Adjusting density, stitch length and number of stitches.

JeanneA

I am still occasionally using your free version of StitchBuddy, while awaiting a major development of being able to adjust the density of a design. I've written to Matthias before, perhaps 7-8 years ago? When resizing a design, especially reducing by 10% - 20%, it's important, in most cases, to also have the ability to reduce the density by lengthening the stitches, and lowering the number of stitches used. Otherwise one risks having too bulky a design and even thread breakage from tight compact stitches. I like to embroider on leather, as well as cardstock - - 2 mediums on opposite ends of the spectrum, but both requiring longer stitches and designs that will not "punch out" the base material used. Do you think you might consider this major improvement in the near future? Jeanne Anderson

Matthias

JeanneA Density adjustment while keeping the design intact is a very complex topic, as a program needs to understand the structure of a design: which stitches are loose / dense by intentions, where are stitches part of a filling pattern or an underlay: Honestly, I’m afraid that's beyond my expertise in manipulating embroidery designs and I don't expect StitchBuddy ever having these capabilities.

As far as I know there are other (few) embroidery programs - even for macOS - which can adjust a design's density, e.g. when resizing. Without some first hand experiences I cannot judge on the quality of their results.

As mentioned in my mail back in 2017, I'm considering an enhancement in StitchBuddy which would allow changing the length of single stitches: I'd like to implement a way to move (and delete / insert) penetration points - currently only the location of a stitch can moved, but not its beginning or end. The main motivation is tweaking zigzag stitches, especially at corners, but this could be used for other purposes, too.

With some more of my time dedicated to StitchBuddy I hope to address this topic as one of the next major improvements on macOS.

JeanneA

Matthias Thank you for your gracious reply. I will eagerly keep an eye out for this feature when you have made the enhancement. I was hesitant to name the software for PC which I'd been using to lessen density, but after reading some other people's comments, have now seen that it's acceptable to do so. In 2003, while still using only a Dell PC-based laptop, I purchased basically all the editing and digitizing PC software offered by Embird (creator named Dusan I believe). It worked great for my needs, until my laptop was stolen while on a vacation. I stopped updating the program and, but until recently, could still use it after going back to the Mac format, my 1st love in computers. I'd bought the Macbook Pro laptop, which allowed me to partition the hard drive, then install and run PC programs on half the hard drive. Unfortunately, after placing too many files on the Mac side, the PC portion was kicked off reverting to the Mac format, and I lost everything that had been stored there. (And can't access the PC portion of my external back up drive.) I do immense amounts of graphics as well as embroidery on my Macs, which will last more than a decade. But I seemed to kill the motherboards within 4 years on every new PC I'd bought. A couple of years ago I bought an inexpensive PC-based laptop so I could continue using the Embird product, only to discover the operating system on the PC was too advanced for the use of my old Embird program. Now, faced with a decision of buying a totally new PC program or holding out for one I can afford for my Mac, I'm sincerely wishing I could achieve my goals with using only Mac-based programs.

CherylAnn

Matthias, I'm not sure that stitch lengths can be changed in a format for a specific sewing machine; JEF, PES and others for example. For Wilcom's Hatch software EMB is the native format that is the format used, and then you do a "save as" to get the machine stitches file to transfer via USB to the sewing machine. I know that I have tried to change some things, like the length or stitch type or fill and haven't had any success and that includes sometime not even finding "where" you'd go to find that feature, if it exists.

Also, the integrity of the design could be compromised. I know this from experience in something I did many years ago. I tried to take a design that was about 78.9mm X 66.4mm, a very small design. I wanted it to fit in a hoop that was 200mm X 200mm. It was a snow globe shape and so pretty that I wanted it bigger. Well, the result required me to really get innovative and do some free motion stitching to fill the gaps that were left in the design. Free motion is not my go-to stitching at all, however, I did end up with a very beautiful embroidery design for a Christmas wall hanging, but I didn't get there in any way that I'd consider easy. Just before Christmas, I contacted Trevor Conquergood, who may have even digitized this design, but certainly it was digitized by someone in his family's company in the 1980's and got the native format which was an EMB file. That did not enlarge nicely either, so I'm going to have to really do some work on that in HATCH 3 digitizing program, if I want to use it and get a great result. It might even require a lesson from Trevor IF he would have time to help me. This design had satin stitches that became to long on roof tops and snow, density was also a problem in straight stitching, on the trees and in the sky, and I'm not sure anymore what else. These are the problems that can occur. When you aren't the design of the picture you want to "fix", it's best to contact the one or company that sold it to get the design to do something to get the best result, but expect to pay for that service as it may take some time to achieve the results needed.

Cheryl - Saskatoon

Matthias

CherylAnn I'm not sure that stitch lengths can be changed in a format for a specific sewing machine; JEF, PES and others for example.

You are exactly mentioning my concerns - and much better phrased, thank you: A simple stitch file (as used by embroidery machines and StitchBuddy) is just missing information about objects, fillings etc. Without this knowledge changing stitch lengths would harm the design's integrity and I doubt it would result in a file of sufficient quality without significant manual efforts - basically re-digitizing the design.

@JeanneA BriTon Leaps Density Repair Kit is claiming a feature to "limit density" by changing the number of stitches per square millimeter, but I have no clue how it works, which effort is needed and how usable the results are. Maybe something to further investigate…

JeanneA

Matthias Thank you for this information, it is certainly worth checking out.

Matthias

JeanneA I was hesitant to name the software for PC which I'd been using to lessen density, but after reading some other people's comments, have now seen that it's acceptable to do so.

Just as a side note: I'm totally fine with 3^rd party products named in this forum - as long as it stays in the context of a discussion and doesn't cross the line to advertising. I always found it hard to give advise without the possibility to name other brands. Just use common sense in your posts and we're good!

Matthias

JeanneA I'd bought the Macbook Pro laptop, which allowed me to partition the hard drive, then install and run PC programs on half the hard drive.

A heads-up for others regarding Jeanne using part of her Mac to run Windows: This option called "Bootcamp" was a way to start (aka "boot") a Mac in two different modes, either running Apple's macOS or using Microsoft Windows: Both operating systems were able to run on the same hardware, so you ended up with two separate installations, only one active at a time with exclusive access to the (Intel) processor, memory etc.

There was a second way, running MS Windows in a virtualized environment in parallel to macOS, which became the only option with Apple introducing their own processors: In these environments - e.g. based on Parallels Desktop, VMware Fusion or UTM/QEMU, macOS stays active as the main operating system while Windows is running inside of an app which behaves like a PC. Resources like processor and memory are shared between both systems, and my recommendation for new MacBooks is an investment into memory (RAM, not SSD storage) if you ever consider using Windows on your device.

That's enough mumbo jumbo from a techie for today - if there is a need for details I'm happy to write a more detailed post in the "Tips & Tricks" category 🙂