Design software for pattern making?

[DwightT]

I'm one of those people who couldn't draw a crooked line if I had to.  Remember the "Draw Me" ads that the American Art Institute used to put in magazines?  Most people would get back a form letter letting them know that they had great potential as an artist and they should sign up for the Institute's art correspondence course right away.  My letter wanted me to promise to never touch pencil to paper ever again.

When computer drawing programs started to be developed, I was in heaven.  I could at least now reliably draw a straight line and actually put out some engineering drawings at work.  Since those early days the programs have gotten good enough that if I see something that I think might make a good leather pattern I can load an image into the drawing program (I currently use GIMP), then trace over it to create a line-art template.  I can then scale that line-art to whatever size I need and print it out to have a tracing template.  Probably most of you have enough talent to be able to free-hand draw a pattern directly and by-pass the computer part, but I know that won't happen for me.

I think just about any computer drawing program would let you do the job.  But regardless of the program it will involve spending some time with it to discover what it is capable of and what you can do with it.

    /dwight

[TomE]

I'm in the same boat, @DwightT.  My patterns are strapwork with repeating curves that I find easiest to match/repeat using a vector graphics program.  Also, I resize curved portions of the pattern to fit different horses.  Used to run the GIMP on prehistoric UNIX machines back in the day.  Impressive how far the GNU programs have come.  Now I make patterns in Adobe Illustrator and print to PDF with scaling set to tiled, so I have a series of overlapping pages that can be taped together.

[MikeRock]

Dwight,

In GIMP is there a way to load a photograph, then do some contrast work and see only the edges?  The edges are the pattern.  I remember someone using 'some program' doing that.  HELP!

God bless

[tsunkasapa]

I use the cereal boxes as well. Before I lost my little buddy, I used the Alpo Variety Snaps. They are twice as thick as cereal or cracker boxes. If I need more sq ft then I go to the college bookstore.

[TomE]

44 minutes ago, MikeRock said:

Dwight,

In GIMP is there a way to load a photograph, then do some contrast work and see only the edges?  The edges are the pattern.  I remember someone using 'some program' doing that.  HELP!

God bless

I haven't used GIMP in a while, but I see it has a "Fuzzy Selection" tool that functions like the "Magic Wand" in Adobe Photoshop.  The Magic Wand selects a group of pixels with similar color/intensity values from a contiguous area, or noncontiguous areas, enabling a background to be distinguished from artwork.  The stringency of selecting "like" pixels can be changed to improve the selection.   The invert selection command toggles between the magic wand selection and everything else (the artwork).  Once the artwork is selected, an outline can be created by editing the selection to add "stroke" and "fill."   I would guess that the GIMP has many of the same commands to work with the fuzzy selection tool.

ADDED: Gabor Pinter wrote a 3 part article on "Digitalizing Patterns With Adobe Photoshop" in the 2022 March/April, May/June, and July/August issues of the Leather Crafters and Saddlers Journal.  He is tracing the outline of a digital image using transparent layers and the brush tool in Photoshop.

Edited December 2, 2022 by TomE

[lol999]

I use Carbide Create free version. It's actually for cnc machines but it has the option to save as svg so you can even import it into Lightburn for your laser.

[DwightT]

3 hours ago, MikeRock said:

Dwight,

In GIMP is there a way to load a photograph, then do some contrast work and see only the edges?  The edges are the pattern.  I remember someone using 'some program' doing that.  HELP!

God bless

Yes you can, but it's been quit a while since I last did it.  I think TomE has the general process using the fuzzy selector or select by color, plus there are several tutorials available out on the web for how to do it.  I just did a quick google search for "gimp line art from photo" and it came back with a writeup along with a few video tutorials.  Might not hurt me to sit down and go through the process again just to re-familiarize myself with it.

    /dwight

[MikeRock]

TomE and Dwight.

Thank you both.  I will open GIMP and see what I can do now.  I'm an old mechanical draftsman and use a very old copy of Vellum, 1995'ish.  Have to admit, even with all the K&E drafting stuff, digital IS a darn fine way to go.  Wish I had my old printer, it did B size format, 11"x17". 

God bless,

Mike

[alfredleatherworks]

I still draw my patterns out on paper with a pencil (example in the image attached). That being said, once I have my patterns drawn up I usually use the computer scanner and Adobe Illustrator to convert my patterns to printable files for ease of storage and reprinting. Some patterns I use a lot then get transferred to either bag stiffener board or (soon, I hope) acrylic. I grew up with computers, know how to use multiple drafting software programs, and probably could do the whole thing on the laptop...but I actually enjoy drawing things out with an old-school drafting set. For complex designs having a mold/mannequin and a lot of extra paper or fabric helps depending on the project you're attempting to design.

[Klara]

On 12/1/2022 at 7:24 PM, DJole said:

Inkscape is a free program that I have downloaded and installed, to help build vector-based patterns. Again, there is a learning curve involved, of course...

I would like to repeat DJole's recommendation. Inkscape is to Adobe Illustrator what GIMP is to Photoshop (i. e. vector graphics vs. image editing software...)

I draw my patterns the old-fashioned way, if we are talking about construction. The pictures for decoration  - which so far have been limited to borzois and an eagle head - are bought and printed.