Unit 8

CAD applications in fashion field — garment designing, weaving, knitting and embroidery and
textile dyeing and printing

History of CAD in fashion design

The development of the modern fashion industry began in the nineteenth century with the founding of the
first fashion house in Paris: the House of Worth. Since that time, fashion styles have changed
dramatically with the advent of societal changes and shifts in consumer tastes. Despite this, the means by
which designers created their pieces remained the same: designing using a pencil and paper.

Now, however, CAD has begun to make inroads into the world of fashion. It remains true that many
fashion designers still sketch first drafts of a new design by hand—something which is no longer common
in the AEC sector, as well as some other branches of product design. However, CAD programs are now
increasingly used in fashion to create sketches, prototypes and designs.

Fashion designers use 2D CAD software packages to create initial concepts for their designs. Then, when
they are ready to create the full piece, they employ 3D CAD software to visualize their designs on virtual
models.

Benefits of CAD to the fashion industry

From haute couture to the mass market, every sector of the fashion industry has felt the impact of CAD.
As such, knowledge of CAD has become increasingly important to help secure a job in fashion design.

It’s easy to see why the industry has embraced CAD. Using CAD software, designers can create new
sketches more quickly and more precisely. They can also easily adapt a single design to varying materials
and patterns, and build upon and alter existing designs to create new pieces.

CAD also allows designers to test out variants of their designs using different fabrics and swatches. As
opposed to traditional design methods, designers using CAD can view these designs in both 2D and 3D,
and make alterations immediately.

Not only does this save time and reduce errors, but it also cuts costs down by letting designers view
virtual versions of finished products without needing to purchase materials. It also means that designers
can view the entire design history of their product. This means that they can work out where they went
wrong, or create different products from one initial idea. In short, CAD allows fashion designers to work
smarter, and shorten the time taken between initial concept to finished piece.

Changing design processes for existing products

Different CAD programs exist to cover varying fields within the fashion industry and each stage in the
design process. Solutions include optitex’s, ODev, Opro and Osel programs: Lectra, Fashion Cad.
Creating a shirt in Optitex’s ODev software

CAD programs have enabled the fashion industry to dramatically speed up traditional sketching and
alteration tasks. Creating and altering products whilst still in the CAD environment means designers can
reduce waste and save money. The ability to visualize designs in 3D further helps designers create
garments that fit well and are ready to wear.

In the fast-moving world of the fashion industry, with seasonal trends and consumer demands to contend
with, the ability to use CAD to modify and create garments gives designers an edge. CAD also enables
designers to tailor and customize existing styles, and produce new clothing to meet customer needs and
desires. Additionally, the advent of cloud-based CAD software has enabled designers to collaborate easily
from any location.

These advances have made the creation of new clothing simpler, more collaborative, and more cost-
effective. However, these uses of CAD merely represent a streamlining of design processes. CAD is also
being used in more innovative ways to create entirely new, more customizable products.

New products, new ways to customize

The ability to use CAD applications has enabled the creation of more precise and intricate designs than
were ever previously possible. This has particularly impacted on the footwear and jewelry industries.

The footwear industry was an early adopter of CAD, employing the software as early as the 1970s. Since
then, specialized CAD programs for footwear, such as Geomagic and Shoemaster, have been used in
increasingly varied ways. One of the key uses is in shoe sole design, as CAD makes it easy to create
highly complex, specialized soles. Not only is this perfect for sports shoes, but it also accounts for
customers who require orthopedic footwear.
In addition, CAD makes grading more precise, making it easier to create a shoe design in a range of sizes.
Finally, using CAD helps create shoes with a more comfortable fit, allowing designers to focus on the
design itself.

Meanwhile, a wide range of CAD programs exist specifically serving the jewelry industry. These
include Type 3‘s 3DESIGN, Gemvision‘s Matrix and CounterSketch software, and FireStorm CAD,
amongst many others. The jewelry industry uses CAD to create incredibly detailed, intricate designs, as
well as a wide array of original pieces. CAD also enables companies to use CNC machines to mill and
engrave pieces of jewelry, making them truly customizable.

Future of CAD in fashion

Whilst CAD has already had a major impact on the fashion industry, there are still exciting developments
on the horizon.
Just last month, noted futurist Ray Kurzweil predicted that, within the next decade, 3D-printed clothing
would become common. Whilst we may still be a while off printing clothes in our own homes, the
technology is already having an impact in certain areas.

In the world of high fashion, a number of designers are using 3D printers to create truly innovative,
unique pieces. Earlier this year, we reported on Icelandic musician Björk, who partnered with Stratasys to
create an unconventional yet stunning performance mask depicting her own musculoskeletal structure.
But she’s far from the only one embracing 3D printing.

This piece, from van Herpen’s Magnetic Motion collection, employs both 3D printed parts and magnets
One of the most notable fashion designers to adopt the technology is Iris van Herpen, who has employed
3D-printed pieces in several of her collections, beginning with 2010’s Crystallization. Van Herpen began
using 3D printing after being “struck by the complexity and detailing it was able to do”, and her striking
and sometimes unsettling pieces have pushed the boundaries of both fashion and technology.

It’s not only the catwalk that is feeling the impact. We’re also seeing 3D-printed footwear coming to
the running track courtesy of some of the biggest names in sportswear. Back in November, we reported
on Reebok‘s Liquid Factory innovation lab, which created shoes with a “three-dimensional fit”. However,
they’re far from the only company who see the potential in 3D printing.

Adidas‘ Futurecraft 3D shoe aims to create shoes tailored to each individual’s foot, “[setting] the athlete
up for the best running experience”. Nike, meanwhile, have focused on the top end of athletics, creating
the Nike Zoom Superfly Flyknit alongside Olympic gold medallist Allyson Felix, and confirming their
comm target=”_blank”itment to 3D printing by partnering with HP. We’ve also seen Under
Armour and New Balance launch their own 3D-printed shoes, showing the serious interest from the
athletics sector in the technology.

Both Teen Vogue and Business of Fashion have listed 3D fashion engineering as amongst the most

important burgeoning careers within the industry. It’s clear that computer-aided design and manufacturing
will continue to change this diverse industry, pushing forward the boundaries of fashion.

Advantages of CAD Software in Apparel Manufacturing Industry:

There are some key advantages of computer-aided design (CAD) in the readymade apparel
industry which are listed below:
 Computer-aided design (CAD) system reduces the most valuable times compared to the laborious
manual work of designing.
 All the design data can be easily stored, transmitted, and transported through the computer files.
 The design can be done from anywhere and the total process can be easily controlled by the
customers.
 Digital swatches can be preserved on zip disks, floppy disks, hard drives, or CD-ROM which
saves enough space.
 Another major benefit of CAD software in the clothing manufacturing industry is the designers
do not need to produce different swatches all the time for different colors as they can now see
how a particular fabric or apparel looks in different shapes and colors on the computer screen
itself.
 The total design can be easily personalized and customized within a short period of time without
significant delays or cost increases.

Disadvantages of CAD Drawing Or Drafting in Apparel Sector:

Though it’s too hard to get a negative update about the computer-aided design or CAD application in the
apparel industry. But there are some slight disadvantages of CAD application which come from several
Cad experts from this industry.  Those are in the following:
 Some most popular CAD software has a higher price like Page CAD, QCAD, Libre CAD, and
Open SCAD.
 CAD operator has to train themselves according to the update of CAD software.
 Sometimes, it’s too tough to find a skilled operator to run CAD software.

CAD IN WEAVING
CAD/CAM is virtually a "No Limit" solution for textile designing and manufacturing because it has
enormous application area. With the introduction of computer aided designing and computer aided
manufacturing technology it is possible to make modern designs and unique color combinations which
can easily satisfy the consumer's need. Now the fabrics are more attractive and more completive in
today's rapid changing fashion world. High quality exportable textile products including apparels,
furnishing fabrics, upholsteries, blankets, carpets and so on, are made with help of CAD/CAM system,
showing higher potentiality of revenue generation from export market.
Computer aided design technology allows the creativity of the textiles designers to run free; hence it is
being used more and more in textile industry. CAD/CAM is heavily used in textile industry as a designing
medium as well as a tool for production. In power loom sector of our country, almost every composite
textile mill has adopted this type of CAD/CAM tools for textile designing and manufacturing in their
R&D lab. The software is so efficient that it produces all the required outputs within a few seconds and
allow the craftsman show more and more creativity.

What Is CAD/CAM?
CAD/CAM is the contraction which stands for Computer Aided Design/Computer Aided Manufacturing.
This term means different things to different people involved in designing, manufacturing and mechanical
engineering.

Why CAD/CAM Is Necessary

Today every coming generation is more fashion conscious so there is huge demand for new-fangled
weave designs. With these conditions designers have difficulty in keeping pace with the fast changing
trends of the market. Some times they find that they are not ready to cater the market needs. It is not easy
to them to remain competitive, by merely depending upon the traditional way of designing, because
todays design becomes out of fashion tomorrow. Hence they loose a share of market, so to keeping pace
with fast shifting trends of market computer aided designing and manufacturing is very much required.

It is well known phenomenon that human being is always in search of opportunities related to saving
money, time and comfort. Any textile industry will think in terms of improving the efficiency, maximum
utilization of resources and improvement in services for customers satisfaction. Search of these elements
leads towards development and use of new technologies. As the proverb says "Creativity is one percent
inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspiration." but computers have confirm it wrong. They have made
textile designing simpler, faster, more precise and enjoyable. The designer can create his motifs with a
mouse or pen. Once the design is created, further process of editing the design i.e. clipping of certain
parts, adding new shapes, changing the shapes, distortion, resizing, recolouration, color reduction,
replicating and combining as per the need can be done at the minimum possible time. Also, one part of
design can be altered without affecting the rest.

The other benefit is its wide application in different types of fabric designing. CAD system can be
effectively used for designing Suiting/ Shirting, Sarees, Furnishing and Upholstery Fabrics, Blankets,
Terry Towel, Carpet, Labels, Knitwear, Bed Covers, Velvet and other. Various complicated weaves can
be made easily, one need not to worry about the complicated drafting and peg plans, and the effect of
supposed weave can be seen immediately before actual production.

Computer-Aided design –CAD– can be defined as the use of computer technology for the design of
objects, real or virtual to achieve precise drawing. The resulting drawing contains symbolic information
which can be the materials, the processes, the dimensions, and the tolerances, according to application-
specific conventions. Computer-Aided design may be used to design curves and figures in two-
dimensional space –2D; or curves, surfaces, and solids as three-dimensional objects –3D.
CAD is an important industrial tool used extensively in various applications. Some of the applications are
automotive, shipbuilding, and aerospace industries, industrial and architectural design, prosthetics, and
many more. CAD is also used widely to develop computer animation for special effects in movies,
advertising and technical manuals.
Computer-Aided is also utilized by the embroidery industry so as to improve the embroidery designs.

Computer-aided embroidery
 The embroidery design software that has been developed fulfils the needs of the home, commercial and
the industrial embroidery Nowadays, there exist various commercial and free software products to choose
from, that enable the designing and editing of embroidery patterns and images. The purpose of the design
embroidery software is to translate the drawing made in the computer into stitches executed by the
embroidery machine.

The software products usually have advanced user interfaces with sophisticated functions. The user can
create a drawing, set up the number of stitches, define the type of the stitch (satin, run fill stitches, etc),
select colours and edit the design. More complicated functions include the import of images to the
software and their digitalization offering all the main attributes of the image processing.
Furthermore, some of the embroidery design software solutions offer lettering functions. These functions
aim to convert automatically a true type font into stitches. In this way, a font character can be
embroidered.

In Fig. 1, the Latin character ‘a’ is displayed in its final form after its processing
through the CAD embroidery software EOS [1].

The final embroidery result can be saved into formats that are then capable of being imported into an
embroidery machine.

File formats
Embroidery file formats are various. Two main categories can be distinguished; the source formats and
the machine formats.
Source formats files are files supported by the design software whereas machine formats files are oriented
to a particular brand of embroidery machine. These files contain primarily stitch data as well as machine
functions. The main drawback of the machine files is that they cannot be easily scaled or edited.

Each different embroidery machine manufacturer has developed its own embroidery machine formats
specifically designed to service its brand or a specific machine. However, although machine formats
where initially designed to service only their own machine brand, some formats have dominated and
became so prevalent that gradually they are becoming regarded as standard even by companies in
competition .

Digital Textile Printing Benefits:

 Permits customers to control the design and printing process from remote locations.
 Virtually eliminates the expense and time of screen printing preparation.
 Makes Just In Time (JIT) delivery and Quick Response possible.
 Can virtually eliminate the threat of design theft before market release.
 Facilitates the increase in the number of fashion seasons.
 Prints directly from easily stored, transmitted, and transported computer files.
 Reduces the space necessary for archiving art, films, plates, and screens.
 Is more cost effective for proof and short-run printing than analog printing methods.
 Reduces proofing time from weeks to hours, thus accelerating design and product development.
 Permits customization and personalization. Allows for design correction and modification at any time
without significant schedule delays or cost increases.
 Eliminates the design and process distortions associated with on-contact analog printing.
 Is cleaner, safer, and generally less wasteful, and less environmentally hazardous than analog textile
printing methods.
 It has been established that, thanks to digital printing technology, designers can now reduce textile
research and pattern design time by over 50%.
 The designer can now see how a particular piece of fabric or garment will look in different colours and
shapes without having to commit to a final product.

On the basis of above advantages we can say that the changeover from traditional design work to using a
CAD system can be a very positive experience. The main uses of CAD system are the creation of original
designs, or the interpretation of artwork supplied by customers, the latter being either painted artwork,
fabric samples or possibly black and white film negatives.

Scanning artwork: Generally uses of textile design systems start with work created on paper or other
medium. Most companies making printed textiles use scanners to capture data in digital form. Scanner
can also be used to scan in black and white, artwork and separates. We can also scan black and white
film, and then merge them back into a coloured design in our design station. Of course, the great
advantage is that a user can undo any element so that mistakes or unwanted effects can instantly be
corrected. Other systems use digital cameras as a means of data capture.

The editing of designs: The first step in editing a design is to take the scan file and do some colour
reduction to get the file as close as possible to the final number of colours that the finished design will
have. Some of this will be done by the colour reduction function in the CAD system, where the computer
picks the next closest colour left in the palette to replace the colour to be discarded, or we choose which
colour we want to replace the colour being discarded. We then use CAD systems to manipulate the image,
changing colors, adding, deleting, moving or copying elements and putting them overall into a suitable
pattern repeat.

Software packages now have a wide range of effects such as water color and oil which enable different
results to be created with the same input devices. The next thing is to put the pattern into repeat. If the
design was painted in repeat, it is just a matter of trimming the design into the proper size of the repeat. If
it was not in repeat, the CAD system has many functions to help create a repeat in a design. We can add
areas around the existing design and fill these areas by copying motifs from the original design. The use
of clone brushes is helpful in the blending of wash effect and backgrounds into the new areas of the
design or the artist can draw new motifs to complete the repeat. Following this, is the cleaning up of
individual images or motifs. Here we use a combination of reduce brushes, dot clear brushes, dot removal
and drawing function.

 
Color work on CAD system: We use inkjet printer for three different purposes.

 First is for the proofing of designs in progress. At various stages of editing, inkjet proofs of the design are
produced for the computer artist and the stylist to grow over and take decisions as to what still need to be
done to the design.
 Secondly, full size inkjet proofs are made of the design for customer or product manager approval. This
allows us to make comments or changes before any engraving is done.
 Then lastly and most importantly we use our coloring station for the creation of new color ways of
patterns and for the customers approval of these colorways before actual strike offs done on a fabric.

PRINTINGS SOFTWARE:

Wasatch SoftRIP TX for Textile Printing

SoftRIP for Textile Printing is equipped with a powerful suite of tools that allowed us to produce superior
digital fabric output without wasted media and time.

New Color Atlas Generator

 Reproduce exact colors easily. Just pick a swatch and enter the
RGB value into SoftRIP.
 The total solution package includes several pre-packaged color
profiles for use with Wasatch Softrip.

Manage Colorways
 Store unlimited colorways for future use.

Efficient Repeats
 Save computer time, memory, and money by efficiently printing endless repeats. Customize repeats with
advanced controls.

Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop, or simply Photoshop, is a graphics
editor developed and published by Adobe Systems. It is
the current market leader for commercial bitmap and
image manipulation.

Multiple Layer Control: Select and move, group,

transform, and warp objects more intuitively by clicking
and dragging directly on the canvas. Easily align objects
with Smart Guides.

Nondestructive Image Correction: Improve the color, contrast, and dynamic range of any image using a
comprehensive set of professional correction tools and nondestructive adjustment layers, which display
corrections while preserving the original.

Step-and-Repeat in Photoshop:
Step-and-repeat" is the term used for the process of duplicating an object and spacing.
 Pick a New Picker:
 Color picker uses a color wheel instead of swatches.
 Painter's Picker allows us to quickly find and select any color's complementary
color, and notes which colors we should stay away from, like those that clash.
 We can choose colours from five kinds of analogous schemes, five kinds of
tetradic schemes, two kinds of triads, four complex complementary schemes.

d.gen Textile Software Rip

d.gen Textile Software Rip is optimized textile software Rip for digital textile
printing. d.gen Rip is a professional solution which can digitally print colors
with efficiency in textile market.

Product features: 
 Supporting wide format inkjet
printing machines, d.gen Rip is
able to use with DTP programs
such as Adobe, Photoshop,
Illustrator, Corel Draw,
Macromedia, Freehand.
 Suitable for design studios.
 Printing system with compatibility
and efficiency.
 Easy to apply creative idea of your
own.
 Layout control before production.
 The most similar and accurate
color reproduction by making
color library.
 Able to create our own digital
design.
 Helps to match the image on a
monitor and print-out as much as
possible.
 

Pointcarre-Textile Software
With Pointcarr design software we can prepare artwork for any type of textile end use. Quickly modify,
color reduce, and put all our patterns into repeat.

Creation
Pointcarr provides us with a variety of tools and features for a free expression of our creativity. The tool
icons are common graphics that are similar to those used in other popular graphic software.

Design in repeat
Work directly in repeat mode. Choose any kind of repeat: straight, half drop, mirror,
with or without overlap.
Clean-up
Quickly and easily clean up any scan of artwork, sketches, or photographs.

Textures
Enhance your design by shading any texture over your design for realistic fabric renderings.

Compatibility
Start working from photographs, scanned images or draw directly on screen. We can even drag and drop
images from popular graphics software such as Photoshop directly into Pointcarr. These images can be
copied, modified, or incorporated into other designs at any time with a click of the mouse.

Color reduction

From a scan, quickly and effectively create flat artwork with

the color reduction tool.

Colors
Changing color in a design is easy. Open the customized
palettes and drag and drop a hue directly on the pattern. Save
time by building up the seasonal collections.

Accuracy and interactivity

 Pointcarr features familiar icons such as the pencil, paintbrush, rubber stamp, airbrush and eraser. With
them, we can create a great variety of effects. The zoom, the customized grids and the instant screen
preview guarantee an accurate and permanent control over the design.

Libraries
 The software CD-ROM also includes various libraries: textures (woven, knit),
 Knit and embroidery stitches. Add your own for a greater variety of effects.

 
DIGITAL PRINTING MACHINES:
VARAD digital screen printing machines

 M-Tex Machines Pvt Ltd, Mumbai offers VARAD digital textile screen printing machine, which has the
highest accuracy and best repeatibility.
 Its robust cast iron body ensures longest life.
 Other salient features include high production and power saving due to use of latest digital servo drives.
 The screen printing machine includes an efficient and economic dryer. It is simple to operate with user-
friendly aspects, entailing less maintenance.
 It has special features for knit goods printing.

d.Gen 740TX/C-Digital textile printer

 d.gen 740TX/C is able to directly print on most kind of fabrics including silk chiffon, stretchable fabrics
such as knitted fabrics, even some spandex.
 Digital Textile Printer, d.gen 740TX/C enables us to produce strike-off within a day and guarantee
professional textile printing and high profit-business in high end fashion industry, home furnishing and
decorative fabric markets using garments, curtains, beddings, art walls, sofa and cushions.
 d.gen 740TX/C, is able to produce a sample within a day with much lower cost than traditional way.

 
Cromos of Dua Graphic systems (DGS), Italy
 Basic printer is Tx-2 of Mimaki, Japan using piezoelectric print
technology.
 Printing width is up to 1600 mm and printing is done with the
help of 8 heads with 16 colors(8x2) in Cromos of Dua Graphic
systems (DGS).
 Printing speed ranges from 6.6 m 2/h to 28 m2/h and dot size of
fine, medium, large or variable can be selected during printing.
 Usable inks are reactive, acid, disperse, pigment and sublimatic.
 Adhesive printing belt plus integrated cleaning and drying
mechanism make it possible to print all types of fabrics even at a
high speed.
 Cromos of Dua Graphic systems (DGS) is equipped with a printer server and DGS software MatchPrint-II
for controlling and calibrating the printer.

Rotary Screen Engraver

 Rotary screen engraver has fastest speed in the world, only 8min.is
required for rotary screen 60"width.
 Refillable & lowest ink cost system in the world as compare to
other system.
 A-Tex plot software has the ability of auto adjustment to
circumference with perfect step & repeat.
 Rotary screen engraver is easy to operate and easy to maintain.
 Maximum screen length is 2200 mm to 3500mm.
 Resolution of the machine is 360/720dpi.
 Processing speed ranges from 10 min/Screen to 18 min/Screen.
 Printing head technology is new micro piezo head with 4 x 96 nozzle.

Flat Bed Screen Engraver

 Slip-free steel band drive (patented) with hardened and
ground linear guides for superb quality and high
precision.
 All axes with highly dynamic Servo-motor drives.
 Material hold-down with holding devices.
 Speed- 100 mm/sec.
 Resolution- 360 dpi / 720 dpi
 Printing Head Technology- New Double High Speed
Piezo Ink-Jet Head
 Software- Amber Plot Program-optional for six color
printing
 Printing Head Nozzle- 384 Printing Nozzles
 
Digital T-Shirt printer
Textile digital T-Shirt printing direct pigment printing on to
cotton t-shirts.
 TexJet digital T-Shirt
printer, table transport system, t-shirt holder, ink feeding
bottle system.
 Uses water based
coloured), with very good wash fastness properties.
 High productivity up to 60 T-Shirts per hour @ 720dpi.
 Price: Euro 12,000, including the RIP software
 Printer driver: Windows XP
 Printing resolution: Max 1440dpi
 Easy to use.

DuPont Artistri
 DuPont Artistri is a fully integrated, production capable digital
printing system developed for printing on all type of fabrics.
 The system was designed for a variety of applications, including
printed textiles, accessories, apparel, home furnishings, table
covers, flags and banners.
 High-speed, easy-to-use digital textile printing provides
unparalleled design flexibility and greater cost efficiency
compared to traditional printing methods