WeavePoint | Weaving software

Frequently Asked Questions

 

How can I design stripe patterns in WeavePoint?
Using block substitution in WeavePoint
How can I change the yarn colors?
What does it mean to 'treadle the threading'?
Where can I find useful resources for WeavePoint on the net?
How can I use drafts from WeavePoint in desktop publishing?
How can I get a print preview when printing?
How can I run WeavePoint on a Mac?
How can I run WeavePoint under Linux?

 

How can I design stripe patterns in WeavePoint?

You can use WeavePoint to design stripe patterns as a form of profile draft. Start a new, blank pattern. Go to Design mode (click View/Design). Under Options/Loom, see the Shed setting. Select sinking shed to draw vertical stripes or rising shed to draw horizontal stripes. Then just fill in warp colors to make vertical stripes or weft colors to make horizontal stripes.

To change the look of the stripes to plain colored areas, go to Options/Style, set Drawdown Style to Normal and uncheck Use Grid Style in Desing Mode.

 

Using block substitution in WeavePoint

For block substitution, you need two drafts: Your profile draft and a file with the blocks you want to use. First you make and save the blocks file. Then, with your profile draft on the screen, click Transform\Block Substitution and select the blocks file.

You can easily test with some of the sample files that comes with WeavePoint. Open Diaper Profile to use as a profile, then go to Block Substitution and select Blocks Twill or Blocks Daldrall as blocks file. Just click the Preview button to see the result of each.

Then you can open the blocks sample files with File/Open to see what they look like. Then you should get the idea. A blocks file is just a normal pattern file which is used for blocks. It can have up to 128 different blocks of your own design in both warp and weft.

 

How can I change the yarn colors?

There's in principle two ways to change colors in a pattern: You can use a different yarn (color index) or you can change the color of the yarn (color index) you already use in the pattern.

Note that each color (or we could say yarn) has an index. We can of course think of the red color and the blue color and so on, but with many similar colors we often need to look at the index. Think of it like you have two crayons with almost the same color - if you want to use the same crayon again, it's easier to pick the correct one if it has a number. To check which color indexes are already in use, just place the cursor over the color in the warp or weft color grid, and the color index will be displayed in the status bar.

When starting a new pattern, you'll have just one color in warp and one in weft, with color index 0 and 6, white and red. If you'd like to change them, let's say to yellow and green instead, you do this in the color dialog. You can reach this in more than one way: Select your color index in the tool bar and click Options/Color Dialog. Or open the color palette (click the color icon in toolbar) and double click on your color index.

If you want to use more colors in a repeat, fill in your colors in the beginning of the warp or weft color grid. Then, to repeat, there's a useful shortcut: Click the selection tool in the toolbar and select the colors that you want to repeat (like colors for ends/picks 1-12 or something in the warp or weft colors grid). Then, click the Repeat icon in the toolbar and the repeat dialog will open already filled in - you can just take a look at the options and click OK! By the way, this works also with the other grids.

Note that Paste Special works with colors, too. You can use this to insert or mirror a color sequence.

 

What does it mean to 'treadle the threading'?

If you have a computerized loom, 'treadle the threading' is a great method to help speed up a complex threading process. But also with a manual loom, you can use this method from WeavePoint 9.

1. Design or enter your draft in WeavePoint and save it.

2. If in liftplan mode, use Edit/Clear/Liftplan. Then switch to tie-up (single) mode in Options.

3. Create a direct tie-up (treadle 1 to shaft 1, treadle 2 to shaft 2), etc. (you can skip this if not using a loom with loom control)

4. Use Utilities/Tromp as Writ to copy the threading to the treadling.
If your warp has more than one color, use Utilities/Tromp as Writ, Warp colors to weft colors. Use File/Save As to save this draft with a new name, like old draft name + ' Threading'.

5. In the Weave menu, turn on loom control. As you treadle, a single shaft should rise. The loom will raise each shaft of your threading in order (since now your treadling=threading). For a manual loom, click Weave/This Pattern to start "weaving" and raise the shafts manually.

6. Grab the next heddle on the shaft, and slide it over to where you can thread it.

7. Continue until threading is complete. Note that the thread number and color are shown on the screen, easy to see at a glance.

 

Where can I find useful resources for WeavePoint on the net?

Martinsson & Eriksson - Åsa Martinssons artiklar och beskrivningar, ett antal exempel hur man kan arbeta med WeavePoint standard och Complex Drafting.
(Articles and descriptions in Swedish about using WeavePoint for various types of patterns, including articles about the Complex Drafting special version).

Handweaving.net - The Weaving Draft Archive is a large collection of patterns and weaves in the WIF file format. You can download patterns to your PC and then open them in WeavePoint (remember to set WIF as filetype in the Open dialog), or you can open the WIF patterns directly in WeavePoint from the browser.

 

How can I use drafts from WeavePoint in desktop publishing?

For publishing, you can get a copy of the draft in WeavePoint to paste or open from a graphics file, in a word processor program or desktop publishing program. There are several ways you can do this: From within WeavePoint, use Edit/Copy Image or File/Export/Save draft as PNG-image. Or you can use external tools, like the Snipping Tool that comes with Windows.

For using weaving drafts in magazine articles, books or other printed media, one will want to use an image that gives good print quality. For photos and illustrations, we know that the image size matters. And even for drafts with simple squares and blocks, the image size has significance for the line width of the draft grids. With a higher zoom level, there will be more pixels per end/square and the grid lines will appear thinner, as the lines itself do have the same width at all zoom levels.

The benefit of saving to a PNG file is that you can get larger patterns with finer grid lines. When using many drafts in a magazine or book, it will often look best if all drafts have about the same grid size or line width. It will be easier to obtain this if you use the same number of pixels per end for all drafts. But note that shrinking or enlarging the drafts in the publishing software will also affect grid size and line width.

 

How can I get a print preview when printing?

In the Print Setup dialog, click Properties. Check the "Preview before printing" box. Note that this box depends on your printer.

 

How can I run WeavePoint on a Mac?

WeavePoint is made for Windows. There is no WeavePoint version for Mac OS, but you can still run WeavePoint on a Mac.

You can run WeavePoint in several ways on a Mac. One option is to install Parallels (or WMware Fusion or Virtual Box) and Windows.

Another option is to use Wine, as CrossOver or PlayOnMac, this does not require Windows. This way, WeavePoint can integrate seamlessly in Mac OS, you don't really "see" Windows, WeavePoint starts and runs from Mac OS.

Update March 2023: We now recommend CrossOver. PlayOnMac 4.4.3 cannot be used with WeavePoint and later versions of macOS. We've tested WeavePoint and Crossover 22 with macOS 12.6 Monterey, and it seems to work well. The latest macOS updates has created problems for WeavePoint running under PlayOnMac 4.4.3 or before. WeavePoint starts as normal, but dialogs cannot be opened. This means we cannot recommend PlayOnMac for the moment. A future PlayOnMac update may correct this.

Remember that you can test WeavePoint on your Mac using the WeavePoint demo version before purchase, if you want to try it out. First install CrossOver, PlayOnMac or Parallels, then install WeavePoint.

Click here to read more about installing WeavePoint with CrossOver or PlayOnMac

Electronic loom control from a Mac with Windows and Parallels should work like with a pc. Loom control via a serial port will not work under CrossOver/PlayOnMac/Wine at present. For loom control, you could also use a low cost pc for this purpose by the loom, design patterns on your Mac and transfer them to the pc by email or a memory stick.

 

How can I run WeavePoint under Linux?

WeavePoint is made for Windows. There is no WeavePoint version for Linux, but you can still run WeavePoint seamlessly within Linux, using Wine as PlayOnLinux or CrossOver, without needing a Microsoft Operating System license. We have reports of WeavePoint running fine with CrossOver and PlayOnLinux within Linux. You can test it yourself using the WeavePoint demo version. We have not tested electronic loom control from Linux.

 

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