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labricoleuseLooking over the past few posts, i seem to be on a real kick of "crazycraft" interspersed with "computers and costuming"! After all those symposium creature posts, here's another computer-related one.
Remember that i spent part of my summer taking a CAD class at the NCSU College of Textiles? I discussed a bit about some of the topics covered in a previous post on vector-based drawing software like Adobe Illustrator and CorelDRAW.
In this post, I have a few screencaps of some of the other programs that we used in the class, including the pattern- and marker-making software produced by Gerber Technology, which i'd like to share and discuss!
Gerber Garment Technology makes a whole suite of software for pattern drafting, marker making, and cutting. ("Marker making" is not really a commonly-used term in the costume industry IME, but in fashion it means pattern layout for fabric conservation.)In the course, we worked with both types of software to develop a pattern for one of our technical flats. I chose a women's work-shirt design with inset panels featuring some strategic gathers to accommodate a range of bust sizes.
Workshirt pattern in Gerber Pattern Design program
You can see all my pattern pieces arranged on the "table" here, but when using the software i could zoom in and focus on any of them to adjust fullness, manipulate darts, alter curves or line lengths, add or remove seam allowances, everything you would do by hand with a pencil and paper. The software allows you to check seam length accuracy to within 0.003"! Across the top you can see my pattern pieces created from a sloper, and down the side are clickable tool buttons that allow you to do all the manipulation.
This software does not teach you how to generate or alter patterns--you have to have the pattern drafting knowledge already, and a lot of my fellow students (who were undergrads, not people with my two decades of construction experience) relied heavily upon flat-pattern reference textbooks to do their assignments. What it really does is speed up the process--instead of slashing and spreading a paper pattern, adding in fullness manually, redrafting curves by hand, etc., the program does it for you with a few mouse-clicks. And let me tell you, the ease at which i added varying amounts of seam allowance and hem depths to my pieces? I nearly wept. And don't even get me started on how quick it was to grade up or down sizes.
Once you've got your pattern ready to cut, you send it to the Marker Making software, which looks like this:
The pieces at the bottom there show my pattern layout on 44" wide fabric. The table can cut up to 60" fabrics, but i made my marker for some narrow stuff i had already, of the desired weight. You can see how easy it would be to move those pieces around on there to find the most advantageous cutting layout in terms of fabric conservation. The two (barely visible) pieces up in the middle area weren't part of this marker--i wanted them cut out of a contrast fabric. After you get your marker layout set up, you send it to the cutter and order a garment to be cut out (or, a bunch of them, whatever you need).
Gerber Garment Technology robotic cutting table
This thing is like a reverse air-hockey table: small holes in the table surface pull a vacuum and suck the fabric smooth to the table while the blades cut the pattern. The blade holder has a rotary blade as well as a drill, and this thing cuts a pattern in seconds. The whole table surface is basically like those self-healing rotary cutting mats you can get at Jo-Ann's, so the blades don't dull quickly and the cuts are sharp. My entire shirt was cut out in literally maybe 30 seconds, if that, notches and dart markings and everything.
Workshirt sample on a dress form
And there it is, my entirely-computer-patterned-and-cut shirt! If i were producing this shirt for real, i'd go back and tweak the pattern a bit, add some features for a better fit, but in general, i'm pleased with how it turned out, and the entire process (once you figured out how to operate the programs) was SUPER fast, much faster than drafting by hand, and definitely much faster than manual addition of seam allowances, marker layout, and cutting.
Gerber Technology's software is far outside the budget capabilities of most theatre shops (my professor estimated that the software suite was around $12,000, not counting the cost of the robotic cutting table, or a plotter to print out the patterns for manual cutting). However, i know that the "big guys" like Disney already have CAD labs in some of their production facilities, and i suspect that this technology is coming our way, particularly once the current reigning generation of Broadway shops retire--whomever takes over will likely bring this sort of technology to the table. The folks at NCSU have already been talking extensively with costume designer and impresario William Ivey Long about how to incorporate these technologies into production cost reduction on the Broadway and international tour shows he designs. I'm glad i had the opportunity to work with it because i feel certain that some of our graduate students will go into jobs where they will need to train on it someday.
It's not of much use in a costuming application (again unless you're working on a budget level of Disney or Cirque de Soleil, perhaps), but i also enjoyed the opportunity to experiment with Lectra's software suite called Kaledo.
Kaledo has a vector-based drawing program called Kaledo Style, which is similar to Adobe Illustrator, CorelDRAW, and Freehand, but aimed specifically at garment technical flat and croquis rendering needs. I didn't spend a lot of time working with it (i drew one flat and made a vector-based fabric pattern design), since Illustrator is the program that most costume shops are likely to be able to afford. You can get a good package deal from Adobe if you work for a school or are a student, $449 for PhotoShop and Illustrator and a bunch of other design-related software like Dreamweaver, all as a bundle.
Dress flat and tree print design created in Kaledo Style
There's a program called Kaledo Knit, too, which we didn't work with at all in this particular class, which allows you to create knit designs for export to a computerized knitting machine. The third Kaledo application, which we did get to work with a bit, creates weaving patterns for computerized looms, and is called--yep, you guessed it--Kaledo Weave.
Woolen plaid weave design created in Kaledo Weave
Woolen plaid weave design created in Kaledo Weave
Woolen plaid weave design created in Kaledo Weave
These things above are the weave design images that Kaledo Weave generates for a designer to put in a portfolio or presentation, showing what the weave looks like in a fairly good-sized repeat of fabric. When you design the weave with the software, you can choose the yarns used, which warp and weft threads are which color and style of weave, and automatically generate stripe repeats and the like. Having manually drawn some weave patterns in an introductory textiles class, i can say that this definitely speeds that process up exponentially.
That's pretty much it for the programs i worked with in the course. I think i'm probably going to take some of the vector-based drawing skills and pattern adjustment skills and try applying them to my own work; the rest of it was fascinating and excellent, but not likely to be anything i'll use any time soon...unless Mr. Long gets that Costume Institute built here in Carolina somewhere in the next decade or so!
Remember that i spent part of my summer taking a CAD class at the NCSU College of Textiles? I discussed a bit about some of the topics covered in a previous post on vector-based drawing software like Adobe Illustrator and CorelDRAW.
In this post, I have a few screencaps of some of the other programs that we used in the class, including the pattern- and marker-making software produced by Gerber Technology, which i'd like to share and discuss!
Gerber Garment Technology makes a whole suite of software for pattern drafting, marker making, and cutting. ("Marker making" is not really a commonly-used term in the costume industry IME, but in fashion it means pattern layout for fabric conservation.)In the course, we worked with both types of software to develop a pattern for one of our technical flats. I chose a women's work-shirt design with inset panels featuring some strategic gathers to accommodate a range of bust sizes.
Workshirt pattern in Gerber Pattern Design program
You can see all my pattern pieces arranged on the "table" here, but when using the software i could zoom in and focus on any of them to adjust fullness, manipulate darts, alter curves or line lengths, add or remove seam allowances, everything you would do by hand with a pencil and paper. The software allows you to check seam length accuracy to within 0.003"! Across the top you can see my pattern pieces created from a sloper, and down the side are clickable tool buttons that allow you to do all the manipulation.
This software does not teach you how to generate or alter patterns--you have to have the pattern drafting knowledge already, and a lot of my fellow students (who were undergrads, not people with my two decades of construction experience) relied heavily upon flat-pattern reference textbooks to do their assignments. What it really does is speed up the process--instead of slashing and spreading a paper pattern, adding in fullness manually, redrafting curves by hand, etc., the program does it for you with a few mouse-clicks. And let me tell you, the ease at which i added varying amounts of seam allowance and hem depths to my pieces? I nearly wept. And don't even get me started on how quick it was to grade up or down sizes.
Once you've got your pattern ready to cut, you send it to the Marker Making software, which looks like this:
The pieces at the bottom there show my pattern layout on 44" wide fabric. The table can cut up to 60" fabrics, but i made my marker for some narrow stuff i had already, of the desired weight. You can see how easy it would be to move those pieces around on there to find the most advantageous cutting layout in terms of fabric conservation. The two (barely visible) pieces up in the middle area weren't part of this marker--i wanted them cut out of a contrast fabric. After you get your marker layout set up, you send it to the cutter and order a garment to be cut out (or, a bunch of them, whatever you need).
Gerber Garment Technology robotic cutting table
This thing is like a reverse air-hockey table: small holes in the table surface pull a vacuum and suck the fabric smooth to the table while the blades cut the pattern. The blade holder has a rotary blade as well as a drill, and this thing cuts a pattern in seconds. The whole table surface is basically like those self-healing rotary cutting mats you can get at Jo-Ann's, so the blades don't dull quickly and the cuts are sharp. My entire shirt was cut out in literally maybe 30 seconds, if that, notches and dart markings and everything.
Workshirt sample on a dress form
And there it is, my entirely-computer-patterned-and-cut shirt! If i were producing this shirt for real, i'd go back and tweak the pattern a bit, add some features for a better fit, but in general, i'm pleased with how it turned out, and the entire process (once you figured out how to operate the programs) was SUPER fast, much faster than drafting by hand, and definitely much faster than manual addition of seam allowances, marker layout, and cutting.
Gerber Technology's software is far outside the budget capabilities of most theatre shops (my professor estimated that the software suite was around $12,000, not counting the cost of the robotic cutting table, or a plotter to print out the patterns for manual cutting). However, i know that the "big guys" like Disney already have CAD labs in some of their production facilities, and i suspect that this technology is coming our way, particularly once the current reigning generation of Broadway shops retire--whomever takes over will likely bring this sort of technology to the table. The folks at NCSU have already been talking extensively with costume designer and impresario William Ivey Long about how to incorporate these technologies into production cost reduction on the Broadway and international tour shows he designs. I'm glad i had the opportunity to work with it because i feel certain that some of our graduate students will go into jobs where they will need to train on it someday.
It's not of much use in a costuming application (again unless you're working on a budget level of Disney or Cirque de Soleil, perhaps), but i also enjoyed the opportunity to experiment with Lectra's software suite called Kaledo.
Kaledo has a vector-based drawing program called Kaledo Style, which is similar to Adobe Illustrator, CorelDRAW, and Freehand, but aimed specifically at garment technical flat and croquis rendering needs. I didn't spend a lot of time working with it (i drew one flat and made a vector-based fabric pattern design), since Illustrator is the program that most costume shops are likely to be able to afford. You can get a good package deal from Adobe if you work for a school or are a student, $449 for PhotoShop and Illustrator and a bunch of other design-related software like Dreamweaver, all as a bundle.
Dress flat and tree print design created in Kaledo Style
There's a program called Kaledo Knit, too, which we didn't work with at all in this particular class, which allows you to create knit designs for export to a computerized knitting machine. The third Kaledo application, which we did get to work with a bit, creates weaving patterns for computerized looms, and is called--yep, you guessed it--Kaledo Weave.
Woolen plaid weave design created in Kaledo Weave
Woolen plaid weave design created in Kaledo Weave
Woolen plaid weave design created in Kaledo Weave
These things above are the weave design images that Kaledo Weave generates for a designer to put in a portfolio or presentation, showing what the weave looks like in a fairly good-sized repeat of fabric. When you design the weave with the software, you can choose the yarns used, which warp and weft threads are which color and style of weave, and automatically generate stripe repeats and the like. Having manually drawn some weave patterns in an introductory textiles class, i can say that this definitely speeds that process up exponentially.
That's pretty much it for the programs i worked with in the course. I think i'm probably going to take some of the vector-based drawing skills and pattern adjustment skills and try applying them to my own work; the rest of it was fascinating and excellent, but not likely to be anything i'll use any time soon...unless Mr. Long gets that Costume Institute built here in Carolina somewhere in the next decade or so!
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no subject
Date: 2009-08-12 04:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-12 04:42 pm (UTC)BTW, congrats on TWO of your bustle gowns making it to the final round in that bustledress.com contest!
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Date: 2009-08-12 05:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-12 07:41 pm (UTC)