Introducing new Developers to Your Project

You may want to introduce new developers into your project. This is either to get help or to allow the community to guide the project. In this blog post, I want to present how I believe an introduction can be designed.

(1) A Landing Page

For the knitting projects, I have designed a landing page, knitting.fossasia.org. It features all related projects with links to documentation and source code as well as a short summary what it is about. You can read more about the landing page in this blog post.

The idea is to to add short snippets of information that allow new developers to explore all available options to enter the projects. This may be contact information, documentation and videos.

(2) Setup Instructions

Especially for the projects I worked on, I created a introduction videos on how to set up your development environment. This could have been in text form, too.

The problem for new developers is often that the start takes a long time. Instead of focusing on the issue they would like to solve, it sometimes takes several hours to set up the environment with lots of possibilities to make mistakes.

In order to speed up the development environment setup, you can provide additional information. The CoderDojo Zen platform has its own landing page for new developers and a description of the steps to take to setup the development environment. In the case of the knitting projects, we have YouTube video tutorials which show the necessary steps.

(3) Introduction Events

You can participate in events to show your projects to other people.

With the knitting projects, we will participate at the Maker Faire Berlin 2016.There may be local user groups where you can present the work and the learnings from them.

Google Code-In is an excellent opportunity to allow new young developers to add code to your projects and document them. You can apply as a mentor and add tasks. A first task for beginners may be to get the project running on their computer. Another task could then be to either use it in a special way and document it or to solve an issue which is easy enough.

In the following Google Summer of Code your project can be used again. You can apply as a mentor for your project and help other students to work on what you left behind.

Summary

I listed some ways I will perform to get the projects I worked on into the community. I hope they may have been an inspiration for other people who read this. If you like to contribute new ways, you can comment 🙂

Continue ReadingIntroducing new Developers to Your Project

Knit Editor Package Overview

In this years Google Summer of Code, we created several Python package. They are all available on the Python Package Index (PyPi) and installable via “pip install”. They are listed on knitting.fossasia.org but their interconnections are shown here.

In the following figure, you can see the different packages created during GSoC with a solid line. Other packages that are used by the “kniteditor” application are shown here with a dotted line.

 

Knit Editor Package Architecture
Knit Editor Package Architecture

Overall, five packages we created. The design is driven by responsibility. Thus the responsibilities of each packages should be clearly separated from the other packages. We describe the responsibilities of the packages as follows:

knittingpattern is the library for converting, loading, saving and manipulating knitting patterns. These patterns include in formation abour how to knit. Unlike a picture this includes more than a color: adding meshes, removing meshes, types of holes, the possibility of non-planar knit pieces ad more.

ObservableList is a list whose content can be observed. Whenever elements are added or removed, this list notifies the observers. This is used by the rows of instructions to provide a more convenient interface.

crc8 computes the crc8 hash from bytes. I did not find a Python library implementing ths functionality so I created it myself. The design follows the design of the hash functions in the Python standard library. This package is used by the AYABInterface package. Through creating a new package, this is also usable by other applications.

AYABInterface controls the knitting machines connected to the AYAB hack. Through the serial interface, it can send messages to the controllers and receive answers. It also provides hint for actions which the user should take in order to produce the desired outcome.

kniteditor contains the user interface to edit knitting patterns and control the knitting machines with the AYAB shield.

All these packages also include installation instructions.

Continue ReadingKnit Editor Package Overview

New Landing Page for FOSSASIA Knitting Projects

Now, FOSSASIA has a new landing page for the different knitting projects, knitting.fossasia.org.

The objective of this page is to ease starting development on knitting projects. As such, it is listed on the labs site of FOSSASIA. The FOSSASIA labs give you the opportunity to get into development of open-source projects in the FOSSASIA community.

The site features a list of projects related to knitting – software and hardware projects. They all have Github issues attached and you can access them via a waffle link. There is a unified view on all issues for convenience.

In the section below, you can see how you can contribute. For translations, no coding is required but it is useful to know the Github pull-request workflow.

The next step is to start coding without understanding much of the inner workings of the project. This can be done by optimizing some metrics like code quality, health and coverage. This way, new developers setup the code base, get familiar with the code and have an easy first contribution.

To start implementing features, we have a list of issues attached. they are organized in waffle projects. They have tags like “easy” or “hard” to guide the choice. Easy issues can be worked on by developers who want to get into the code base and do not require much knowledge of the inner workings of the project.

In the bottom, there is also a community section that shows how to get in touch and a section for related work. This sections is extremely important as it allows us to expand the community to users, get inspiration. This can be seen as a repository for human interconnections. If a developer leaves the project, all commits remain. However, the connections to the people leave. In order to keep these connections, this section is created. It features a list of other sites, wiki pages and places t read and inform oneself.

Summary

Creating a community around project is new to me. I did this the first time in the Flappy-SVG project. With the knitting.fossasia.org site, I hope to see a community evolve around the knitting projects in FOSSASIA.

Continue ReadingNew Landing Page for FOSSASIA Knitting Projects

DesignaKnit

I started a conversation on strickforum.de and was inspired to take a closer look at DesignaKnit 8.

A free Demo version of DesignaKnit is available which cannot save changes to patterns or shapes and cannot connect to a knitting machine. Otherwise all functionality is available.

DesignaKnit contains:

  • an editor for color patterns
  • an editor for shapes or sewing patterns
  • a shape library
  • a tool for converting images to patterns
  • interactive knitting

Patterns can be applied to shapes.

I did not look very closely at the editors because I do not know much about pattern generation, especially shape or sewing patterns. And the editor for the color patterns did not work for me.

Interactive Knitting:
I took a look at some of the features available in the interactive knitting. There are some interesting features we would also like to implement.

I was not able to take in all the functions available. I could not connect it to a machine and I am still a beginner with knitting machines, which is why I am probably missing some features which make life easier.

The interactive knitting support has several views:

  • overview of knit piece which also shows the position of the carriage
  • view for next row to be knit, some rows around for context
  • view for yarn colors in use and visualization that shows which yarn is currently in the carriage and being knit
  • view for instructions to the human, which also contains
    • row counter as it should be on the machine
    • counter for row in the piece being knit
    • counter for row in pattern
    • information on start and stop needle on machine

DesignaKnit

DesignaKnit can be configured to play sounds when an action, like decreasing the number of meshes, needs to be taken. Voice cuing is also possible. Furthermore, the view for the instructions for the human can flash yellow and displays what step needs to be completed by the human next. In the image above the number of meshes should be decreased by 6 on the right side.

Ideas for our interactive knitting support:
The idea of extra audio and visual cuing is very interesting and we are considering also having this option in our interface. We are not yet sure how we will organize all the information, but the information we will show to the user will be similar to what is shown in DesignaKnit.

The interface for DesignaKnit serves its purpose well. However, we think we can create something that is a little more appealing to the eye.
To keep our Design of the user interface clean and simple we are designing for mobile devices first.

 

Continue ReadingDesignaKnit

How to create a Windows Installer from tagged commits

I working on an open-source Python project, an editor for knit work called the “KnitEditor”. Development takes place at Github. Here, I would like to give some insight in how we automated deployment of the application to a Windows installer.

The process works like this:

  1. Create a tag with git and push it to Github.
  2. AppVeyor build the application.
  3. AppVeyor pushes the application to the Github release.

(1) Create a tag and push it

Tags should reflect the version of the software. Version “0.0.1” is in tag “v0.0.1”. We automated the tagging with the “setup.py” in the repository. Now, you can run

py -3.4 setup.py tag_and_deploy

Which checks that there is no such tag already. Several commits have the same version, so, we like to make sure that we do not have two versions with the same name. Also, this can only be executed on the master branch. This way, the software has gone through all the automated quality assurance. Here is the code from the setup.py:

from distutils.core import Command
# ...
class TagAndDeployCommand(Command):

    description = "Create a git tag for this version and push it to origin."\
                  "To trigger a travis-ci build and and deploy."
    user_options = []
    name = "tag_and_deploy"
    remote = "origin"
    branch = "master"

    def initialize_options(self):
        pass

    def finalize_options(self):
        pass

    def run(self):
        if subprocess.call(["git", "--version"]) != 0:
            print("ERROR:\n\tPlease install git.")
            exit(1)
        status_lines = subprocess.check_output(
            ["git", "status"]).splitlines()
        current_branch = status_lines[0].strip().split()[-1].decode()
        print("On branch {}.".format(current_branch))
        if current_branch != self.branch:
            print("ERROR:\n\tNew tags can only be made from branch"
                  " \"{}\".".format(self.branch))
            print("\tYou can use \"git checkout {}\" to switch"
                  " the branch.".format(self.branch))
            exit(1)
        tags_output = subprocess.check_output(["git", "tag"])
        tags = [tag.strip().decode() for tag in tags_output.splitlines()]
        tag = "v" + __version__
        if tag in tags:
            print("Warning: \n\tTag {} already exists.".format(tag))
            print("\tEdit the version information in {}".format(
                    os.path.join(HERE, PACKAGE_NAME, "__init__.py")
                ))
        else:
            print("Creating tag \"{}\".".format(tag))
            subprocess.check_call(["git", "tag", tag])
        print("Pushing tag \"{}\" to remote \"{}\"."
              "".format(tag, self.remote))
        subprocess.check_call(["git", "push", self.remote, tag])
# ...
SETUPTOOLS_METADATA = dict(
# ...
    cmdclass={
# ...
        TagAndDeployCommand.name: TagAndDeployCommad
    },
)
# ...
if __name__ == "__main__":
    import setuptools
    METADATA.update(SETUPTOOLS_METADATA)
    setuptools.setup(**METADATA) # METADATA can be found in several other 

Above, you can see a “distutils” command that executed git through the command line interface.

(2) AppVeyor builds the application

As mentioned above, you can configure AppVeyor to build your application. Here are some parts of the “appveyor.yml” file, that I comment on inline:

# see https://packaging.python.org/appveyor/#adding-appveyor-support-to-your-project
environment:
  PYPI_USERNAME: niccokunzmann3
  PYPI_PASSWORD:
    secure: Gxrd9WI60wyczr9mHtiQHvJ45Oq0UyQZNrvUtKs2D5w=

  # For Python versions available on Appveyor, see
  # http://www.appveyor.com/docs/installed-software#python
  # The list here is complete (excluding Python 2.6, which
  # isn't covered by this document) at the time of writing.

  # we only need Python 3.4 for kivy
  PYTHON: "C:\\Python34"


install:
  - "%PYTHON%\\python.exe -m pip install docutils pygments pypiwin32 kivy.deps.sdl2 kivy.deps.glew"
  - "%PYTHON%\\python.exe -m pip install -r requirements.txt"
  - "%PYTHON%\\python.exe -m pip install -r test-requirements.txt"
  - "%PYTHON%\\python.exe setup.py install"
  
build_script:
- cmd: cmd /c windows-build\build.bat

test_script:
  # Put your test command here.
  # If you don't need to build C extensions on 64-bit Python 3.3 or 3.4,
  # you can remove "build.cmd" from the front of the command, as it's
  # only needed to support those cases.
  # Note that you must use the environment variable %PYTHON% to refer to
  # the interpreter you're using - Appveyor does not do anything special
  # to put the Python version you want to use on PATH.
  - windows-build\dist\KnitEditor\KnitEditor.exe /test
  - "%PYTHON%\\python.exe -m pytest --pep8 kniteditor"

artifacts:
  # bdist_wheel puts your built wheel in the dist directory
- path: dist/*
  name: distribution
- path: windows-build/dist/Installer/KnitEditorInstaller.exe
  name: installer
- path: windows-build/dist/KnitEditor
  name: standalone

deploy:
- provider: GitHub
  # http://www.appveyor.com/docs/deployment/github
  tag: $(APPVEYOR_REPO_TAG_NAME)
  description: "Release $(APPVEYOR_REPO_TAG_NAME)"
  auth_token:
    secure: j1EbCI55pgsetM/QyptIM/QDZC3SR1i4Xno6jjJt9MNQRHsBrFiod0dsuS9lpcC7
  artifact: installer
  force_update: true
  draft: false
  prerelease: false
  on:
    branch: master                 # release from master branch only
    appveyor_repo_tag: true        # deploy on tag push only

Note that the line

  - windows-build\dist\KnitEditor\KnitEditor.exe /test

executes the tests in the built application.

These commands are executed to build the application and are executed by this step:

build_script:
- cmd: cmd /c windows-build\build.bat
"%PYTHON%\python.exe" -m pip install pyinstaller

The line above installs pyinstaller

"%PYTHON%\python.exe" -m PyInstaller KnitEditor.spec

The line above uses pyinstaller to create an executable from the specification.

"Inno Setup 5\ISCC.exe" KnitEditor.iss

The line above uses Inno Setup to create the Installer for the built application.

(3) Deploy to Github

As you can see in the “appveyor.yml” file, the resulting executable is listed as an artifact. Artifacts can be downloaded directly from appveyor or used to deploy. In this case, we use the github deploy, which can be customized via the UI of appveyor.

- path: windows-build/dist/Installer/KnitEditorInstaller.exe
  name: installer
deploy:
- provider: GitHub
  # http://www.appveyor.com/docs/deployment/github
  tag: $(APPVEYOR_REPO_TAG_NAME)
  description: "Release $(APPVEYOR_REPO_TAG_NAME)"
  auth_token:
    secure: j1EbCI55pgsetM/QyptIM/QDZC3SR1i4Xno6jjJt9MNQRHsBrFiod0dsuS9lpcC7
  artifact: installer
  force_update: true
  draft: false
  prerelease: false
  on:
    branch: master                 # release from master branch only
    appveyor_repo_tag: true        # deploy on tag push only

Summary

Now, every time we push a tag to Github, AppVeyor build a new installer for our application.

Continue ReadingHow to create a Windows Installer from tagged commits

Code Quality in the knittingpattern Python Library

In our Google Summer of Code project a part of our work is to bring knitting to the digital age. We is Kirstin Heidler and Nicco Kunzmann. Our knittingpattern library aims at being the exchange and conversion format between different types of knit work representations: hand knitting instructions, machine commands for different machines and SVG schemata.

Cafe instructions
The generated schema from the knittingpattern library.
Cafe
The original pattern schema Cafe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


The image above was generated by this Python code:

import knittingpattern, webbrowser
example = knittingpattern.load_from().example("Cafe.json")
webbrowser.open(example.to_svg(25).temporary_path(".svg"))

So far about the context. Now about the Quality tools we use:

Untitled

Continuous integration

We use Travis CI [FOSSASIA] to upload packages of a specific git tag  automatically. The Travis build runs under Python 3.3 to 3.5. It first builds the package and then installs it with its dependencies. To upload tags automatically, one can configure Travis, preferably with the command line interface, to save username and password for the Python Package Index (Pypi).[TravisDocs] Our process of releasing a new version is the following:

  1. Increase the version in the knitting pattern library and create a new pull request for it.
  2. Merge the pull request after the tests passed.
  3. Pull and create a new release with a git tag using
    setup.py tag_and_deploy

Travis then builds the new tag and uploads it to Pypi.

With this we have a basic quality assurance. Pull-requests need to run all tests before they can be merge. Travis can be configured to automatically reject a request with errors.

Documentation Driven Development

As mentioned in a blog post, documentation-driven development was something worth to check out. In our case that means writing the documentation first, then the tests and then the code.

Writing the documentation first means thinking in the space of the mental model you have for the code. It defines the interfaces you would be happy to use. A lot of edge cases can be thought of at this point.

When writing the tests, they are often split up and do not represent the flow of thought any more that you had when thinking about your wishes. Tests can be seen as the glue between the code and the documentation. As it is with writing code to pass the tests, in the conversation between the tests and the documentation I find out some things I have forgotten.

When writing the code in a test-driven way, another conversation starts. I call implementing the tests conversation because the tests talk to the code that it should be different and the code tells the tests their inconsistencies like misspellings and bloated interfaces.

With writing documentation first, we have the chance to have two conversations about our code, in spoken language and in code. I like it when the code hears my wishes, so I prefer to talk a bit more.

Testing the Documentation

Our documentation is hosted on Read the Docs. It should have these properties:

  1. Every module is documented.
  2. Everything that is public is documented.
  3. The documentation is syntactically correct.

These are qualities that can be tested, so they are tested. The code can not be deployed if it does not meet these standards. We use Sphinx for building the docs. That makes it possible to tests these properties in this way:

  1. For every module there exists a .rst file which automatically documents the module with autodoc.
  2. A Sphinx build outputs a list of objects that should be covered by documentation but are not.
  3. Sphinx outputs warnings throughout the build.

testing out documentation allows us to have it in higher quality. Many more tests could be imagined, but the basic ones already help.

Code Coverage

It is possible to test your code coverage and see how well we do using Codeclimate.com. It gives us the files we need to work on when we want to improve the quality of the package.

Landscape

Landscape is also free for open source projects. It can give hints about where to improve next. Also it is possible to fail pull requests if the quality decreases. It shows code duplication and can run pylint. Currently, most of the style problems arise from undocumented tests.

Summary

When starting with the more strict quality assurance, the question arose if that would only slow us down. Now, we have learned to write properly styled pep8 code and begin to automatically do what pylint demands. High test-coverage allows us to change the underlying functionality without changing the interface and without fear we may break something irrecoverably. I feel like having a burden taken from me with all those free tools for open-source software that spare my time to set quality assurance up.

Future Work

In the future we like to also create a user interface. It is hard, sometimes, to test these. So, we plan not to put it into the package but build it on the package.

Continue ReadingCode Quality in the knittingpattern Python Library

Knitting Pattern Conversion

conversion_273cdef7c-3747-11e6-8ece-a573d396521917-diag

We can convert knitting patterns to svg (middle) which proves the concept but is still a different from the original (right)

Our goal is to create a knit-work exchange format. This includes the conversion to a scematic view of the knittting pattern as svg – to make it endlessly scalable and allow conversions to png, pdf and paper.

This week we ended the prototype of the SVG conversion. The positions are a bit off and instructions are placed above eachother. Most of the work is done.

We are also able to load and save knitting patterns a png files.

(1)a34e6d2c-372d-11e6-9bbd-71c846ead7f9 (2)f6a6bf82-372e-11e6-9467-8bab0e07c099

(3)39e5a556-380b-11e6-8999-726fea9b6078

We loaded them (1), converted them to a knitting pattern and then saved them again as png (2). This way we path our way towards using the ayab software and actually knitting the pattern. Also we can convert the knitting pattern to an svg consisting all of knit instructions (3). Here is the code for it in version 0.0.8.

>>> import knittingpattern
>>> from knittingpattern.convert.image_to_knittingpattern import *
>>> convert_image_to_knitting_pattern.path("head-band.png").temporary_path(".json")
"head-band.json"
>>> k = knittingpattern.load_from_path("head-band.json")
>>> k.to_svg(10).temporary_path(".svg")
"head-band.svg"

Here you can see a proof of concept video:

 

Continue ReadingKnitting Pattern Conversion

A look into the knitting pattern format

We are currently working on a format that allows to exchange instructions for knitting independent of how it is going to be knit: by a machine like Brother, Pfaff, or by hand.

For this to be possible we need the format to be as general as possible and have no ties to a specific form of knitting. At some point the transition to a format specifically designed for a certain machine is necessary. However, we believe that it is possible to have a format so general that instructions for all types of machines and for hand knitting could be generated from it.

We have decided to use JSON as the language to describe the format, because it is machine readable and human readable at the same time.
The structure of our format follows the rows in knitting.

Our first thought was about creating a format that would describe how meshes are connected and how the thread travels. This would allow for great flexibility and it should be possible to represent everything like this. However, we have decided against it, because we think this format would be quite complicated (different orientations and twists of meshes possible, different threads for multiple colors…) and would get quite big very quickly, because of all the different properties for each mesh and because of all the meshes. Furthermore, and this point is probably more important, knitters do not think this way. If we had a format like that, it would not be easy to understand what was happening for human beings.

Whenever I knit by hand, I never think about how all the meshes are connected by this single thread I am using. I always think about which operations I am performing when knitting in each row. Instructions for creating patterns in knitting are also written this way. They give the knitter a set of knitting instructions to do and possibly repeat. We have concluded, that most knitters think in knitting operations performed rather than connections between meshes.

17-diag

Knitting instructions from Garnstudio’s Café.

Therefore we have decided to base our format on knitting instructions/operations. The most common instructions probably are: knit, purl, cast on, bind off, knit two together, yarn over. Of course for increases and decreases there are many different operations which work in a similar way but have slight differences (e.g. skp, k2tog).
Since in knitting many things are possible and it is unlikely that we ever manage to create a complete list of all the possible operations you can perform in knitting we have decided to have a very open format, that allows the definition of new instructions.

Instructions are also defined in JSON format. Here is an example, the “k2tog” instruction:

[
    {
        "type" : "k2tog",
        "title" : {
            "en-en" : "Knit 2 Together"
        },
        "number of consumed meshes" : 2,
        "description" : {
            "wikipedia" : {
                "en-en" : "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knitting_abbreviations#Types_of_knitting_abbreviations"
            },
            "text" : {
                "en-en" : "Knit two stitches together, as if they were one stitch."
            }
        }
    }
]

 

Knitting patterns consist of multiple rows, which consist of multiple instructions. Furthermore we want to define the connections between rows. This is important, so we can express gaps or slits which are multiple rows long. For example when knitting pants the two legs will be separate. They will be knit separately and their combined width will be increased in comparison to the width of the hip.
Here is an example for a pattern which specifies a cast on in the first row, then a row where all stitches are knit, then the last row is bound off.

{
  "type" : "knitting pattern",
  "version" : "0.1",
  "comment" : {
    "content" : "cast on and bind off",
    "type" : "markdown"
    },
  "patterns" : [
    {
      "id" : "knit",
      "name" : "cobo",
      "rows" : [
        {
          "id" : 1,
          "instructions" : [
            {"id": "1.0", "type": "co"},
            {"id": "1.1", "type": "co"},
            {"id": "1.2", "type": "co"},
            {"id": "1.3", "type": "co"}
          ]
        },
        {
          "id" : 2,
          "instructions" : [
            {"id": "2.0"},
            {"id": "2.1"},
            {"id": "2.2"},
            {"id": "2.3"}
          ]
        },
        {
          "id" : 3,
          "instructions" : [
            {"id": "3.0", "type": "bo"},
            {"id": "3.1", "type": "bo"},
            {"id": "3.2", "type": "bo"},
            {"id": "3.3", "type": "bo"}
          ]
        }
      ],
      "connections" : [
        {
          "from" : {
            "id" : 1
          }, 
          "to" : {
            "id" : 2
          }
        },
        {
          "from" : {
            "id" : 2
          }, 
          "to" : {
            "id" : 3
          }
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Connections are defined “from” one row “to” another.  The ids identify the rows. The optional attribute start defines the mesh where the connection starts. If start is not defined, the first mesh of the row is assumed. When indexing the list of meshes in a row the first index is 1. The optional attribute “meshes” describes how many meshes will be connected, starting from the mesh defined in “start”.

The resulting parsed Python object structure looks like this:

row model

The Python object structure for working with the parsed knitting pattern.

Each row has a list of instructions. Each instruction produces a number of meshes and consumes a number of meshes. These meshes are also the meshes that are consumed/produced by the rows.

 

Continue ReadingA look into the knitting pattern format

Towards a unified digital aproach to knitting

Our idea is to create a knitting library for a format that allows conversion of knitting projects, patterns and tutorials. Usually, communities will only focus on the knitting format for their machines. Our approach should be different and be able to support any knitting communities efforts.

Here is our strategy to achieve this:

  • We connect to different communities to get a broader view on what their needs are.
  • Our knitting format is based on knitting instructions like knit, purl, yarn over, skp. We found a comprehensive list on Wikipedia.

Other Communities

From time to time we meet with other people who also knit and could use our software.

First, we met with Viktoria from ETIB Berlin. She taught us a lot about knitting, how she does it, that almost everything could be created from one peace with the machine. Also, that AYAB is used for lace patterns. We saw examples where she let meshes fall so that larger holes were created. Our goal is to support laces in the file format.  Color patterns should be possible across sewing edges.

We are also in touch with Valentina Project. With their software we would be able to connect to yet another community and use their sewing patterns for custom-fit clothes.

We got in touch with Kniterate. They and we share a lot of goals. Because they create a startup, they are very cautious what they release. They focus on their open-source knitting machine first and later on the software. They already created an editor much like we imagined ours to be, but as a web application. A way of collaboration could be that we understand their file format and see how we can support it.

Only talking about our GSoC project is worth it as other people may have seen alike at Maker Faires and other hacky places. We have the chance to bring communities and efforts together.

Knitting Format

A universal knitting format has many concerns:

  • Languages of users differ
  • It should be possible to knit by hand
  • Mesh sizes and wool differ
  • Different knitting machines with different abilities
  • A knitting format for exchange is never complete. A knitting format for machines must be complete.

In contrast to a knitting format for a automatic machine, it is possible, to have machines operate in semi-automatic modes or just to knit by hand. In both cases, meshes could be changed in a way that was never foreseen. This is why we did not base it on meshes and mesh types but rather on instructions – closer to the mental model of the knitters who perform instructions with their hand.

Some of the instructions are understood by the machines, some could be adapted a bit so the machine can do it automatically or faster and some are still necessary to be done by hand. We created a Python module for that, “knittingpattern“. We work on it in a test-driven way.

 

Continue ReadingTowards a unified digital aproach to knitting

Introduction of the 2016 GSoC projects with AYAB

Hi, we are Kirstin and Nicco and for the next couple of months we will be working on the AYAB project. AYAB is an abbreviation for All Yarns Are Beautiful and the project works on the Software that interfaces with the knitting machine and directs in in what to knit. Zou can read more about the existing software in the recent blogposts.
We want to implement two new features and expand on the functionality of the software that replaces the original firmware of the knitting machine.

We want to work on an exchangeable format that stores all information necessary for knitting e.g. a sweatshirt. It should contain the sewing pattern, the color pattern(s) defined for the different parts of the knit piece and the stitch pattern, also defined for the different parts of the knit piece.

This new information that we will have through the format will allow us to create directions for the user in case the machine cannot switch yarn colors on its own or add or remove stitches, but the user can. We want the software to have on screen instructions for the user, telling the user what to do before they knit the next row. This will make knitting with more than two yarn colors possible and make it easier for users to knit shapes where they need to add and remove stitches. This is very much needed when knitting clothes.

Our next steps are to make user studies to find out about how people use the knitting machines, what is necessary and important. If you like to lend us a hand, please contact us. Also we are doing weekly hangouts in the evening, Tuesday 21:00 (Berlin, GMT+2).

Continue ReadingIntroduction of the 2016 GSoC projects with AYAB