Free Embroidery Tools - Update

It's again this time of the year, that I write a blog post.
This time I’ve had to create an embroidery file. The initial design was made with Inkscape. Then I looked at different programs to create the embroidery file.

As I use mainly Linux I first looked at this programs:

Embroidermodder 2

Embroidermodder 2 is an open source program. It is far away from ready, but still active developed. The SVG import crashed even with the simples SVGs. What works is to use this tool as a viewer and converter for different file formats. Creating new files was not so successful.
https://www.libembroidery.org/

GitHub repro: https://github.com/Embroidermodder/Embroidermodder)

Inkscape - Extension 1

There is an embroidery output extension for Inkscape. I tested it but was not very satisfied. Inkscape is not optimized for this job. You simply don’t have enough control.
http://www.jonh.net/~jonh/inkscape-embroidery/ (No longer active devolved, the autor refers to: https://inkstitch.org/)

Inkscape - Extension 2

And a second one as part of Embroidermodder. I haven't tested it.
https://github.com/Embroidermodder/Embroidermodder/tree/master/experimental/inkscape (The link nolonger exists.)

Thred

Thred is a open source Windows program. It runs fine with wine. But the UI is really old school and the functionality is limited.(The homepage no longer exists.)
http://www.thredworks.com (Archive.org link)

A Linux port can be found here:
https://github.com/thinkuped/thred

UniConvertor

UniConvertor supports some embroidery file formats, but I haven't tested it because automatic converting doesn't looked like the good idea.
https://librearts.org/2010/06/uniconvertor-1-1-5-review/

As I was not very happy with this tools I switched to Windows and looked at this programs:

Stitch Era Universal

In a lot of places you can find that Stitch Era Universal is free, but it has just a 48 hour evaluation period before you have to pay. That's not what I call free. I haven’t tested it.
http://www.freesierrasoftware.com/

My Editor and TrueSizer Desktop

“my editor” and “TrueSizer Desktop” are free to use but closed source. They are more viewers than an editors. They are not build for creating new files and you have to register before you can download them.
http://www.wingsxp.com/index.php/my_editor/

SophieSew

SophieSew is a closed source freeware editor. It works fine for creating new files. In SophieSew you don’t have an undo and it crashes regularly, frequently saving is your friend. The author planned a new version, but there aren’t any news on the homepage for quite some time now. And contacting the author wasn’t successful too.
http://sophiesew.com/SS2/index.php (The Homepage no loger works, the link goes to web.archive.org)

And here are the results in extra big images.
For this one the file from the Inkscape extension (1) was used:



And for this one I used SophieSew to create the embroidery file.


Over all I must say that I'm happy, that I don't have to use embroidery tools in the next time again. This time can be used by the developers to improve the tool, so that I'll have more fun next time.

Update:
Ink/Stitch looks like a new interesting Inkscape extension project:
https://inkstitch.org/

Update2:
I updated some of the links.

Kommentare

  1. tuamora14. Januar 2017 um 05:23

    Hello, I just read your blog. I love what you were able to embroider and I agree there isn't much out there.

    From what I've read in the past month, Inkscape is working on adding an embroidery feature.

    One of the main Developers on Embroidnodder passed away from an accidental drowning.

    The gentleman from SophieSew is very sick.

    If you need links I will go back through my search history and try to find the sources, but I fount out about the drowning through github, if I remember right.

    Hope this is helpful.

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