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System Requirements
Minimum system requirements:
PC with Pentium® III or higher processor, 512 MB of RAM memory (more recommended),
256 MB free disk space, Windows® XP/Vista/Windows7 operating system.
Features of Pre-Design Studio
Marked with New! are features added in Pre-Design Studio 1
Pre-Design Studio is multi-lingual and can be used in English, Dutch, French, and German. Click here for more information in these languages.
Open a background image for tracing from file (New! all common graphics file-formats supported) or paste a background image from clipboard and use the drawing tools to trace the image.
5 easy drawing tools (straight line, rectangle, oval, arc and curve). Draw by just clicking from point to point and double-click to finish a line. Get perfect smooth clean thin lines, the best start for your embroidery program.
Easy editing Edit your drawing by moving points, inserting new points or delete points. Flip, mirror, rotate, resize, copy, paste selected objects.
Export into various formats:
solid color *.bmp (great for Auto Digitizing programs, black/white hairline *.bmp, color *.jpeg, *.pem-format (for PE-Design/Palette Design Center V4 and up) and the vector *.emf format - which can be imported into many professional embroidery digitizing programs, such as Wilcom, iPunch, Melco, but also Embird. Or export to vector *.DXF-format ("AutoCAD"/"AutoSketch") for longarm quilting robots, like IntelliQuilter, CompuQuilter or APQS systems, Pro-Q-Designer (and via Pro-Q you can convert into any of the other longarm quilt systems).
New! Export to WMF: great as companion for DXF files for programs as CompuQuilter, to show how patterns repeat, use the Add Notes function to add instructions for your customers on the WMF. Also great for the AutoPunch feature of PE-Design/Palette V7 and 8: set the line width to 1/32, export to WMF, open it in PED/Palette's Layout & Editing and let the Image of Stitch Wizard turn it into redwork!
New! Convert to Stitches (DST-format) and take directly into your embroidery machine, without the need for additional embroidery digitizing software. If you can download embroidery files and get them into your machine, then you can use Pre-Design to draw quilt lines, redwork patterns and fringe edge applique designs and send them to your machine.
Print at actual size: This makes it a breeze to create your own panto-rolls for longarm quilting, makes it a snap to create your own quilting stencils for machine but also hand quilting and to trace, resize and print your own garment patterns.
Change line width: 7 different line widths. From hairline thin, one pixel wide lines to thicker lines in any color you want, perfect for embroidery digitizing software and Auto Digitizing programs.
New! Different line styles: solid, dashed and dotted: to combine separate quilt patterns for IntelliQuilter, but also to use in garment pattern drafting, for darts and placement marks for pockets etc.
Change line colors: By changing the lines into the color of the fill, the line "disappears". Great for autodigitizing programs where color graphics often look better if they aren't outlined.
Work in inches or millimeters: change via View menu.
Easy coloring Color the drawing by clicking in the color palette and then click inside the region you want to color. Double-click inside a colored region and create any color you want. Please note: In some drawings, the vector layers may be too complex to fill with color; in that case use the next feature:
Copy your drawing to clipboard You can copy the drawing to clipboard and paste it into your embroidery digitizing program, or, just in case the vector layers cannot be filled with color, paste it into MSPaint and use Paint's fill bucket to color the drawing. Then save this bitmap and open in your embroidery program.
New! Import WMF/EMF (vector characteristics are kept, so the WMF is turned into editable line-art in seconds, only for "true"vector WMF/EMF files).
Convert True Type Fonts into editable and resizable line-art in just seconds!
Insert text on a selected path - circle, rectangle, any shape: draw the shape, select it and choose Edit - Insert Text on Path. The text (True Type Fonts) will run along the selected line. Grrrrreat for Logo's, just too much fun if you use this with dingbats. Warning: addictive, no time left for anything else than playing with this feature! Perfect for autodigitizing programs that don't have their own text feature.
Magic Circle: Now, for those of you that really can't draw, there's the Magic Circle. Draw a little flower, or leaf (or any shape you like), select it, click the Magic Circle button and decide how many copies you want and adjust the spacing; click OK and you have created a wreath of your selected objects. This is a lot of fun and very addictive!
New! Spiral and Swirl maker: for quilters: click on the Spiral tool, choose the number of rings, set the size and click on OK. Ready!! Export to DXF and take into your computerized quilt system. But playing with this feature is very addictive too: combine small and larger spirals, edit the line, add extra shapes. Same for the Swirl: you you really don't have to be an artist to create a wonderful design!
Edit - Grid maker. Is perfect to create a basis for a quiltblock-design. Just choose the size and set the number of patches horizontally and vertically. Then draw a few connecting diagonal lines and color the block.
New! Add Notes: add a copyright notice, or instructions for your customers, write the measurements on which your garment pattern is based right on the pattern itself, name pattern parts etc. Notes will be printed when shown, but can be hidden to.
New! Set guides by clicking in the rulers: very helpful to line up pattern elements, and a must-have to create corners for quilt patterns. With guides, you can even draft your garment pattern right in Pre-Design Studio!
Set preferences: Line Color and Line Width can be set as a preference as well as the interval of the AutoSave function via menu Options.
Send to Front/Back: you can select larger objects that are overlapping smaller objects (because you drew those larger objects later), right-click and choose "Send to Back". This will make the smaller object and its color reappear.
Copyright/Trademark Notice: All names of hardware and software in the Pre-Design Studio website and documentation are at the same time registered trademarks of the respective owners and have to be treated as such: Microsoft, Windows and Paint are trademarks of Microsoft Corp., Acrobat Reader is a trademark of Adobe Corp., PE-Design is from Brother Int. Corp., Babylock and Click’N Stitch are from Tacony Corp., Pulse Ambassador converter from Pulse Microsystems, IrfanView from Irfan Skiljan, Artista Designer from Bernina Fritz Gegauf. APQS: American Professional Quilting Systems, CompuQuilter: S&D Stitches/S.Townzen, IntelliQuilter is a trademark of IntelliStitch/KasaEngineering. Statler Stitcher is a registered trademark of Gammill, Inc., HandiQuilter Pro-Stitcher is a trademark of Handi Quilter LLC. DXF is a registered trademark of AutoDesk Inc.
New in Pre-Design Studio II (compared to Studio 1):
1. Freehand SKETCH TOOL
New in Pre-Design Studio II is the Sketch tool where you draw freehand, by just moving the mouse, and still get nice smooth, editable vector curves.
2. Automatic REDWORK!!
Convert to stitches now has a professional "autobranching" function. That means that even if you didn't draw the full path, the program will turn all connected lines of a drawing into a jumpfree redwork pattern (DST format) which can be sent directly to your machine. I can't tell you how proud I am that we got this done!
3. APPLIQUE
In the Convert to Stitches function we have added two extra stitch types: blanket stitch and zigzag stitch. With the blanket stitch plus Color Stops turned on, it will automatically create three layers on top of each other: running stitch material layer, a running stitch placement line, and a blanket stitch tack down layer.
With the zigzag stitches you can create multiple colored zigzag line designs.
4. AUTOTRACING
Okay, you have read my comments about this before: it is a powerful function but will only work when a background image has clearly defined lines - if there are no lines in an image, how would a computer be able to find them? Reason why I still added this function to the software is that many of you have images which already have near perfect "colorbook" style lines. Seems silly to have to trace those manually. So that is why we added AutoTracing: for the almost perfect background images to be able to benefit from the many export functions in Pre-Design Studio II.
5. EXPORT to many longarm quilt formats: DXF, HQF, PAT, TXT, CQP and SSD.
Pre-Design Studio could already export to DXF, which can be read by most quilt systems, but most of those quilt systems have their own native format, which is often more efficient than a DXF. So in cooperation with the owners of the various quilt formats we have added their formats. For CompuQuilter's CQP format we have even created an Import CQP function!
6. Border Maker (to create E2E's, Pantos, borders)
Click on the Border Maker button, choose a shape and click add. Choose another shape (or keep adding the same shape) until you reach the desired width, then click on OK: you have a continuous line border (or E2e, or Panto) pattern, one start, one stop!
There are already a lot of continuous shapes in the new program but you can create and save your own too. Playtime, definitely playtime! Therefore I have put the Border Maker button next to the other play tools: magic circle and spiral maker :) A video showing Border Maker in action can be found on the Tutorials page
7. Echo quilting
Draw a line around a design (for example around Hawaiian applique), select the line and right-click. Choose Echo and set the number of echos and the distance. Connect end of line 1 to line 2, end of line 2 to line 3 etc. A breeze. Lots of possibilities and great effects. Makes it even possible to add a seam allowance to pattern pieces by using just 1 echo.
8. Show/Hide Print Preview:
very powerful, very handy: you can see how a pattern will print over multiple pages. When you add a little line above the pattern to create extra margin and move it, you can immediately see how it influences the position on the printed pages.
9. Rulers show inches (or mm)
When the View menu is set to inches, the rulers show inches only, and not feet and yards anymore.
10. Spiral Maker has an extra shape: double swirl. This makes it easier to insert it into a continuous line pattern.
11. Magic Circle can put 24 copies in a wreath (was 12).
12. More color swatches in the palette on the right (16).
13. You can Skew a design, by moving the two Skew controls/handles in the Selection box.
14. You can set the angle of a note (0, 90, 180 and 270 degrees). This is helpful for pattern drafting, to set the notes along a pattern line. For example along the "Center Front" line you would place the note at 270 degrees.
New in Pre-Design Studio III (compared to Studio II):
New function "Magic Square" - Turn a selection into a block of 4
The new Magic Square tool will in one step copy the original, mirror it and place it to the right. Then it will copy the two objects together, flip vertical and place it under the original. So you will get 4 elements with one click. This is as much fun as the Magic Circle - a quick way to get truly creative patterns, even if you’re not an artist!
New buttons Rotate left, Rotate right, Mirror and Flip - new buttons in Toolbar, to make editing easier.
Extra settings added to Rotate dialog box: 45, 90, -90, -45 degrees. Handy for the new Magic Square function.
New function "Repeat" - Multiply and align a selection
The Repeat function will copy and paste a selection as many times as you set in the Repeat dialog window, horizontally and/or vertically. You can adjust the spacing in the dialog window.
Extra function added to Panto Maker/Border Maker: Flip every other shape. Lets you make even more creative borders with the click of a mouse.
Copy Pattern Vectors: With this function you can copy the vector information to the Windows Clipboard, and paste it into other vector drawing software, such as Art and Stitch, Adobe Illustrator and AutoSketch.
Paste Special: This function lets you paste vector information copied as vectors to clipboard in other vector drawing software onto the Pre-Design Studio III design page.
Polygon Maker: creates polygon shapes with any number of sides (triangle, diamond, pentagon, hexagon, octogon etc.)
Function "Delete" added to the right-click menu (same as the Delete command in the Edit menu).
New function "Lasso Select", making it easier to select multiple points. Drag a selection marquee around the points you want to select. Release the mouse and take the Select tool. Then manipulate the selection: move, cut, copy or delete. It’s an easy way to select multiple points together.
New function in menu Edit and in right-click menu: Duplicate (Ctrl+D): places a copy of the selection a little offset of the original.
True Type Fonts point size: the program will now use the point size of the font. So when you set the size to e.g. 200 points, the resulting artwork is bigger than when it is set to 20 points.
An extra export format is added: *.plt , for the QBOT quilt system. Pre-Design Studio III can export in the following quilt formats:
AutoCAD (*.dxf),
ABM Innova (*.pat)
CompuQuilter (*.cqp)
Handi Quilter (*.hqf)
PC-Quilter (*.txt)
QBOT (*.plt)
SideSaddle (*.ssd)
This is page 54 of the User Guide: