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The Stitchery An IFF to Needlework Utility by Bradley W. Schenck version 1.21 -- March 10, 1990 This software is copyright 1990 by Bradley W. Schenck All rights reserved ================================================================== This program is released as shareware. It may be freely distribu- ted with the following limitations: 1. It may not be included on commercial disk magazines without the consent of the author. I may agree to its publication, but I INSIST that you ask me. 2. It may be uploaded and stored on any bulletin board service that does not claim ownership of the software in its file library. 3. Computer users groups are encouraged to include the program on their group disks, and other public domain resources such as the Fred Fish library are also invited to do so. If you use The Stitchery, I ask that you help support its past and future development with a shareware contribution. I suggest $20 US, which I think is reasonable. If you believe that it's worth less, feel free to send me less. If you feel it's worth a fortune, then by all means send me one. In either case I'll learn something, won't I? Brad Schenck 62 Dombey Circle Thousands Oaks, California 91360 ================================================================== The Stitchery is a utility prepared with the Director from the Right Answers Group. (Though you might not stop to think about it, there aren't too many "Animation" programs that allow you to create productivity software...............................) Like other Director presentations, you'll need the Projector (a freely distributable `player' for the Director) before you can use The Stitchery. The Projector is widely available on bulletin boards, on public domain disks, and elsewhere. ================================================================== This program requires a minimum of one megabyte of RAM. ================================================================== 1. Introduction Counted Cross Stitch, Needlepoint and Latch Hook patterns (as well as other similar types of needlework) use designs laid out on a grid with symbols within the grid squares to show what color of thread is to be used in the stitch represented by that square. This program is based on an idea (well, a plea, actually) by Mike and Debbie Van der Sommen, who wanted to use their Amiga to generate patterns for counted Cross Stitch. (Traditionally, these designs have been created by designers working with pencil on graph paper.) The Stitchery will load in any IFF file (excepting HAM images) and create a Color Key and a symbolic pattern or patterns from that picture, suitable for counted cross stitch, needlepoint and other types of needlework. The program runs either from the CLI ("run STITCHERY", not "projector STITCHERY.film") or from the WorkBench (by clicking on its icon). It expects the Projec- tor to be in the same directory that the program is in, when run from the WorkBench. While any resolution can be used, low res and high res are the only really practical ones; this is because their pixels are the closest we have to square ones (the stitches are laid out on a grid, and are roughly square). Halfbright mode is supported so you can have up to 64 colors in your pattern if your system has Extra Halfbright capability. Color 0 (the background color) will be shown as a blank square (see the notes on making graphics, below). The IFF picture will be processed in rectangles that mea- sure 60 pixels wide and 70 pixels tall. Each of these panels ends up as a full-page pattern (so a full-size low resolution screen would yield a pattern that took up about 12 pages - now THAT's a chunky resolution!). I recommend that you stick with low res un- less you want to design a curtain or bedspread 8-). The size of the finished piece of needlework depends on the size of the stitches used to make it. In counted cross-stitch, that's determined by the tightness of the cloth you work on. 2. Loading and Viewing Pictures Clicking on the "Load Picture" gadget displays a file requestor. Choose the IFF image you want to create a pattern from and load it in. The "View Picture" gadget will display the current picture. If the image is larger than the screen, only the upper left part of it will be visible. It's all there, though, honest. Clicking the mouse again returns you to the main screen. 3. Making Color Keys This feature analyses the current picture and displays its palette. A "Color Key" is created, which indexes color names to the symbols used to represent those colors in the pattern. You can choose colors by clicking on the "Next Color" and "Last Color" gadgets, which scroll through the palette, or by click- ing on the "Pick" gadget first and then the desired color. Clicking the "Rename" gadget lets you type in a descriptive name for a color ("Light Red", "Barn Door Red", or a specific dye number from a thread catalog, for example). After Renaming a color you must select another color with the Pick, Next or Last gadgets (you don't automatically go on to another color). "Exit" returns you to the main screen without saving the Color Key. Any editing you have done is still in memory unless you load a new picture or make a pattern. IMPORTANT!!! In this version of the software, the Color Key is erased once you generate the actual pattern. Save your color key FIRST. "Save" calls the file requestor so you can save out your Color Key. This creates a high resolution picture 640 * 680 pixels in size with all the color symbols shown with their descriptive names. 4. Making Patterns This is where the action is. The current picture is analysed and the first 60 by 70 pixel page is displayed. You may choose to Skip the panel, Use (or create) it, or pick "All Done!" to exit the patternmaking phase. When a panel has been skipped or calculated and saved, the next panel will be displayed in the same way. You can page through the possible panels to select those you want to make pat- terns from, and exit when you've got all you want. Once a page has been calculated, the file requestor will appear so that you can save out the current panel. The panel will be saved as a high resolution 640 by 680 pixel IFF file. Selecting "Cancel" in the file requestor aborts the patternmaking process. With the Color Key and Pattern pages saved, you'll want to exit the program and print them out, possibly after adding notes to them in DPaint or another graphics program. ================================================================== PRINTING THE PATTERNS AND COLOR KEY I load these files into DPaint (using a High Resolution screen, which lets you see them better at the cost of some really nasty flicker; lots of one-pixel horizontal lines) and print them on a Hewlett-Packard Deskjet. The page resolution is pretty high in order to get reproducible output, and a good printer is really necessary. "Good printer" might mean a 24 pin, high resolution ink jet, or laser printer. A 9 pin dot matrix printer produces readable output but it's not a pleasure to work with it. The grids are designed to print properly with your Prefer- ences scaling set to `Fractional' (the default). Deluxe Photolab's "Posters" program has also been used to print the images. You may want to add marginal notes to the IFF while in DPaint, with your own fonts. The arrows in the pattern margins are to aid in counting stitches - there's one every ten squares. =================================================================== CREATING ARTWORK FOR USE WITH THE STITCHERY As noted above, color 0 (the background color) is always printed as a blank square. This is to prevent legitimately blank areas of the page from looking like stitches in one of the colors. A possible future enhancement is to give the user a choice between a "Blank Color 0" and one that's represented by a symbol. If you are processing existing screens to use with the Stitchery, remember to stencil out or otherwise eliminate the use of Color 0 in the IFF file. Pictures in HAM can be converted to 64 or 32 colors with image processing software before being used. (Also handy for converting pictures in other resolutions to low or high resolution.) Try to move unused colors to the end of the palette. This program will analyse all palette colors (even if they are never used in the picture) and represent them all in the Color Key. So if you move colors that you don't actually need to the end of the palette, you can easily remove them from the Color Key page before you print it out. And of course, if your picture only uses 8 or 16 colors, save it in that format. For original designs, there is a 32 color picture included called "Layout.pic". It's a low res screen 320 pixels wide and 210 pixels tall (to get an extra row of pattern panels at the bottom). It's useful to work on a checkerboard like this one, in which the checks each represent one 60 by 70 pixel pattern page. You can lay out your designs while being able to see how they'll convert to pattern panels. Remember that the finished pattern will be made up of square "stitches", each representing one pixel in your picture - and remember that your pixels are not quite square. They are slightly taller than they are wide, so your pattern will be expan- ded slightly in width. As a rule of thumb, just make things look slightly thinner than you want them. In cases where you have a border design or a simple border stripe, make sure that it's the same "width" in its vertical and horizontal sections. You can look at the pattern pages, when you print them, to see if any dis- tortion has occurred. Interestingly, the monitors now being shipped by Commodore are set so that the pixels look square. There's a little blind screw on the back of the monitor that adjusts the aspect ratio. If you're not sure which way yours is set you can find out by starting up DPaint and drawing a circle with the circle tool (do NOT select the `be square' option from the Prefs menu). If the circle looks round, your monitor is displaying square pixels. If it looks oval, your monitor is displaying rectangular pixels. (This applies to low and high resolution, in which the pixels are squarish). If you want to change your monitor's aspect ratio in either direction you can do it by adjusting that little screw, inset in a hole in the back of the monitor. A lot of artwork will look elongated to you if your aspect ratio is set wide for square pixels. There is one last bit of editing you can do while preparing your designs which can make the pattern more "readable". Print out a copy of the IFF file "StitchKeypic". This illustrates the color symbols and the color number that is represented by each (note that the first or background color is called "Color One", although in our practise we think of it as "Color Zero" in computerese). You will notice that some symbols look darker or heavier than others. These are mostly the letters and the symbols (like solid squares and triangles) which use a lot of black. Before saving off the final version of your picture, change the palette around so that darker colors correspond to the darker symbols; after remapping your picture to the altered palette and saving it, you'll have ensured that dark colors are represented by dark symbols, and light colors, by light symbols. Now the person who uses your pattern will be able to get a better idea of what the picture looks like. ================================================================== Possible future enhancements: 1. "Show" or "Hide" Color 0 in pattern output 2. Screen out unused colors in the palette 3. Revised interface in the "Color Key" routine (probably a whole new approach) 4. Assignment of symbols by relative "darkness" of color I can be contacted at: 62 Dombey Circle Thousand Oaks, CA 91360 or on People Link as user ID -BWS- Brad Schenck December 21, 1989