Tatami embroidery fill patterns

See also

• Embroidery software
• Embroidery glossary
• Concepts of computerized embroidery
• Embroidery and sewing needle
• Embroidery stitch type
• Hooping and stabilizing in computerized embroidery
• Embroider on socks
• Embroidery patch
• Computerized embroidery in education
• Conference embroidery
• Hotfix stone

• Quality: draft

Draft

Introduction

Tatami fill patterns are one major type of stitch types (the others are lines, satin stitches and programmed stitches).

Each software manufacturer its own way of defining these. Generally speaking, one can find a few dozen non-editable patterns in semi-professional software. Professional software has more and allows creating new patterns, or modifying existing patterns,.

Typology of tatami fill patterns

Tatami fill patterns define an area where the threads are stitched in lines (in parallel to each other). The position of stitch points in a set of lines allow creating different types of patterns.

Most software seems to distinguish between regular and irregular patterns, plus embossed (or creative) ones. Details to follow.

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The following picture that you can enlarge shows a more complete fill patterns that are available among the hundreds that you can find in Embroidery Office or Stitch Era

Sample fill patterns from Embroidery Office / Stitch Era

Pattern editing with embroidery software

Professional embroidery design software lets users design their own patterns. As far as we can tell, underlying logic is similar, but the way pattern structure and editing tools are implemented is quite different. Below we compare a few editors.

DG 15 (Tajima)

DG 15 distinguishes between standard (regular) fill pattern, complex patterns, carved fill patterns

DG 15 standard patterns

According to chapter 11 of the DG 15 User's guide , a user can modify or create patterns using the standard patterns dialog. Standard patterns are defined by lines that have the same distance between stitches but are offset. The following can be defined

• Length of stitches (points), i.e. total length of a repeatable pattern line, e.g. 40
• Number of offsets (i.e. lines that will be stitched before the pattern repeats, typically 4 for simple design and over 10 for complex designs)
• For each offset, a percentage between 0 and 100 that defines the offset can be defined. Alternatively the patterns are displayed with lines and beads representing stitches. The lines with beads then can be moved up and down.

Tajima DG 15 Standard Fill Pattern edit

Carved fills are created with complex fill segments on top of which carved fill patterns are applied (chapter 11, page 221). Carved fill patterns can also be used with true type fonts.

Embroidery Office 23

Embroidery office (EO), as well as the semi-professional Stitch Era product line, distinguishes between four types of tatami fills. According to the manual the amount of patterns does not depend on the software line (Stitch Era vs Embroidery Office) and the respective software levels. However, we found more patterns in our version than advertized.

1. Manual Patterns (~140 variants in EO, level D80) = defined by several lines with a different offset for each.
2. Math (uniform) Patterns (~ 210 variants for D80) = defined by a line that is repeated with various offsets and a tilt
3. Creative (graphic) Patterns ( ~151 variants) = defined with a kind of pixel editor.
4. Combined Patterns (~120 in EO, level D80) = another pattern with a mask on top
5. Masks (to be used with the others)

Fills can be created in EO software levels D60 (or better) and Stitch Era (SE Artist) levels. Alternatively for lower levels, the pattern builder module can be purchased.

The editors are available through (Menu Embroidery -> System libraries -> Embroidery Components -> Patterns).

EO Manual patterns

Manual patterns in Embroidery Office 23 are defined by the following elements:

1. Number of lines that define the pattern (4 by default)
2. Length of the stitches (4mm by default)
3. An offset for each line of the pattern
4. A stitch offset (0 by default)
5. A line offset (0 by default)
6. A pattern tilt (0 by default)

Let us look a slightly "rough" pattern fill that we defined ourselves

• It has 8 lines (the maximum possible)
• Stitch length is 4mm
• Line starts and ends go "forth and back"
• We did not add any additional stitch and line offsets that would create a totally irregular design.

Screenshot of Embroidery Office 23 Pattern Editor - a regular "rough" manual fill

Let us look at fairly irregular system pattern with some sort of rough "patches". This effect is achieved by changing stitch and line offset. Unfortunately the documentation does not explain what these exactly do.

Screenshot of Embroidery Office 23 Pattern Editor - an irregular manual fill

The screenshot below shows the same pattern, but with stitch offset and line offset removed. As a result, the pattern becomes a regular one.

Screenshot of Embroidery Office 23 Pattern Editor - stitch and line offset of the above example removed

There is no export or import facility, but we believe that files can be copied manually between machines that have the same software installed (to be verified)

• from C:\ProgramData\Sierra\Design\Resources
• e.g. "C:\ProgramData\Sierra\Design\Resources\PTH-DKS-001.manpat"

EO Math patterns

Math patterns follow a similar logic as manual patterns, except that their definition is based on one line. EO (level D80) contains 211 variants.

The following parameters can be set:

1. Stitch length (by default 4mm)
2. Repetitions of the same lines (by default 1)
3. Offset pA is the offset of the stitch to the right in percentage. E.g. a pA = 25 will create 4 offsets: line 1 = none, line 2 = 125%, line 3= 150%, line 4 = 175%. Line 5 (>100%) starts at line 1 horizontal position.
4. Offset pB is what exactly ?
5. Invert will invert the position of the line with respect to the origin (?)
6. Stitch offset (by default = 0) will allow irregular patterns
7. Line offset (by default = 0) will allow irregular patterns
8. Tilt of pattern

Screenshot of Embroidery Office 23 Math Pattern Editor, showing system component PTM-0004, a somewhat coarse standard tatami

Let us look at four more examples:

A standard smooth tatami (PTM-0001, first pattern in the list) has the following properties:

• 3.2mm stitch length
• Offset pA = 25
• Default values for the rest.

An irregular pattern, e.g. PTM-0164 has the following parameters:

• Length = 3.6
• Repeat 0 (same as 1)
• Offset pA = 54
• Offset pB = 62
• Invert = 50
• Stitch offset = 51
• Line offset = 0
• Tilt = 0

By repeating lines like PTM 0179 one can achieve a "brick-like" effect

• length = 5.2
• Repeat = 10
• Offset pA = 50

PTM 0014 defines a wave pattern like this:

• length = 3.6
• repeat = 1
• Offset pA = 5
• Offset pB = 15
• Invert = 20

Screenshot of Embroidery Office 23 Math Patterns

EO Creative patterns

The creative editor allows you to draw a foreground with a pixel editor that will be highlighted. Alternatively or in combination, one can import an image with *.bmp type, a format defined pixel by pixel. We suggest to keep it small, e.g. do not 1cm x 1cm. That's 100 x 100 pixels to manipulate. We use the following steps

• Get an icon with lines from the Noun project in SVG format
• Open in InkScape, resize the picture to 100mm max, then adjust the document size to the image, unless you really want margins for one or another reason.
• Export as PNG, in the right solution, e.g. 100x100px
• Import to GIMP
• Export as BMP
• Create a new Creative pattern in EO
• Adjust size to the size of the BMP (or a bit bigger), then import. So we repeat: in order to use a bitmap fully as pattern, firstly determine the precise size of the file, then define the height of the creative pattern canevas with the same dimension. You can keep the width or make it a bit larger.
• You can shift the pattern (0 to 100%).

Using BMPs with the Creative Pattern Editor in EO

It seems to us that you have to be careful to fill the canvas from top to bottom at least in one place in order to ensure that there are at least some dots (stitches) in the lines.

A first attempt was made some time ago and it was bad. Large surfaces do not seem to translate well !

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  Stitch-era-20-embroidery-components-4.png PacMan model (designed in Stitch Era 20)

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  Stitch-era-20-embroidery-components-5.png Use of the PacMan pattern.

Below is a second attempt for Pacman-like pattern, we will use "lines" as opposed to fills.

(to document some ....)

Screenshot of Embroidery Office 23 Creative Pacman Patterns

We do not yet understand how to create patterns that look good. Some more exploration and testing is required ....