Automation Nation

Automatic digitizing software can save time and money, but good artwork is key to its success.
Oct 1, 2007

Yes, we do get napkin sketches. However, they are a candidate for automation only after a skilled computer artist converts them to vector art.

Has automatic digitizing technology caught up with the master skills of an experienced digitizer? The answer seems to be a qualified "No." Auto-digitizing software has come a long way, and improves every year. However, as you will see in this article, there are certain designs that require the deft touch of an experienced human hand to help the software do the best job possible. The promise of "push-button" digitizing is here, but it requires that your client supply carefully crafted artwork in the correct digital format and that doesn't happen too often.

Let's explore the technology of automated digitizing — its pros and cons — and see when it can best be used to save time and money.

We will look at these topics:

• Artwork for automation
• Automatic digitizing technology
• Different auto "styles"
• Realistic expectations

When I demonstrate embroidery software at industry trade shows, one of the first questions I am typically asked is, "Does automatic digitizing really work?" I answer positively and honestly, though with a little tongue-in-cheek humor. It is true that in ideal circumstances — specifically, when you are given perfect artwork — automated digitizing can help save time and money. In reality, we typically do not receive great art for digitizing, much less perfect art. The average piece of artwork supplied for digitizing requires some human intervention — editing, corrections and fill where the art is weak.

Automated technology doesn't improvise — it can only look straight on at colors, blocks and measurements.

Artwork for Automation
What is the quality of art your customers bring into your shop? I'll bet you get a broad range — from napkin sketches and rough drawings, to digital images of embroidery scanned into a computer and presented to you in a wide variety of file formats and quality levels. These can range from JPEGs (or bitmapped images) with 16 million-plus colors (which will present all sorts of challenges) to well-done vector artwork that can easily be digitized.

How Simple Is That Image?
One of the most common requests and questions regarding automation involves artwork on the common business card. Because it is the most accessible logo artwork, why not use it? Let's break it down and see how automation works.

You have seen all those pixels on screen when you zoom in on a scanned image. Remember that a typical business card is printed using a screen with about 120 dots per inch (dpi). For the small area of the card, that is a sufficient number of dots for a clear image. When we scan the card for embroidery digitizing, it is nearly always smaller than the finished embroidery size.

Current automation technology performs a "color reduction" to greatly simplify the millions of pixels in a common scanned file.

There is a subtle, but important, lesson to be learned from this. There is an option in most automatic digitizing software to "stitch background." That option was not chosen in the auto-only example shown. We think of the brown color that surrounds the white (or knockout) text on the original business card to be the background. However, auto-digitizing software assumes that white — in any image — is the default background. With this business card image, the software perceived the slim white border, which accompanies most scanned files, as the background of the image. So here we have another example of simple artwork that needs non-linear interpretation to properly digitize.

What about art that is only one color? Line drawings should be easy for automatic digitizing, but they present their own set of challenges. In particular, line drawing artwork requires skillful use of run stitches, and that's another area in which automatic digitizing falls short.

While the overall abilities of automatic digitizing vary among software manufacturers, most programs do not do a good job using running stitches.

Vector Images
To this point, we have focused on the shortcomings of automatic digitizing software. You may be wondering if any design works with automatic digitizing, and the answer is "Absolutely." In fact, vector images — or scalable artwork — often digitize quite well in automatic programs. You create vector art with an illustration program like CorelDraw or Adobe Illustrator. You also have the option of choosing vector-format clip art images. Wherever they come from, logos and text created as vector artwork are the files that have a chance to succeed with automation.

We have all seen fabulous demonstrations of automatic digitizing at trade shows that produced amazing results. Also, we all know that salespeople have come equipped with vector images that work well with the software they want to demonstrate. The following example was created with over-the-counter clip art.

That's not to say that you shouldn't do a little checking and editing of auto-digitized vector logos before you start production. If you are fortunate enough to control your artwork and use only vector files or high-resolution bitmapped images, you will get good results from automatic digitizing. However, you still want to be sure your automated software package includes editing capabilities.

It is safe to say that some amount of editing is always required after automation has done its best job — even on the best vector format image file. Editing tasks may be as simple as re-sequencing colors, changing stitch angles or stitch types, but one or more normally will be required to ensure you produce the highest quality output with designs that maximizes production efficiency and profit.

Face the Facts
What can we do with complex art such as a human or an animal? Only a handful of professional digitizers would embrace the job of creating a human face. Can automation help with these incredibly challenging designs?

There are techniques offered within many automatic digitizing programs that can create photorealistic embroidery from a high-quality (high-resolution) bitmap image. The resulting files may have stitch counts that seem unreasonably high, but these features usually require limited digitizing skill on the part of the operator and little interaction on the embroidery machine.

Another style of digitizing at which automatic software excels is the "cross stitch" feature offered in many programs. While this does not produce a photorealistic sewout, it can be a very impressive effect that, in the old days, required a substantial amount of time to accomplish.

Automatic digitizing has made cross stitching a much easier, faster and more profitable technique. Because the process is totally automated, it eliminates the arduous task of placing one cross-stitch at a time. This feature of auto-digitizing software doesn't even require us to define segments in a design. Like the other automatic digitizing techniques previously mentioned, this feature of the software works best with vector or clip art.

Realistic Expectations
What can we realistically expect from automated digitizing technology? My research leaves me with the understanding that some human skills and editing are always required to produce good quality embroidery designs.

For automation alone to provide good results, outstanding vector artwork must be the foundation. "Clean" art can come in the form of vector images or high- resolution bitmaps that are color-reduced and otherwise enhanced prior to going into the digitizing software. Given these criteria — and by exercising editing options — you can expect to use automation as a valuable addition to traditional methods. If you cannot achieve the high-quality standards established for your business employing automated digitizing, the technology is superb for estimated stitch counts and digitizing costs.


*Note: Some examples represent actual art from clients and are used solely for educational purposes.

Melinda Dement entered the field of monogramming and embroidery in 1980. Today, she and husband Jacques own and operate Dement Studios in Asheville, N.C. Their company offers embroidery educational materials, products and services, as well as graphic design, sculpture and image processing. You can reach her at Melinda@dementstudios.com or via her Web site dementstudios.com.

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