KnotWize is an interactive editor for creating complex celtic knotwork
designs. It uses many of the same techniques used in traditional
illuminated
manuscripts, but applies the power of your computer to achieve
sophisticated
designs in seconds rather than hours. (For ideas and examples, check out the
sample page.)
Start creating knots by simply clicking and dragging in the
grid. This
will create "walls" which subdivide the knotwork, and force it to bend
into
interesting patterns. (If you don't like the effect of a wall you
created,
you can SHIFT-drag to erase it.) Create open frames or non-rectangular
shapes
by clicking the BLOCK icon and dragging out empty spaces in the grid.
Use the other icons in the toolbar to further customize the
appearance of your
personal knotwork design:
The CLEAR icon permits you to wipe out all the
changes you have made at
once, and potentially specify a different size grid entirely.
The COLORS icon lets you select one of five different ribbon
patterns for
the knotwork, along with a near-infinite number of color variations for
each
of these patterns.
The PRINT icon lets you send your completed knotwork grid to
a local
printer, to frame or otherwise save for posterity.
If available, the SNAPSHOT icon lets you download and save
your image (at
an arbitrarily large size) as a PNG with transparent backgrounds. You
can
then load this into other drawing programs and further customize it.
Note
that this option is not available on the Internet Explorer browser --
it
relies upon a standard that the folks at Microsoft have not seen fit to
implement.
The MAXIMIZE icon expands the knotwork editor to take up your
entire
browser window. This gives you more room to edit, but gets rid of the
header,
navigational links, instructions, and the lovely ads that help keep
this site
available and free. You may therefore want to click the icon again to
restore
all of these extra elements when you have finished creating the perfect
image.
FAQ
I don't see anything that looks
like celtic knotwork. Why are you jerking me around? This
interactive application relies upon Javascript and Java 1.5 or better.
It should
run on any browser which has these enabled, but we haven't been able to
test all environments. If you believe your configuration
meets
these requirements and you still don't see a functional knotwork
editor, we want to hear about your setup so that we can find and fix
the problem. See (4) below for info on how to contact us.
What's up with the
"Reflect" checkboxes? Typically,
your knotwork will look best if it is completely symmetric.
Thus, the editor creates four wall for every one you
explicitly
create -- a horizontal reflection, a vertical reflection, and then a
horizontal reflection of the vertical reflection. However,
there
are a few cases in which you might wish to have only partial symmetry
-- such as when creating celtic crosses -- or no symmetry at all.
In these cases, you can turn off the creation of reflected
walls
by unchecking the appropriate checkboxes.
What am I allowed to do with the
images I create here? You
can do absolutely anything you like. Whether or not
the
images might be considered "derived works" of the software or
its
built-in graphics, we explicitly grant you full rights to the
output patterns that you create. We'd be grateful
if you
pointed folks to this site so that they can create their own, but you
aren't obliged to. The software itself is, of course, still
copyrighted by Beekeeper Labs and we do not relinquish any rights to
the code or the static contents of this page.
Can I contact you with
suggestions, criticisms, or effusive praise? As
long as you are not a spammer, we welcome any and all mail that you
care to send. We can be reached via keeper@beekeeperlabs.com.
These instructions are too
confusing, and the FAQ doesn't answer my question. Well,
that isn't actually a question, but we'll reply to it anyway.
This site is still fairly new, and we haven't anticipated all
of
your concerns. Luckily, we will be reading all of the e-mail
that
you send to the address given in (4) above, and we'll improve the
instructions or the FAQ as needed.
