Make an ASCII Art Line-Printer Data Visualization

Open Lopsy. In the New Document dialog, set Width to 2400 and Height to 1800, leave Background on White, and click Create.

The canvas is a desk seen from above. The printout will cover most of it, so only the margins will show wood.

1. Select Background, set the foreground colour to dark brown #2E2119 and choose Edit → Fill.
2. Select Layer 1 and rename it Wood grain (double-click its name).
3. Choose Filter → Fibers… and set Variance to 20 and Strength to 52. Click Apply.

Fibers paints long grey strands that run top to bottom. A high Strength keeps them fairly straight, like the grain of a plank.

1. Run Filter → Motion Blur… on Wood grain with Angle 90 and Distance 40. That smears the strands along their own length.
2. Click the effects button on the layer's row to open its effects drawer, and set the blend mode to Overlay. Then click the layer's opacity percentage and set it to 55%.
3. Click Add Layer, name it Wood figure, and run Fibers again with Variance 30 and Strength 6. A low Strength makes wavy, tangled strands.
4. Blur it with Motion Blur (90, 25), set it to Soft Light and drop it to 45%.

The second, wavier pass breaks up the straight lines so the wood has some figure.

Fanfold paper is about 15 by 11 inches, so the sheet is 2000 by 1608 px here. Each edge has a half-inch strip with the sprocket holes.

1. Click the top ruler at 200, 272, 2128 and 2200 to drop four vertical guides. The two inner ones mark the tractor strips.
2. Click the left ruler at 120 and 1728 for the top and bottom of the sheet.

A single click on a ruler makes a guide; you don't drag them out. Marquee edges snap to guides, which saves a lot of fiddling in the next steps.

1. Click New Group and name it Printout. Everything printed on the sheet will go in here.
2. Inside it, click Add Layer and name it Paper.
3. Set the foreground to off-white #F4F1E6. With the Rectangular Marquee, drag from the top-left guide corner to the bottom-right one. The edges snap onto the guides.
4. Choose Edit → Fill, then deselect with Cmd+D.

Green-bar paper alternates three lines of green with three lines of white. At 24 px per printed line, each band is 72 px tall.

1. Add a layer called Greenbar and set the foreground to pale green #D2E5CC.
2. Drag a marquee between the two inner guides, from 192 down to 264. That's one band, starting one band below the top of the sheet.
3. Fill it and deselect.

Instead of drawing eleven bands, copy what you have and double it each time:

1. Choose Layer → Duplicate Layer, then click the copy's row in the Layers panel.
2. With the Move tool, drag the copy straight down by 144 px (one green band plus one white one). Use the arrow keys for the last pixel or two.
3. Press Cmd+E to merge it down. You now have 2 bands.
4. Do it again, moving the copy by 288 px to get 4 bands, then by 576 px to get 8.

Each round doubles the count, and the spacing stays exact because you're moving a copy of bands that are already spaced correctly.

Duplicate once more and move the copy down by 1152 px, then merge it. Some bands now hang off the bottom of the paper. Select everything below the bottom guide with a marquee and press Delete.

The sprocket holes sit in the middle of each strip, one every 72 px, so they line up with the bands.

1. Add a layer called Holes and set the foreground to black.
2. With the Elliptical Marquee, drag a 22 px circle centred at 236, 156, near the top of the left strip.
3. Hold Shift and drag a second circle at 2164, 156 on the right strip. Shift adds it to the selection.
4. Fill both and deselect.

Use the same doubling trick: duplicate, move the copy down by 72, merge. Then repeat with 144, 288, 576 and 1152. Delete any holes that land below the paper.

1. Cmd-click the Holes layer's thumbnail. That loads its pixels as a selection.
2. Click the Paper row to make it the active layer. The selection stays.

1. Press Delete to cut the holes out of the paper, then deselect.
2. Delete the Holes layer with the trash button. You don't need it any more.

Fanfold paper has a perforated line between the tractor strip and the page. You'll draw it with a brush that prints one dash per dab.

1. Add a layer called Dash tile and zoom right in on an empty corner. With the Rectangular Marquee, select a rectangle 2 px wide and 10 px tall, then Edit → Fill it with black.
2. Marquee around it and choose Edit → Define Brush…. Name it Perforation dash.
3. Delete the Dash tile layer.

Lopsy trims the new tip to the dark pixels, so the brush is exactly one dash.

1. Add a layer called Perforations and pick the Brush. The Perforation dash preset is already active.
2. Open the brush presets (click the tip thumbnail in the options bar), go to Shape and set Spacing to 200%. That puts one dash-length of gap between dashes.
3. Set the foreground to #B9B09A. Click at the top of the left inner guide, then Shift-click at the bottom. Shift-click draws a straight line from the last dab.
4. Do the same on the right inner guide.

1. Add a layer called Paper tooth and fill it with mid grey #808080.
2. Run Filter → Add Noise… with Amount 22, Mono and Gaussian.
3. Cmd-click the Paper thumbnail, choose Select → Inverse and press Delete, so the grain only covers the sheet.
4. Set the layer to Overlay at 40%.

Grey disappears in Overlay, so only the speckle shows. That's paper grain.

Open the effects drawer on Paper and turn on Drop Shadow: Offset X 16, Offset Y 28, Blur 44, Opacity 75, shadow colour #0B0705. The holes show the shadow through them too, which helps sell the paper.

Line-printer banners were built from the letters themselves. Write yours in a plain-text editor first, where it's easy to line up the columns:

• Each letter is 7 characters wide and 9 lines tall, drawn with its own letter: the C is made of Cs, the Q of Qs.
• Strokes are two characters thick. The top of the C is CCCCC and its sides are CC CC. The I is IIIIIII top and bottom with III in between.
• Put one space between letters, and a blank 7-character "letter" between the two words. The whole banner is 95 characters wide.

1. Press Cmd+; to hide the guides. Select Paper tooth and click New Group to make a group called Ink inside Printout. Add a spare layer called scratch inside it. Select it before each new block of text: if a text layer is selected, changing the font size restyles that layer instead of setting up the next one.
2. Pick the Text tool. In the options bar, choose IBM Plex Mono, size 24, colour #1E1F24.
3. Click at about 509, 216 and paste the banner (Cmd+V). Press Tab to commit. That spot is line 4 of the page, 12 characters in from the left margin of the text, which centres the 95-character banner on the 120-character line.
4. In the Text panel, set Line height to 1.

IBM Plex Mono is 0.6 em wide, so at 24 px every character is 14.4 px and every line is 24 px. That makes three printed lines exactly one green band.

The drawing is printed in "condensed" mode, at 15 characters per inch and 8 lines per inch. Draw it in your text editor, about 81 characters wide and 22 lines tall, with the head pointing right:

• Wings: an oval outline, with /, \, _ and - on the edges and ( at the rounded tip. Add a dotted : seam where the two wings meet, and a few long - veins fanning out from the base.
• Thorax: a block of # and %.
• Head: a short band of # with a one-column gap in front of the thorax.
• Eyes: leave a 4-character gap on each corner of the head, two lines above it and two below. They'll be printed in red later.

Select scratch, set the Text tool's size to 16, then click at about 631, 606 and paste. Set Line height to 1.125. At 16 px a character is 9.6 px and a line is 18 px, which is 15 CPI and 8 LPI.

The rest of the page is one text layer of 63 lines, 120 characters wide. Build it in your editor. Here's the data, one brood per row, in the order they come up:

• 17-year broods: XIV 2025 and 2042, I 2029, II 2030, III 2031, IV 2032, V 2033, VI 2034, VII 2035, VIII 2036, IX 2037, X 2038, XIII 2041
• 13-year broods: XXII 2027 and 2040, XXIII 2028 and 2041, XIX 2037
• Row order: XIV, XXII, XXIII, I to IX, XIX, X, XIII. That gives the diagonal staircase.

And here's the layout:

• Line 1: the header CICQT01 PERIODICAL CICADA EMERGENCE FORECAST BROODS I-XXIII, with RUN 10/05/26 PAGE 0001 pushed to the right edge. Line 2 is 120 = signs.
• Line 14: the tagline SEVENTEEN YEARS UNDERGROUND . SIX WEEKS OF NOISE . THEN THE QUIET, centred.
• Line 16: SECTION 1 PERIODICAL CICADA (MAGICICADA), DORSAL VIEW, PRINTED AT 15 CPI / 8 LPI, with PLOT 01 OF 01 on the right. Leave lines 17 to 39 empty for the drawing.
• Line 40: SECTION 2 EMERGENCE SCHEDULE BY BROOD, 2025-2045, with 15 BROODS, 21 YEARS on the right.
• The chart, from line 42: each year gets a 4-character cell. The header row reads YEAR 25 26 27 …, and the next line is BROOD followed by a row of dashes under the years. Each brood row starts with its name, right-aligned in 5 characters. Its emergence year shows the cycle, 17 or 13. Leave the other cells blank for now; the dots come next. A second row of dashes closes the chart.
• TOTAL row: counts zero-padded to two digits (01, 00, 02), so they sit under the years.
• Legend and summary: on the right from column 96. The legend reads 17 17-YEAR BROOD, 13 13-YEAR BROOD, UNDERGROUND and QUIET YEAR. Leave space in front of the last two for the dot and the highlighter swatch. The summary lists BROODS 15, 17-YR / 13-YR 12/3, EMERGENCE YRS 16, QUIET YEARS 5 (with 2026 2039 2043-45 on the line below) and DOUBLE BROODS 2037 2041. Right-align the numbers and leave the gaps between label and number as spaces for now; the leader dots go on the dots layer next.
• Footer: SOURCE: PERIODICAL CICADA BROOD CALENDARS (USFS, CICADA MANIA) on line 63, with *** END OF REPORT *** on the right.

Select scratch again and set the size back to 24. Click at 336, 144, the left margin of the text, one line below the top of the sheet, and paste. Set Line height to 1.

Every empty cell gets .. for "underground", along with the dot leaders in the summary. Printed as dark as the data, they would bury the staircase of 17s, so they go on their own, lighter layer:

1. In your editor, make a copy of the report with .. in every empty chart cell, in front of UNDERGROUND, and as leader dots in the summary. Then turn everything except the dots into spaces.
2. Back in Lopsy, with the report layer active, choose Layer → Duplicate Layer.
3. Check that the copy's row is the highlighted one, so you don't overwrite the report. Then click into the text with the Text tool, press Cmd+A and paste the dots-only version. Press Tab. Because it's a copy of the report, it stays exactly in register.
4. Rename it Filler dots and set its opacity to 45%.

1. Delete the scratch layer.
2. Select Filler dots and press Cmd+E to merge it into the report. Merging bakes its 45% opacity in.
3. Select the banner, the top text layer in Ink, and press Cmd+E until everything is one layer. Rename it Printed ink.

From here on the type is pixels, which you need for the strike effects.

Impact printers often hit each character twice. Fake it:

1. Duplicate Printed ink and click the copy's row.
2. With the Move tool, press → once to nudge it 1 px right.
3. Press Cmd+E to merge it back down.

The title should be the darkest type on the page.

1. Marquee around the banner and press Cmd+C then Cmd+V. Pasting something you copied in Lopsy puts it back in the same place, on a new layer.
2. Deselect, switch to the Move tool, press ↓ once, and merge it down.

On Printed ink:

1. Run Add Noise… with Amount 35, Mono and Uniform. This roughs up the ink.
2. Run Gaussian Blur… with Radius 1. This makes the ink bleed slightly into the paper.
3. Set the layer to Multiply, so the green bands show through the ink as they would on real paper.

Real print hammers don't hit evenly, so some patches come out paler.

1. Click Add Mask, then click the mask thumbnail (Edit mask for Printed ink). Filters now work on the mask.
2. Run Filter → Clouds… with Scale 6.
3. Run Filter → Brightness/Contrast… with Brightness 45 and Contrast -60. The mask now ranges from about 75% to full, so the ink never fades too far.
4. Set the foreground to white, marquee around the banner and Edit → Fill. The title stays at full strength.
5. Click the layer's name to leave mask editing.

Many line printers had a two-colour ribbon. Use the red half for the eyes, the one feature that says "periodical cicada".

1. Select Printed ink, set the foreground to #B8302A, and set the Text tool's size to 16.
2. In your editor, make a copy of the cicada drawing that keeps only the eyes: two rows of @@@@ in each of the gaps you left on the head's corners, with everything else turned into spaces.
3. Click at the same spot you used for the cicada plot and paste it. Set Line height to 1.125.
4. Rename it Red ribbon, click Rasterize Layer, and set it to Multiply.

1. Select Paper tooth and add a layer called Highlighter. It sits under the ink, so the type stays crisp on top.
2. Pick the Brush, open the presets and choose Square. Set Size 46, Hardness 100.
3. Set the foreground to #F4DC4C. Click just above the 2026 heading, then Shift-click down at the dashed line above TOTAL. Do the same for 2039.

1. Change the Size to 150 and draw one wide stroke over the 2043, 2044 and 2045 columns, with the same top and bottom as the other two bars.
2. Set the Size to 22. Draw a short stroke in the legend, in front of QUIET YEAR. That's the key.
3. Draw one more along the 2026 2039 2043-45 line in the summary.
4. Set the layer to Multiply at 80%. The yellow turns olive over the green bands, like real highlighter.

1. Select Printed ink and add a layer above it called Grease pencil.
2. Choose the Hard Round preset at Size 7 and set the foreground to #B8302A.
3. Draw a loose loop around the whole 2043–2045 block, from just above the year headings to below the 00 00 00 totals. Let the end overshoot the start, like a real pencil loop. Keep it in the gaps either side of the columns, so it doesn't cross 42 or 43.
4. Draw small rings around the 00 totals under 2026 and 2039.
5. Draw a slightly wavy line under QUIET in the banner.

1. Pick the Text tool and choose Caveat Brush at size 52. The foreground should still be the pencil red #B8302A.
2. Click in the empty space under the summary, type three silent, press Enter, type summers! and press Tab.
3. Rename the layer Note and set Line height to 0.95 so the two lines sit together.
4. With the Move tool, drag just outside a corner of the note's box to tilt it about 5° anticlockwise. Press Cmd+D to commit.

Select Grease pencil again and pick the Brush. Draw a short curve from the start of "three" to the right edge of the loop, then two short strokes for the arrowhead.

The note is still crisp vector text. Make it the same pencil as the rings:

1. Select Note, click Rasterize Layer and press Cmd+E to merge it into Grease pencil. Set the layer's opacity to 90%.
2. Click Add Mask, then the mask thumbnail.
3. Run Add Noise… at Amount 100 (Mono, Uniform), then Filter → Threshold… at Level 214.
4. Click the layer's name to leave mask editing.

About a fifth of the mask turns black in tiny specks (the blue speckle in the screenshot is Lopsy's mask overlay), so the red skips over the paper grain the way wax does.

The sheet nearly touches the bottom of the canvas. Shrink and turn the whole group at once:

1. Click the Printout row and press Cmd+D so nothing is selected. The Move tool's handles now frame everything in the group.
2. Hold Cmd and drag the bottom-right handle up and to the left until the sheet is about 95% of its size. Cmd keeps the proportions.

Drag just outside the top-left corner handle to rotate the group a degree or two anticlockwise (1.6° here). A small tilt makes it look like a sheet that was dropped on the desk. Press Cmd+D to commit.

With the Move tool, drag the group so the sheet sits in the middle and a little high, with wood showing on all four sides.

Find a dorsal (top-down) photo of a periodical cicada on a plain dark background. The USGS Bee Lab's public-domain specimen photos are ideal. This one is a Magicicada cassini, about 1200 px wide.

1. Click the Printout row, so the photo lands at the top of the group.
2. Copy the image in your browser and press Cmd+V in Lopsy. It arrives as a new layer at the top-left. Rename it Specimen photo.

1. Pick the Magic Wand, set Tolerance to 30 with Contiguous on, and click the black background.
2. Choose Select → Inverse to select the cicada instead.
3. Choose Select → Shrink… by 1 and Select → Feather… by 1 to clean the edge.
4. Press Cmd+X then Cmd+V to lift the cicada onto its own layer, in place. Rename it Cicada and deselect.
5. Click the Specimen photo row and delete it with the trash button.

Cicada wings are clear. On the black background they look solid, so they need to let the paper through.

With the Lasso, draw around the body only: the head and eyes, the thorax, and the strip of abdomen between the two wings.

1. Choose Select → Inverse, so everything except the body is selected.
2. Press Cmd+X then Cmd+V. The wings land on a new layer in place. Rename it Wings and set its opacity to 60%.

1. Click Cicada, then Shift-click Wings, so both are selected.
2. With the Move tool, drag them into the middle of the canvas, where there's room to work.
3. Cmd-drag a corner handle until the cicada is about a quarter of its size, about 240 px long.
4. Drag outside a corner to rotate it about 5° clockwise, so its body lines up with the ASCII drawing. Press Cmd+D.

1. Drag the cicada onto the paper, to the right of the ASCII cicada and facing the same way.
2. Select Cicada, duplicate it, and select the original underneath. Rename it Cicada shadow.
3. Cmd-click its thumbnail, set the foreground to black, choose Edit → Fill and deselect.
4. Run Gaussian Blur… with Radius 16. With the Move tool, press Shift+→ twice and Shift+↓ twice to push it 20 px down and right, and set its opacity to 40%.
5. Rename the copy back to Cicada and give it a small Drop Shadow (Offset 4, 6, Blur 5, Opacity 70) for the contact shadow.

1. Select Wings and add a layer called Lamp. Pick the Gradient tool, set it to Radial, and open Advanced…. Make the stops #FFD9A0 at 55% opacity, 20% halfway, and 0% at the end.
2. Drag from the top-left of the desk toward the middle of the sheet, and set the layer to Soft Light.
3. Add a layer called Vignette with a radial gradient: transparent black in the middle, about 30% at three-quarters of the way, and about 70% at the edge. Drag from the middle of the sheet to past the bottom-right corner, then set it to Multiply.

Keep the lamp's hotspot over the wood, not the banner. Soft Light lifts dark ink, and the title should stay the blackest thing on the page.