Inspired by the traditional thermal printers, the PyroGraph is an experimental plotter that uses a soldering iron to burn images onto paper.

Created by the team of Bjørn Karmann, Lars Kaltenbach and Nicolas Armand, PyroGraph works by analyzing any picture and then converting it into dots that are scorched onto a piece of paper with a 450 °C tip. The time of contact between the iron and the paper determines the grayscale of the dot?—?the longer it presses against the paper, the darker the dots get.

The machine uses a paper roll (so the length of the printed piece can then be up to 100m) and a head moving on a fixed x-axis, controlled by servo motors and a custom software developed by the group of Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design students.

But that’s not all. The PyroGraph will also listen to the ambient noise within its environment to make a connection between the space and the printer. The drawings will be distorted depending on the sound activity of the room in which it will be displayed.

You can read more about the project here, and see it in action below!

(Photos: CIID)