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). Position of stitch points in a set of lines allow creating different types of patterns.

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:

• Manual Patterns (~140 variants) = defined by several lines with a different offset for each.
• Math Patterns = defined by a line that is repeated with various offsets and a tilt
• Creative Patterns = defined with a kind of pixel editor.
• Combined Patterns = another pattern with a mask on top
• Masks (to be used with the others)

Fills can be created through (Menu Embroidery -> System libraries -> Embroidery Components -> Patterns)

EO Manual patterns

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

1. A number of lines
2. A length of the stitches (4mm by default)
3. An offset for each line
4. An optional stitch offset
5. An optional line offset
6. An optional tilt

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.

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

The screenshot below shows the same pattern with stitch offset and line offset removed. 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 Creative patterns

The creative editor allows you to draw a foreground with a pixel editor that will be highlighted. Alternatively or in combination, on can import an image with *.bmp type, a format defined pixel by pixel. Therefore, you must save an image that does not exceed 1cm x 1cm. That's 100 x 100 pixels to manipulate.

It seems to us that you have to be careful to fill the canvas from top to bottom and from left to right in order to ensure that there are dots (stitches) in the lines.

A first attempt was made some time ago

• 

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

• 

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

• To use a bitmap fully as pattern, firstly detect the precise size of the file. E.g. the Pacman file we imported has 73x74 dimensions. Then, define height and width of the Edited Pattern with the same dimensions.
• You can shift the pattern (0 to 100%).

Below is a second attempt for Pacman-like pattern.