Long-arm Quilting Files

Matthias

Hey all, I need your help understanding designs for long-arm quilting machines:

Somebody approached me asking for additional file formats - at least for reading - in StitchBuddy. These file formats should be common for long-arm quilting:

DXF - I know this format was introduced by AutoCAD as an interchange format, text-based and rather good documented by Autodesk
QLI - A proprietary file format used by Gammill Creative Studio

So far I have no ideas how to import these files and just started some research. The user‘s demand was added to my (ever growing) todo list and I have honestly no idea if / when it might be addressed.

But I love to learn more about these files‘ purposes: Are they common for quilting designs (which I do envision like large-scale embroidery designs)? Is there a reason why design creators aren’t using standard formats like DST or EXP? Just curious…

And how do you think about StitchBuddy supporting these files?

Matthias

Matthias But I love to learn more about these files‘ purposes: Are they common for quilting designs (which I do envision like large-scale embroidery designs)? Is there a reason why design creators aren’t using standard formats like DST or EXP? Just curious…

As expected the mentioned file formats (.dxf and .qli - there was a typo) hold vector objects like curves or lines - no stitch data. To quilt with these files additional information is required like e.g. the stitch length.

How are these designs used when working with a long-arm quilting machine? Do you need to specify additional things after importing .qli / .dxf files? Any insight how this process works is highly appreciated.

Currently I'm not sure how these file formats would be (automatically) converted into embroidery stitch files like JEF or PES.

Matthias

Matthias Currently I'm not sure how these file formats would be (automatically) converted into embroidery stitch files like JEF or PES.

It looks like these "long-arm quilting designs" could be considered as vector-based graphic files plus some additional stitching information - and they are vendor-specific (except .dxf). Maybe I will import some of these as "shape files" similar to SVGs in future, but for the moment I don't see them as an essential addition to StitchBuddy.