CymaVis

Sand Table Studio

Turn tones and ratios into a path for a ball in sand. Watch it draw, then download a .thr track for a kinetic sand table.

Pattern

Tone ratio

This ratio never closes, so the track ends with a short move to the center or edge.

Track file

Drawn: 0% · 24,002 points · 439 KB

Est. time on a table: about 1 h 5 min

Tables and speed settings differ, so try a short track first. The upload steps are below.

Hear it

Ready-made tracks

Free tracks made by CymaVis. Download one to run it, or change it in the studio. Times are rough estimates.

A nearly finished 355 : 113 pattern in the sand of a Sisyphus table, with the steel ball
The 355 : 113 track nearly finished on a Sisyphus table at home. Real grooves are wide, so later passes erase earlier fine lines and the last passes form the pattern you see.

Two ways to draw in sand

On a Chladni plate, vibration moves the sand onto the lines that stay still. On a kinetic sand table, a magnet pulls a ball and its trail becomes the line. Physics sets the first pattern and a formula sets the second. This tool builds that formula from the numbers of sound: frequencies and musical ratios.

The three patterns

  • Two-tone curve: the same formula as the π curve, where the speed ratio k is the ratio of two tones. 3 : 2 closes after 2 turns and π never closes.
  • Sound ripple: a spiral from the center to the edge with waves added. There is one wave per 44 Hz, so 440 Hz gives 10 per ring. This mapping is an artistic choice, not a physical law.
  • Rose: a petal curve. Raising the drift makes the petals slowly rotate and fill the disk.

Uploading a track to a Sisyphus table

The phone app’s Library has no file upload option, so we used a browser on a PC on the same Wi-Fi network. Menu names may differ between firmware versions.

  1. In the phone app, open Settings → Advanced and note the table’s IP address.
  2. In a browser on your PC, go to http://IP:3001. For example: http://192.168.0.50:3001
  3. Open Settings → Advanced → Upload Track, choose the .thr file and press Upload Track(s).
  4. Wait for processing to finish, then play it from the track list in the Library. The thumbnail may show the default logo at first and appear a little later.

How long a track takes

Download .thr saves the same coordinates the preview draws. The estimated time in the tool is a rough figure based on path length. With the speed set high on our table, the app showed about 2 hours for the 355 : 113 track. Speed settings and tables differ, so start with a short pattern such as 3 : 2. Tracks end on the edge or the center, which makes them easier to chain.

Making a track from an image (test)

One ball has to draw everything in a single line, so a spiral from the center to the edge wiggles more where the image is dark. Grooves are wide, so the result is not photographic: simple shapes and strong contrast work best. The picture may look turned depending on how your table sits, so use the rotate control. Your image is processed in the browser and never uploaded.

Frequently asked questions

What is a .thr file?

A plain text list of polar coordinates, one “theta rho” pair per line. Theta is an accumulated angle in radians and rho runs from 0 at the center to 1 at the edge. Lines starting with # are comments.

Will this track run on my sand table?

We uploaded tracks from this tool to a Sisyphus table at home, and the table played them and made its own thumbnails. We have not tested other tables or every firmware version, so try a short pattern first and watch the first minutes of the run.

Does the pattern show what the sound really does to sand?

No. A Chladni plate is real physics: vibration moves the sand. Here a ball follows a calculated path, and tones only set the numbers for that path. To see vibration patterns, use the Chladni simulator.

Is this made by or affiliated with a sand table brand?

No. CymaVis is independent and is not affiliated with any sand table manufacturer. Product names belong to their owners.