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stringArt

The stringArt package provides tools to generate, visualize, and audit geometric string art figures for mathematics teaching.

String art figures are built from pegs and straight string connections, creating visual patterns related to geometry, modular arithmetic, symmetry, and visual mathematics.

The package is designed for educational use and can support classroom activities in geometry, analytic geometry, modular arithmetic, mathematical visualization, and graphical programming in R.

Installation

You can install the development version of stringArt from GitHub with:

# install.packages("devtools")
devtools::install_github("fsbmat-ufv/stringArt")

Main idea

Each exported function generates a string art figure and returns a standardized object containing:

  • pegs: peg coordinates;
  • connections: connection table;
  • total_length: total string length;
  • audit: audit information;
  • meta: construction metadata.
library(stringArt)

res <- stcircle(plot = FALSE)

names(res)
head(res$pegs)
head(res$connections)
res$total_length
res$audit
res$meta

Examples

Circular string art 

stcircle(
  n = 40,
  k = 7,
  col = "steelblue",
  lwd = 1
)

Cardioid-like pattern 

stcardioid(
  n = 120,
  k = 2,
  col = "darkorange",
  lwd = 0.8
)

Elliptical string art 

stellipse(
  n = 60,
  k = 9,
  a = 2,
  b = 1,
  col = "purple",
  lwd = 1
)

Triangular string art 

sttriangle(
  n = 45,
  k = 8,
  side = 2,
  col = "blue",
  lwd = 1
)

Hexagonal flower 

sthexaflower(
  n = 24,
  k = 5,
  show_points = TRUE
)

Radial triangular modules 

stradial(
  n = 18,
  k = 5,
  m = 6,
  col = "forestgreen",
  lwd = 1
)

Region-based string art 

stregion(
  n = 100,
  k = 4,
  col = "firebrick",
  lwd = 0.6
)

Custom contour:

custom_contour <- data.frame(
  x = c(0, 1, 0.6, -0.6, -1),
  y = c(1, 0.2, -0.9, -0.9, 0.2)
)

stregion(
  contour = custom_contour,
  n = 80,
  k = 3,
  col = "steelblue",
  lwd = 0.7
)

Peg template without strings

All main functions support template mode. This is useful for generating peg templates without drawing the string connections.

stcircle(template = TRUE)
sttriangle(template = TRUE)
stregion(template = TRUE)

Showing pegs and labels 

stcircle(
  n = 20,
  k = 3,
  show_points = TRUE,
  show_labels = TRUE
)

Audit information

Audit information is returned as part of the object and can also be printed to the console with verbose = TRUE.

res <- stcircle(n = 20, k = 3, plot = FALSE)

res$audit

stcircle(n = 20, k = 3, verbose = TRUE)

Available functions

The current version includes:

Development

To document, test, and check the package, use:

devtools::document()
devtools::test()
devtools::check()

To build the GitHub README, use:

devtools::build_readme()

License

This package is licensed under the MIT License.