Embroidery digitizing is fast becoming an American pastime due to the advent of computer technology and itsapplication in our modern sewing machines. Digitizing is the art of taking adrawing, design, graphic or picture and turning it into an exact, or very closecopy for embroidery that is usually done on cloth - but can also be put onother materials depending on the material and embroidery machine being used.

The Embroidery digitizing takes place when the original artwork - a drawing,design, graphic or picture is scanned in digitizing software to turn it into adigital file that can be used by the automatic sewing machine. Once theoriginal is scanned with the digitizing software, the operator must thenmanipulate the image in the Embroidery digitizing software to tell theembroidery machine how to sew the stitches. The scanned image is now processedthrough the digitizing software to the many stitches necessary to embroider theimage.

While using the Embroidery digitizing software, the operator decides whatcolors of thread to use, any special threads like metallic, nylon, cotton,silk, etc and where they are placed in the digitized pattern. They alsodetermine the necessary parameters of the stitches that will go on the cloth.Some may be very dense, or many stitches, or very light, very few stitches tomake the designs. The operator can also determine what kinds of stitches aremade, like zigzagged or cross-stitched, as examples. Once all the parametersare selected and verified, the operator can save the file to a small compactdisc (CD) or a secure digital(SD) or similar solid-state memory card. Once it is scanned, manipulated in theEmbroidery digitizing software, saved to disk in a file format that the sewingmachines can understand, it is then loaded into the sewing machine to producethe embroidered image.

There are many software for Embroidery digitizing currently available. Mostsewing machines come with some type of digitizing software, but many digitizingoperators choose to use some other types of software that offer moreflexibility and additional featuresthan the basic programs provided with the particular embroidery machines. Thereare many Embroidery digitizing software applications available for Windows,Linux and MAC machines and many are freeware or shareware that is much less expensive thanthe commercial applications, but can perform almost everything the"professional" applicationsoffer.

Once the scanned image is processed through the Embroidery digitizing software,the processed image must be saved in a file, however, there are some 30different file types so the proper digitizing file type must be determined. Theoperator must select the proper file format for the embroidery or digitalsewing machine that is used to apply the embroidery. After the Embroiderydigitizing software manipulates the image, it is very important the operatoruse the correct format for saving the digitized file, as different machinesrequire different file formats so they can properly reproduce the originalartwork.

The file types arecritical in properly digitizing the artwork but owners or operators should becertain of the file type for their machine before saving the file. The properdigitizing file format type can usually be found in the owner's manual for theembroidery or sewing machine being used to perform the embroidery. If you donot have the owner's manual, you can always go to the manufacturer's website to determine thefile formats necessary for the digitizing sewing machine being used. The Embroiderydigitizing file is then saved to the specified storage media, the file is thenloaded into the embroidery sewing machine's memory and the operator can nowapply the embroidery to the material.

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