Formula mode exposes the underlying mathematical parameters for full control.
- Simpler patterns show a single set of controls.

Layers, pens, and multi-pen plotting
- Build each drawing as a stack of layers, with independent pen color, stroke width, dash, transform, and render style.
- Assign each pen to its own layer, or split a single pattern across several pens by path length, tile orientation, spiral arm, contour level, and other pattern-specific properties.
- Each layer exports as its own labeled SVG group, so plotter tools can guide pen changes between groups.

Line, Fill, and Repeat modifiers
- Restyle any line with wobble, hatch, stipple, nested outlines, and more.
- The same modifiers apply to patterns, text, and imported SVG alike.

More than patterns: image, text, SVG, and calibration layers
- Image layer — Drop in a photo and it's redrawn as plottable line art, rebuilt from continuous pen strokes and single pen-taps (never a flat ink fill), with eight styles: Stipple, Halftone, Hatch, Contour, Outline, Sketch, Squiggle, and ASCII. Brightness and Contrast sliders shape how the subject reads.
- Color split — Separate a photo into one pen layer per color (Natural, Vivid, or Tonal) for a true multi-color plot. Works with every style.
- Text layer — Rendered as true plotter strokes using single-stroke and outline fonts, plus your own custom SVG fonts.
- SVG layer — Import an SVG file to bring existing line art into your design; its lines become a regular layer you can restyle, mask, and transform.
- Calibration layer — A crosshair for pen registration and plotter calibration.

From canvas to pen on paper
- Export to SVG (Inkscape / axicli layer-group convention), PDF, or print directly — each pen layer is written as its own labeled group, ready for any SVG-capable plotter workflow (axicli, vpype, Inkscape plotter extensions).
- Or skip the file step and plot straight from GD Studio with Plotter Hub: a free, open-source app you can install on a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W or 3B+ to run an AxiDraw-compatible plotter over WiFi. Plotter Hub optimizes the SVG and automatically pauses between layers so you can change pens for each color.

Units, defaults, and output resolution
- Work in millimeters, centimeters, or inches — a display preference only; documents always store dimensions in millimeters.
- Manage the paper-size list (including custom sizes) and set the defaults a new document inherits: paper size, orientation, background color, margins, stroke width, and fonts.
- A render-resolution setting controls how closely each curve is followed when flattened into plotter segments — from ultra-fine (0.025 mm) for tiny details to draft (0.5 mm) for quick proofs.

Privacy
- Runs entirely on your Mac. The only network traffic is opt-in: sending to a Plotter Hub server you configured, and, if enabled, checking for app updates. Documents, layer content, and pattern parameters never leave your machine.

App languages
The user interface is available in 10 languages: English, Dutch, German, Japanese, French, Chinese (Simplified), Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and Korean.


Pricing & licensing

- € 24,99 / $ 29.99
- VAT included (except US & CA)
- Free trial, no time limit: Explore all 50 patterns and save designs for every pattern. Export, print, and plot are free for Trochoid designs; a license unlocks these for every pattern.
- Single payment. No recurring fees.
- License: Single user, multiple Macs
- Payments: Secure checkout via FastSpring (MoR)
- Distribution: Direct download (not via the Mac App Store)


System requirements

- macOS: 15 (Sequoia) or later


Links

- Product page: https://www.synendo.com/gdstudio/
- How it works: https://www.synendo.com/gdstudio/#workflow
- Gallery: https://www.synendo.com/gdstudio/#gallery
- FAQ: https://www.synendo.com/gdstudio/#faq
- Plotter Hub: https://www.synendo.com/plotterhub/
