Picture to computer-generated CCS paattern.

I thought I would tell you a little story of what has just happened
with me here in Ottawa, Canada. Apparently a lady has a picture of
great sentimental value consisting of a poem and an original drawing
of a family pet done by a member of the family. She is an avid cross
stitcher, and wanted to turn this image into a counted cross stitch
pattern. She tried, unsuccessfully, to find any place to get this done,
and made enquiries at our LNS, Cross Stitch Cupboard. A lady from
our Guild, who works there, suggested she spoke to me.
She rang me up, and we had quite a long conversation. I first told
her the only sensible way to do the poem was to find a ccs alphabet,
and hand draw out the poem. She immediately realized this was the
way to go. But then we came to the picture. I sort of got the
impression she had the same idea that I had some 25 years ago;
you send a picture to someone, who knew by instinct precisely
what sort of a pattern you wanted, and who could wave a magic
wand and such a pattern would appear. Life is not like that. I was
sure I had not got the message across, so suggested she send me a
copy of the picture.
I only have a 50K modem, so I made sure the image was in *.jpg
format. This format gets a huge compression ratio by throwing away
unwanted information. Sure enough, I got the image; something
over 1000 pixels square, and totally unsuitable for me to turn into a
pattern. I wrote back some fairly detailed instructions, starting by
explaining that I could only turn a picture into a pattern at one pixel
per stitch. I could not do any thinking. She needed to decide precisely
how many stitches per inch she was going to use, and precisely how
big the picture needed to be. Then she could calculate how big the
picture would be in stitches. After that she must reduce the picture
in her computer to that number of pixels, look at it, and decide if it
had lost so much detail it would not be worthwhile stitching. I got
a reply saying she would think about it.
I explained she should send me the image as a *.tif or *.gif. These
formats have a far lower compression ratio that *.jpg, but do not throw
away any information. They are, therefore, right for small images.
Some 24 hours later I got a lovely little picture, 112 pixels wide in
sepia tones; wonderful for conversion, with only a few colors required.
She said she had looked at the picture, and it was what she expected a
ccs picture to look like; somewhat fuzzy but quite recognizable.
In considerably less than 5 minutes, and pattern was on its way
back, in *.pat format; with instructions as to how to download the
Pattern Maker Viewer to print the pattern out. There is now one
very happy lady in Ottawa who has the sort of pattern she was looking
for. The point of this is that, if anyone follows a very simple set of
steps, any picture can be turned into a computer-generated counted
cross stitch pattern, in a virtually costless way. Whether such a
pattern is worthwhile spending the money on for materials, and the
time on to do the stitching, with oodles of confetti stitches, is
something only the stitcher can decide.
--
Jim Cripwell.
From Canada. Land of the Key Bird.
This creature of doom flies over the frozen tundra in winter,
shrieking its dreaded call; "Key, Key, Key, Key rist but it's cold!!"

Hi Jim,

Good for you for giving the lady the information she needed and being
willing to create a pattern for her. As you say, the rest is up to
her. I agree about your magic wand story...it just seems such an easy
thing to do...scan a photo, open it in a design program, and a few
seconds later a pattern should spit out. If only things would be that
easy

take care, Linda


On 6 Mar 2005 14:26:39 GMT, (F.James
Cripwell) wrote:


I thought I would tell you a little story of what has just happened
with me here in Ottawa, Canada. Apparently a lady has a picture of
great sentimental value consisting of a poem and an original drawing
of a family pet done by a member of the family. She is an avid cross
stitcher, and wanted to turn this image into a counted cross stitch
pattern. She tried, unsuccessfully, to find any place to get this done,
and made enquiries at our LNS, Cross Stitch Cupboard. A lady from
our Guild, who works there, suggested she spoke to me.
She rang me up, and we had quite a long conversation. I first told
her the only sensible way to do the poem was to find a ccs alphabet,
and hand draw out the poem. She immediately realized this was the
way to go. But then we came to the picture. I sort of got the
impression she had the same idea that I had some 25 years ago;
you send a picture to someone, who knew by instinct precisely
what sort of a pattern you wanted, and who could wave a magic
wand and such a pattern would appear. Life is not like that. I was
sure I had not got the message across, so suggested she send me a
copy of the picture.
I only have a 50K modem, so I made sure the image was in *.jpg
format. This format gets a huge compression ratio by throwing away
unwanted information. Sure enough, I got the image; something
over 1000 pixels square, and totally unsuitable for me to turn into a
pattern. I wrote back some fairly detailed instructions, starting by
explaining that I could only turn a picture into a pattern at one pixel
per stitch. I could not do any thinking. She needed to decide precisely
how many stitches per inch she was going to use, and precisely how
big the picture needed to be. Then she could calculate how big the
picture would be in stitches. After that she must reduce the picture
in her computer to that number of pixels, look at it, and decide if it
had lost so much detail it would not be worthwhile stitching. I got
a reply saying she would think about it.
I explained she should send me the image as a *.tif or *.gif. These
formats have a far lower compression ratio that *.jpg, but do not throw
away any information. They are, therefore, right for small images.
Some 24 hours later I got a lovely little picture, 112 pixels wide in
sepia tones; wonderful for conversion, with only a few colors required.
She said she had looked at the picture, and it was what she expected a
ccs picture to look like; somewhat fuzzy but quite recognizable.
In considerably less than 5 minutes, and pattern was on its way
back, in *.pat format; with instructions as to how to download the
Pattern Maker Viewer to print the pattern out. There is now one
very happy lady in Ottawa who has the sort of pattern she was looking
for. The point of this is that, if anyone follows a very simple set of
steps, any picture can be turned into a computer-generated counted
cross stitch pattern, in a virtually costless way. Whether such a
pattern is worthwhile spending the money on for materials, and the
time on to do the stitching, with oodles of confetti stitches, is
something only the stitcher can decide.

Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada
See pictures of my work at: www.members.shaw.ca/deugau
Recently finished UFO's a TIAG's "The Auction", Just Nan's "Christmas Elegance", and "Jane" a bead knit bag and matching change purse, a design by Swallow Hill Creations.