I don't get it ?

Dear Sewing.Mach-Embroider participants:

I'm posting and monitoring this group for a relative that bought a new Husq.Viking I with the cabinet and all of the accessories. She even bought some add on packages for sizing and fonts, but nothing for digitizing photos, pcpaint images or simpler designs.

She is completely dependent on downloads from several popular sites that provide free designs and struggles with their compatibility and quirks.

OK, the Husq.Viking is a very cool machine with its big LCD display, but beyond text fonts and canned designs, it doesn't allow for manual entry of designs from its own screen ???...... Is this correct?

I get the feeling that it's like she bought a CD player that only plays CDs from one supplier.

She's using this for fun and has no intention of producing stitchwork for anyone beyond family and friends. The Disney designs seem to be locked up by Brother and simple things like Thomas the Tank Engine don't seem to exist?

I'm pretty expert with photo editing and want to help her. Legalities aside, is it just a matter of scanning in the desired image, down-sampling the resolution and color palette and opening the resulting JPEG or BMP file with a digitizing program for conversion to Husq's input language? If so, what program works best with her Husq. and can I use a demo version to prove this scan-downsample-color reduction technique and give her a Husq. ready file to stitch?

She's willing to spend a couple of hundred on a software package that does the job, but doesn't want to pay for stuff and find out that the cheap way wasn't the right way. Should she stay with Husq's expensive digitizing software rather than buy something like Embird?

Finally, what's the best way to track designs on her hard disk. Is there a utility that shows the designs as thumbnails through Windows Explorer. If so, what are these programs, what do they cost and which is the best for a Husq.Viking user?

All advice is greatly appreciated.

Sincerely, Eric Wayne, PA

Reply to
Eric Halpern
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The BEST investment this person can make is the time involved in taking the classes at her Viking dealer. You can manually do designs on the screen, somewhat limited to what she has in her machine but, possible never the less. I have the Designer1, have been using it for several years now and I still go and take lessons. It's always a case of, "Wow, this machine does that?" These machines have all kinds of things that they do that are not always covered in the basic owner's manual and just sitting down cold and thinking that you'll be able to make it dance 'because I've been sewing for years, or I'm great on computers' is a gross misconception. Take the classes, learn and be shown first hand all you possibly can about the machine. these machines can do so much that you can't get it all in a few hours of punching a touch screen and say "is that all it does?" I, in fact, took the basic intro class after I had been sewing on it for about two years and was amazed at what I had forgotten just because I didn't use the features immediately after learning about them. Take the classes before you decide that you need more programs. When and if you do buy the programs take the classes for them too. Most of these classes are free to the purchaser of the machine and programs. Call the dealer and get a schedule and really begin to learn what you can do with machine.

All the questions you have asked should be able to be answered and explained first hand by the Viking dealer.

There is also a newsgroup on Yahoo she can join devoted to Designer1 The list focus is on the Viking Designer1 sewing/embroidery machine. Related software and sewing/embroidery discussion welcome!

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of great information, tips and tricks are discussed there as well. Val

Reply to
Valkyrie

I appreciate your response and will pass it along, but I'd still like a cut and dry answer about image scanning for the Husq. Viking.

Is it just a matter of scanning in the desired image, down-sampling the resolution and color palette and then just opening the resulting JPEG or BMP file with a digitizing program for conversion to Husq's input language? If so, what program works best with her Husq. and can I use a demo version to prove this scan-downsample-color reduction technique and give her a Husq. ready file to stitch to prove its efficacy?

Thanks, Eric Wayne, PA

Reply to
Eric Halpern

Eric -

Digitizing from an image (whether scanned or not) can be done with any of a number of applications - they range from the bottom-of-the-line such as "Click'n Stitch" to multi-thousand dollar programs. Some digitizing programs accept one or another flavor of bitmap image, some take vector graphics, and many can use truetype (usually not type 1) fonts. BUT. It's not as simple as scanning / graphic editing / converting.

Digitizing is an art - simple line drawings can be done fairly easily; photographs are close to impossible; in between is, well, in between. Just as there are options when painting in oils, there are options when painting in thread - stitch direction, density, pattern, color and design sequences, outlines or not, stitch lengths, and on and on.

The programs all have very different human interfaces - for any given person, one or another may be the most obvious.

That said, there is a growing group of auto-digitizing programs that are getting better and better. Amazing Designs' Click 'n Stitch is rudimentary, If their history is any guide, Embird's new digitizing add-on (I have no experience with it) is reasonably priced and very functional, with a non-standard user interface that most people learn very quickly. Viking has their own - I am not fond of their software because it's complex and overpriced - but that's just a personal opinion, heavily influenced by that being the first software we purchased. Bernina's Artista does a very nice job, and has the advantage of having all the embroidery-related functions in a single package. (Viking and Brother products have a suite of complementary, but stand-alone, programs). There are also some major third-party programs now available such as Origins and Wings.

Very few functional evaluation programs are available. Embird is one, and I suggest you download that and try it. (I believe that it's a fully functional version that's severely limited by number of executions or time).

- Herb

Eric Halpern wrote:

Reply to
Herb

"Herb" skrev i meddelandet news: snipped-for-privacy@the.mill...

Embird is one,

that it's a fully

executions or

Embird main program demo is limited to number of uses (100 times?) or time (30 days?), wichever comes first. The digitzer add-on is only limited by number of stitches (7000?) (I don´t remeber the numbers in any of the limitations). So if you have the main program (only aboute $70) you can play aorund quite a bit before deciding aboute the digitizer (about twice the price of the main program). And Herb is totally right, it´s NOT as easy as just scanning and converting if you want a decent result!!

Asa

Reply to
Åsa W

Thank you for this perfect description. I'll share this with my mother-in-law.

Also, are you folks aware of the trade show shown at this site:

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? While it's obviously acommercial gathering it might be of interest to advanced users. The cut-offdate for free registration is deigned to keep outsiders out on the day ofthe event, but shows like this usually welcome any interested parties...The same show is visiting several other US cities this year.

Reply to
Eric Halpern

It sounds like your relative already has Customizing Plus. If not your quiry is for not. Customizing Plus is a MUST for a Designer 1. Without that program you won't be able to write disks that the Designer 1 can read.

As for Digitizing. There are programs that will automatically do it for you from a picture (Autodigitizing ~$1600.00). The results can then be 'tweaked'. And there are programs where you will go in and set each stitch (Digitizing Plus ~$600.00).

Digitizing is not something that you learn over night. There are books that you can get to help. A dealer that offers free lessons is your best bet. You can usually get demo's at most dealers. However, I strongly suggest that where ever you purchase your program that you get free lessons with it. - Something that Viking Dealers and Galleries offer.

There are programs like Embird that will allow you to download a 30 day trial, however Embird is not a Digitizing program. There is a companion program to Embird that you can get for Digitizing (Buzz tools?). Whatever program you get, besure that it will save your work in a language that can be opened in Customizing Plus as that is the program you will have to go through to write it to the disk for the machine (.art is an example one language that Customizing Plus cannot see/read).

Good luck in finding the right program. From what I have seen, they are all expensive. The more you want them to do for you, the more they cost.

HTH, Kim in VA

Reply to
Tanadas

Embird Digitizing Studio. Details are at

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gwh

Reply to
w.d.hines

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