From: polowin@chem.queensu.ca (Joel Polowin)
Subject: Re: cross stich and PCs
Organization: Dept. of Chemistry, Queen's University
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 15:16:27 GMT

In article <1992Sep10.063411.23205@citec.oz.au> sgcclmj@citec.oz.au (Liz Jones) writes:
>     Being fairly interested in all manner of craft and sewing, etc..
>       as well as computers (!)
>     I thought this might be a good spot to ask if there is anyone out there
>     who knows where I could get a PC cross-stitch design program.
>
>     Mail-ordering is kinda okay, but I'd prefer to be able to ftp it...
>     I've looked on a number of sites for share-ware/public domain stuff,
>      but haven't yet found one!

When I inquired about this sort of thing a few months ago, I was told that
there were a few such programs available.  One or two which are on
CompuServe are seriously inadequate for a variety of reasons, I was told.
I've seen ads for a few programs in cross-stitch magazines.

My original reason for inquiring was that, as a result of a conversation
with a friend of mine who does cross-stitching (I don't), I'd planned to
write such software.  Some aspects of the package have proved more
difficult than I'd expected, but I'm about two weeks or so away from
making the package available -- as freeware for non-commercial use.

The package includes:
  * Conversion from PPM-format digitized pictures to cross-stitch patterns
    such as you'd see in black-and-white-only magazines; back-stitching
    and other artistic details must be added manually.  No size limitations;
    up to 95 colours.  Output in any of several ASCII formats or on an
    HPII/III laser printer.

  * Conversion from an ASCII file, plus a colour list, back to PPM format.
    This allows touching up of a picture with your favourite text editor,
    false-colouring of a picture, or from-scratch creation of a pattern
    using a text editor with conversion to a proper-looking laser-printed
    pattern.

  * Cross-referenced colour matching between colour lists.  If you have
    colours described in Red/Green/Blue format (as produced by colour
    scanning processes), this lets you find the closest match in a 
    reference list -- say, a palette of scanned floss colours, if you
    can find or make one.  (I don't have such a thing.  I'm looking for
    one.  This colour-matching stuff has been the worst part of this
    project and I still don't have it nailed down to my satisfaction.)
    If you had scanned flosses by different manufacturers, this would
    also allow creation of conversion charts.

Things it DOESN'T do:
  * Tell you which flosses to use.  As noted above, I haven't got quantized
    colour information.  The program DOES give you a description of each
    colour in words ("slightly light, very slightly purplish pale pink")
    and creates a palette of colour squares for display on your monitor
    to aid in floss selection.  Quantized colour info is fairly specific
    to one's scanning and display hardware, anyways.

  * Fancy mouse-driven graphical cut&paste sorts of operations.  I just
    do format conversions: PNM to pattern and back, colour list to colour
    palette, that sort of thing.  I also don't support conversion of other
    graphics formats to PPM, since that kind of software is readily
    available, free, and easy to use.  Someone else has already done that
    work; why should I bother with it?     

I'll be posting here when the thing is available.  I'm looking into how
our server supports anonymous ftp requests.

Joel Polowin

 polowin@chem.queensu.ca, polowin@silicon.chem.queensu.ca,
  polowinj@qucdn.queensu.ca

P.S.  Hi, everyone.  We just got our news server working properly, so that
I can post myself without having to be relayed by friends.
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