Stitch Era - lettering: Difference between revisions
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[[image:stitch-era-lettering-lock-stitches-1.png|thumb|800px|none|Adding lock stitches to letters]] | [[image:stitch-era-lettering-lock-stitches-1.png|thumb|800px|none|Adding lock stitches to letters]] | ||
In order to add lock stitches to individual letters that you already created: | |||
* Open the Object Manger (tab to the right of the workspace panel) | * Open the Object Manger (tab to the right of the workspace panel) | ||
* Click on the '''Text section''' | * Click on the '''Text section''' | ||
* Click on the '''Char ... section pack''' if needed. Many letters are represented by more than just one | * Click on the '''Char ... section pack''' if needed. Many letters are represented by more than just one Zigzag column | ||
* Insert lock stitches through the '''More tab''' in the '''Object inspector''' as shown below | * Insert lock stitches through the '''More tab''' in the '''Object inspector''' as shown below | ||
Revision as of 23:52, 16 June 2011
Introduction
This is a beginner's tutorial for the Stitch Era embroidery software. It explains how to create letters
Disclaimer: Made by someone who started about embroidery and digitizing in May 2011. I will revise this once I understand more - Daniel K. Schneider 11:00, 9 June 2011 (CEST).
There two basic ways for creating letters
- Start from vector letters and then convert to stitches. This may work with large letters and even then not lead to optimal results since digitizing stitcheable letters is an art by itself ....
- Use specialized lettering software that can directly produce stitches from words you type in. In the SEU program, Words are represented as Stitching objects of type Text. Each text then is composed of either simple characters (like a "c") or composed characters like an "m". This probably also depends on the font. There are two kinds of built-in lettering fonts:
- Special purpose digitized "artistic fonts"
- Standard digitized true type fonts.
Good lettering software will recompute the stitches when you change font type and/or font size.
In SEU digitized words are editable, i.e. you can fix spelling mistakes (see below)
Inserting phrases
To insert a phrase, click on the Embroidery tab, then Lettering. This will directly produce stitch sections according to parameters selected in the top menu panel. Don't change values there since it's too tedious, rather use the lettering pop-panels as explained below.
The pull-out menu in the Stitch Type is made for professionals and allows to fine tune stitch generation. See the level menu. For now, you could use it to change colors. However, I suggest using the lettering panel for that.
The lettering panel is available through the pull-out menus from the Font, Text, Spacing ribbon panels in the main menu. It allows to change all basic properties like color, font, etc. This is much more practical than the shortcuts available in the main panel on top. See below for a short presentation of this tool.
The lettering pop-up panel - editing text
The Lettering panel allows to edit text and change most properties. You likely will not see it when you start using Stitch Era. It is available through two ways:
- the context menu (select the Text object, right click on the object and select Text properties)
- As pull-out (expansion) menu Font, Text and Spacing,Trims, etc. ribbon panels in the main menu bar.
This panel allows to edit text, to change fonts, size, distances. In addition you may specify trims and locks.
Some tips:
- Digitized fonts work well for larger sizes (15mm and bigger)
- True type fonts work better for smaller sizes (8-10mm)
- We found it very good voodoo to tick Reset Transformation after changing sizes and distances. Somehow, the Reprocess All (lightning button in the quick access bar) doesn't reprocess all the box size. E.g. for small letters (smaller than recommended), the text box is not resized without ticking "reset transformation".
Changing the shape of "embroidery" lettering
Shapes can be changed through the Arrange menu. Just select a kind of shape you want, then read on ...
Changing the shape of a phrase made with the embroidery - lettering tool is really easy. For each shape variant selected, you must explore the different handles (i.e. move around the little dots that will show outside of the text shape....). Make sure not to select individual letters, unless you wish to work at that level. If you have trouble selecting the whole text shape, use the object manager to the right (easier).
- Simple shapes (i.e. the ones in yellow) usually have between 4 and six usable control points and are more manageable
- Complex shapes (i.e. the grey ones like the user distortion one that you can see above) may have more handles.
Large letters and lock stitches
Disclaimer: not yet tested ! - Daniel K. Schneider 17:46, 13 June 2011 (CEST)
When you create large letters, you might want to create lock stitches at start and end of each letter. To do so we suggest using the following procedure before you insert the text:
Open the lettering panel (expansion menu in the lower right corner of the spaces, trims lock stitches panel
- click on Lock stitches at the bottoem
- Define the lock stitch
You also could add trims if you like, but then you will have to re-thread again
In order to add lock stitches to individual letters that you already created:
- Open the Object Manger (tab to the right of the workspace panel)
- Click on the Text section
- Click on the Char ... section pack if needed. Many letters are represented by more than just one Zigzag column
- Insert lock stitches through the More tab in the Object inspector as shown below
How small can one print ?
After a little test we believe that one could go as low as 5mm in height under the following conditions:
- fabric must be flat
- fabric must be stabilized
- contrast between fabric and letters must be high
- Stitching speed should be slowed down a bit
- Using small (fine) needles and finer threads
The following picture shows a test that doesn't respect these principles:
- Top right uses the the digitized Artistik font with sizes 10mm, 7mm and 5mm
- Bottom left group used the True Type Arial Rounded MT font with the same sizes
Both were made with Rayon 40 thread and a 0.75 mm needle.
We produced a more ambitious design using 8mm Arial MS for the small words and a built-in digitized font for the others. Textile was a cotton shirt. A first version was without stabilizer.
For the second one we used a iron-on / tear away stabilizer and the results are slightly better. We also changed the colors and made a test with (manual) overprinting of some words. A future version should use either fatter fonts or use running stitches.
Here is a picture of the partially removed stabilizer. I find the stitches a bit too fat, i.e. such a shirt wouldn't be a comfortable thing to wear.
Open questions:
- Is is possible to print digitized fonts otherwise than with a zig-zag technique, i.e. use straight lines instead ? Below 1mm, zig-zag does seem to have problems.
- How much work is editing at the stitch level in order to fix some badly converted characters? We found that "w"'s are not well liked when working with "tiny" Arial and similar fonts.
- How "light" can a readable fill pattern be ?
Lettering with vector graphics
You also can either import lettering made with a vector graphics program or use the text functionality in Stitch era's vector drawing tool.
Since we are interested in producing small letters, we also wondered whether we could print small letters with running stitches. We made a quick test:
Starting point:
- A few lines with various type faces using 8mm
- Conversion as shown in the following screen capture, in particular:
- stitch-length = 0.8mm (very small)
- inhibit the program to use zig-zag or fills.
- Repeat 3 times (that's too much, I should try 2 next time)
Result:
... not very convincing, i.e. some letters would need manual editing of stitch pathes. That's not difficult, but too tedious with respect to the time I have.
... to be continued