Design Utilities for Creative Woodturners


These interactive design tools are designed to help creative turners create custom patterns and embellish your work. Use them to stimulate new ideas and simplify complex layout tasks.

All tools were developed using the Gemini AI. (Note that the AI is not involved in executing the utility - everything is executed directly in your browser). Each tool has a user manual accessible via the help button to help guide you through the design process. Videos, examples and images are included where appropriate.

Where appropriate, the tools allow you to download an SVG file which is compatible with graphics software like Inkscape, Affinity Designer, Adobe Illustrator, and Corel Draw. You can optionally save your work in JPG, PNG, PDF, or SVG format.


Pattern & Geometric Generators

Tools for creating symmetrical, decorative, and complex designs for your woodturned pieces.

Flower Designer

Create simple, symmetrical flower designs with up to five rows of concentric petals. You can also print multiple flowers in a circle or design and save custom petal shapes for future projects.

Plate Designer

Create a simple rim or an entire plate design. Draw, upload or select up to 12 motifs. Choose from 1 to 100 copies of each in a circle. Rotate a pattern or a single motif to finish your composition. Save the results to SVG or PDF files.

Use this image grid cutter to split your design horizontally and vertically.

Polar Grids for Platter Layout

A tool to help you evenly space things in a circular pattern for plates and platters. It can print a polar grid up to 11 inches in diameter for finding the center of a blank or making precise marks at any angle.

Hypotrochoid (Spirograph) Utility

This interactive generator creates two types of circular patterns: lines showing the circumference of interacting circles or lines connecting the centers of two rotating circles. Offers over 14 billion possible patterns and allows saving as a **PDF, SVG, or JPG**.

Spiral Generator

Set the colors, number of lines, and expansion rate to generate custom spirals. A simple but versatile tool for creating whorl patterns.

Kaleidoscopes

Select the number of symmetrical replicas and drag your mouse over the canvas to see a pattern appear. You can mix patterns with different degrees of symmetry and save designs as an **SVG or JPG**.


Vessel Mapping & Preparation Tools

A four-step process for accurately mapping flat, rectangular artwork onto the curved surface of a bowl or vase.

  1. Step 1: Vessel Curve Capture Tool

    Convert a black line drawn on white paper of a vessel side profile into a **vector** graphic. This graphic is then used by the panel generator to correctly map your artwork. This tool also allows you to save the profile curve as a CSV file to allow you to correct or customize the profile using the Curve Editor below. If you prefer to start by manually measuring your vessel, you can create a vessel profile by measuring the radius of your vessel at different distances from its bottom and entering the distances and radii into a csv (spreadsheet) file.

  2. Step 2: Vessel Panel Generator

    Map a flat image onto a curved surface. You trace your vessel's profile (from Step 1), and the tool generates an image file with curved strips (panels) that will approximately fill the curved space when placed side by side.

  3. Step 3: Vessel and Image Slicer

    After creating your vessel panels, use this program to clip and scale your artwork to match the size of the panels. Clips either **SVG** vector files or **JPG** image files into strips.

  4. Step 4: Artwork to Panel Fitter (Now in Beta)

    This is the final step: it fits the slices of your artwork to a *panel* (like a section of an orange peel). The resulting panels can then be printed for application to your vessel.