Shoebot 0.1

Shoebot is a pure Python graphics robot. It takes a Python script as input, which describes a drawing process, and outputs a graphic in a common open standard format (SVG, PDF, PostScript, or PNG).

Shoebot has a simple text editor GUI, and scripts can describe their own GUIs for controlling variables interactively. Being pure Python, it can also be used as a Python module, a plugin for Python-scriptable tools such as Inkscape, and run from the command line.

Comparing to graphics coding alternatives like Drawbot, Nodebox and Processing, Shoebot is light and flexible because it does not depend on an interface engine for rendering, although it has one too.

Shoebot has a simple command-line interface which makes it potentially suitable for computationally intensive uses such as webserver image generation. It also has the ability to be called from external Python scripts without effort.

Shoebot does interactive rendering with the Cairo graphics engine, coupled with a simple, experimental, GTK user interface.

A GNU/Linux system is recommended, but Shoebot is cross-platform so you can take small steps to a fully free software system. Shoebot has been successfully tested on an Intel Mac running Mac OS X Leopard, Debian Etch, Fedora 9, and Ubuntu Hardy.