AxiDraw (Evil Mad Scientist, 2016)

The AxiDraw is a pen plotter that Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories made in Sunnyvale, California. The first AxiDraw was built in 2014 by Lindsay Wilson, of laser-cut plywood; in 2016 he contacted Evil Mad Scientist, who adapted his design.¹ The company announced its version on 9 March 2016 as "a simple, modern, precise, and versatile pen plotter" that draws with "fountain pens, permanent markers, and other writing implements".² It holds an ordinary pen in an arm above a sheet lying on the table.

The machine

Two stepper motors on the base move the pen in the two directions; the paper is put in by hand. The arm cannot press down hard, so the AxiDraw draws but does not cut.² For the AxiDraw V3, Evil Mad Scientist gives these figures:³

• usable pen travel 300 × 218 mm, just over A4
• 2,032 steps per inch, or 80 steps per millimetre
• repeatability typically better than 0.1 mm at low speeds; the 80 steps per millimetre describe how finely the motion is divided, not how accurately the pen returns to a point⁴
• top speed 38 cm a second
• pens up to 16 mm across; the machine weighs 2.2 kg

The AxiDraw V3 itself was introduced in November 2016.⁴ Larger models followed: the V3/A3 and SE/A3 for A3 paper and the SE/A1 with a travel of 864 × 594 mm. The AxiDraw needs no special pens or ink.⁵ The note on plotter pens says which work.

How it is told what to draw

The AxiDraw is normally run from Inkscape, the free vector drawing program, through a set of extensions; the driver software is open source.^3, 5 It plots SVG files. The same software runs from the command line, as axicli file.svg, and from Python. The program can also reorder the lines before plotting.^5, 6 Why the order matters is explained in the note on plotter path optimisation; vpype is another tool for preparing the file.

Underneath, the AxiDraw can be programmed directly in the command protocol of the EiBotBoard (EBB).³ Its SM command makes the motors go "in a straight line between two points", and it "does not understand G-code".⁷ The AxiDraw software turns circles and rectangles into paths,⁶ and a curve therefore reaches the motors as many short straight moves, as in the diagram above.

Artists

Matt DesLauriers bought an AxiDraw V3 in March 2017 and wrote about plotting generative art with it in December that year.⁸ Licia He paints with an AxiDraw: Even when I want to. (2022) was "physically rendered" by "Pen plotters (Axidraw A3/V3)" with watermedia, from a program written in Python.⁹ More are in JAEV's text on plotter art.

After 2024

In January 2024 Bantam Tools, a maker of desktop CNC machines, bought Evil Mad Scientist, and its founders Windell Oskay and Lenore Edman moved to Bantam's headquarters in Peekskill, New York.¹⁰ In April Bantam Tools brought out the NextDraw, in three models from A4 to A1.¹¹ The company describes it as the next generation of the AxiDraw line, developed with Windell Oskay as its CTO. The AxiDraw V3 is no longer in production; its development continues at Bantam Tools in Peekskill, and the current software still drives the older AxiDraw models.^3, 4

Olof Broström's Unverified Air at JAEV is stored as files for a pen plotter, in black, red and blue ink.¹²

Updated on 22 October 2026 with information from Bantam Tools: the AxiDraw's origin, the difference between resolution and repeatability, and the NextDraw.