Help › Making designs

Views, layers and the player

#The preview

The hoop draws each stitch as thread, shaded by its direction, so satin angles and fill directions show as they will on the garment. It redraws as settings change.

The bar under the hoop holds: fabric, Knockdown, Cap, the hoop, Show hoop, Realistic, Play and the garment colours. In a short window the hoop gets smaller so the bar always fits; if the window is too short even for that, the middle of the window scrolls.

#While it works

While a piece is digitized, a DST is checked or a names list is saved, the hoop shows a waiting screen: a star sewing out stitch by stitch (an aqua satin border, then a white running stitch circle), what Stitch Sprint is doing ("Digitizing", "Checking the file", "Saving 3 of 40 names") and a tip that changes every 6 seconds: sizes, fabrics, lettering, the verdict, Play and Realistic. When a DST is checked, only the tips about checking and sewing show. A large or detailed logo can take half a minute.

• It goes when the design (or an error) arrives.
• With motion reduced in the computer's settings (Reduce motion on a Mac, Animation effects off on Windows), the star shows already sewn and the needle stays still; the tips still change.
• In a short or narrow window the star gets smaller so the tip still fits; in a very small hoop only the star and the words show.

#Realistic view

The Realistic switch under the hoop draws the sew-out as thread with depth. Each stitch is drawn in sewing order as a thread lying on the ones before it: a shadow, a dark edge, a round body and a highlight.

• The cloth follows the Fabric menu: a diagonal weave for twill, a dotted knit for pique, fine ribs for performance knit, a soft nap for fleece, a coarse pile for towel, a ripstop grid for nylon, in the garment colour. The textures are drawn, not photographs.
• It is a picture of the same stitches. Nothing about the design or the saved files changes. The choice is remembered.
• It is put away while a piece is dragged and comes back once the design has been sewn again.
• Design tab only; Check a DST keeps its own picture.
• Not yet compared with real sew-outs, and not timed on designs of 50,000 stitches or more.

#Stitch player

▶ Play under the hoop sews the design on screen, stitch by stitch, in its threads, with what is still to come shown faintly. A ring marks the needle.

The line under it says the stop, its thread, the stitch count and about how many minutes into the run that is. With Realistic on, the player draws the same way.

#Layers

#Pieces

The eye on a piece switches it off: it stays in the design (faded on the hoop, kept in the design file) but isn't sewn.

#An artwork's layers

An artwork's layers are its colours (near-identical shades count as one), listed in the order they sew. Each shows the Isacord thread it sews in, its share of the design and how it sews.

• Colour swatch: click it to pick another thread for that colour, the same as clicking it under Threads. The layer, the Threads list and the hoop all change to the new thread.

• Eye: switch a colour off. What is left keeps its size and place.
• Change: its own settings: All fill (sew it as fill even where it could be satin) and, for fills, its own fill angle and row spacing.
• Sewing order: drag a layer by ⋮ (or focus it and press ↑ ↓). The design still looks like the art: a colour that now sews after one lying over it is cut away under it, and kept back from its edge by the pull compensation. Nothing overlaps where those colours meet, so test sew for gaps. Pros sew bottom to top for a reason; use this to save colour changes or to match a thread setup.
• One layer on its own: click a layer's name. The hoop shows it in full and the rest faintly. Click again, Show all, or Esc to see everything.
• Single shapes: while a layer is shown on its own, click any of its shapes on the hoop to switch just that shape off (it stays outlined with a dashed line). The layer says how many shapes are off, with Switch back on for all of them.
• Cutting out part of a shape: shapes of one colour that touch are one shape, so a click switches all of them off (a white opening joined to the rest of the white, say). While the layer is shown on its own, drag a loop on the hoop round the part you don't want: that area is cut out of this colour only, and the colours under and over it are left as they were. Go a little wide where the part meets another colour: the cut only takes this colour. The layer says how many areas are cut out; Put back the last cut and Put back all undo them (so does ⌘Z). Cuts are kept in the design file and stay in place when the piece is resized.

#A placed DST's layers

Its layers are its stops, each with the thread picked for it: click a stop's swatch to pick its thread, switch off a stop, drag stops into another order (each starts with a jump, so any order sews), or show one on its own.

#Speed

Only what changed is sewn again: a change to one colour redoes just that colour's pass. See How it digitizes.

#Places to check

Labelled rings on the hoop for the spots worth a look ("1 · Narrow opening"). See Safety check.