There are a variety of drawing experiments and tools on the web designed to impress you [Fractal 4D, String Spinner], amuse you [Line Rider, Wordle] or assist you in your daily business tasks [Imagination Cubed, E2Vector]. Find out more about some of these by clicking on the title – get drawing, collaborating and displaying your work to the world.
All of these projects and ideas are freely available to download and try for yourself – there are many more examples so watch out for “6 More Drawing Experiments” coming soon.
Imagination Cubed
An interesting collaboration tool for drawing and trying out ideas. Once you have invited some people to share a meeting with you a realistic pen is added to the browser window where you can collaborate and add your marks to the browser window with other participants. Invite a couple of friends and try it out. This is a Flash application – you will need Adobe Flash to see this.
Fractal4D
This neat program is great for generating background artwork for projects. Data from your Fractal4D productions can be imported into Adobe Illustrator where the AI will plot resolution independent vector graphics for enlargement to the size you require. This is an Adobe AIR application so you will need Adobe AIR on your PC or Mac to run this.
String Spin
This is an interesting vector line-spinning tool that will take a simple line and spin it in any axis you set. Parameters can be changed during the drawing process which can generate some interesting / inventive results. It would be really good if the creator could allow the drawing data to be output from String Spin and imported to Adobe Illustrator or CAD software as with Fractal 4D.
Line Rider
How simple line art can be turned into hours of fun. Create some simple lines and watch a character slide down them on a sledge until you can’t take any more laughter or the boss tells you that you need to meet the deadline or else. Fortunately, I work for myself so I am the boss. This program requires Adobe Flash and alot of trial and error.
E2vector
A simple vector drawing program that will get you used to the idea of using vectors rather than bitmaps. If you want to know the difference between vectors and bitmaps see iStockphoto’s guide to Vectors for a concise and easy-to-understand explanation.
Wordle
Creating word clouds with your text input is easy with this online experiment. Link Wordle to your RSS feed or paste some text into the input box to create some quick and dirty text based layouts. Useful for inspiration and filling the office wall with themed text for brainstorming, mind-map, pondering, thinking, sitting around drinking coffee and chatting….or whatever thinking is called these days 
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[...] recently created a short news item for the Drawing Research Network called 6 Digital Drawing Experiments. This was essentially a collection of some of the research I had done into drawing and online [...]