Graphic Softwares- A Boon in Apparel Fashion Designing

By: Dr. Meenu Srivastava

Graphic Softwares- A Boon in Apparel Fashion Designing

By: Dr. Meenu Srivastava The fashion industry has come a long way and has grown into one of the largest industries in the world. On account of the growth of this industry, the use of technology in this field has increased. Fashion designing software is increasingly being used by fashion designers. Fashion designing software greatly aids the work of a fashion designer and held in more effective performance. They help in saving a lot of a time, money and energy. These software packages help the designer in experimenting with a number of textures, colours and patterns for producing the perfect design. They provide a variety of sketch backgrounds, tools for designings and repeating patterns and texture mapping. Basically, there are two types of software that fashion designer can choose from vector-based software or raster-based software. Vector images are also object-oriented drawings. Vector images provide greater resolution and quality as compared to raster images cab be resized without degrading the quality of the image. They are much smaller than raster images. Raster images are more realistic than vector images. They can be used to create a natural picture by providing a number of special effects. It is for the designer to decide whether to use vector-based software or raster based software. Some other factors to be considered while deciding upon which designing software to use are the computer hard derive space, memory, processor speed and operating system requirements. Most of the software can easily be purchased online. The right fashion designing software helps the designer in expanding his creativity by allowing him to experiment with a wide range of designs, patterns, textures and colours. More work can be achieved in less time with the help of such software, which helps in increasing productivity. Advantages CAD/Cams were invented in 1960 they are the boon to the apparel and textile industry. CAD is used in computer designing while Cam is use in manufacturing process of design development. 1) It gives an ease to design with an overview of the outlook. 2) It gives relief to the designers from wastage of resources-time, money etc. 3) Manual labour is reduced drastically and there is no need to takeout the print every time. 4) The designs can be visualized in different patterns such as necklines, collar style, variation in yoke pattern, placement of pockets etc. 5) Alteration are easily done to suit the persons taste or as per the requirement of the trade. 6) Large number of designs can be stored for further modifications. 7) Editing of the design can be done at any stage and design can be viewed in multiple colourways before fabrication and marketing. 8) Accuracy of design parts is more as compared to manual designing. 9) It improves creative vision of the designers. 10) Its a boon to the Designers with poor drawing capabilities. 11) Imparts more efficiency and creativity in developing designs.

12) Input is very little while output is tremendous. Softwares used in Apparel industry areThere are various fashion design software package available in the market today, such as Above Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator and CorelDraw among other, fashion designer have often been observed to use customized software according t o their own individual requirements. They aid the designer right from the stage of designing to the production of apparel. Perfectly fitting garments can be created. The process of creating a design or a pattern as well as cutting has become easier with the help of software. Designs can be made faster and more accurately. There are a number of basic designs incorporated in the software, which the designer can make use of. The designers cab make modifications in the basic designs and personalize them. Even 2D and 3D formats of a design cab be created. These designs can be printed or sent to other through e-mail. Such software helps the designer in creating a number of patterns and also in the repetition of patterns. They also help the designer in selecting the right texture for the garment. The designer can choose the right color for the garment from the various colour available and can even customize them. It helps in the easy management of production. The efficiency and productivity of the designer increases with the use of designing software. Operations/Functions Fashion industry Printed design system Cutting system Embroidery system Weaving system Integrated information system Design editing system Some other softwares having specific functions1) Ned Graphics 2) Optitex Development of these softwares had been a boon to the Apparel and textile industry as well, because apparel designing begins where textile designing ends A brief description of the above softwares will provide a glimpses towards special features of each software which stimulates their application in Apparel fashion designing. 1. Corel Draw: Corel Draw is vector graphic software allows user to produce world class illustration with 16.7 million colours. Understanding of this software will help us to translate all our ideas into great looking designs. Salient features: With Corel Draw we can create illustration from scrateh enhance the design, use and embellish scanned photos of our designs and send to our finished work out in many ways. A vector based drawing programme with extensive handling and precision drawing feature. Ideal tool for virtually and design project such as curve tool, colour bar and shape tool etc. Softwares Adobe illustrator, CorelDraw, Auto CAD, Karat CAD,I.B. designer etc. ADS CAD/CAM Gerber, Lectra, Autometrix Wilcom, ADS embroidery Brother Shima seike, ENEAS designer, Stall Prostyle, Lectra, PDM/Gerber Adobe photoshop

Application: Full colour design illustration. Complete design drawing. Photo realistic images. Libraries of design. High quality drawing from low resolution originally.

Thus, coral draw is actually playing in colors and textures of an in exhaustive range full of fun and creativity 2. TukaCAD It is comprising of 2 modules Tukadesign and Tukamark. The Tukakad software can be used for pattern drafting/ drawing, grading as well as for pattern making, respectively. Tukadesign is a windows 95 automated pattern design system. Virtually any kind of pattern can be created with this package starting right from the basic blocks, to patterns with or without seam allowances. Tukamark is a windows 95 automated marker system. The system uses windows 95 capability along with the marker making tools with drop down menus, which can be used conveniently , for efficient placement of pattern piece.

3. Karat CAD : It gives the power to design simple and complex drawing easier. The garments can be drawn on scale over mannequin from built in library or one can use his own mannequin to draw garments to scale and with exact measurements. Add garment dimensioning easily. Features: precise matching lines can be added automatically from a full library of stitch types (single needle, overlock, zig-zag) The system allows the user to specify the off set ; ie; 1/8 single needle or inch double needle The button tool box allows to specify precisely the buttons you need Easily add shirring details to a garment Fine details like ribs, lace, zippers can be added to easily follow any garment shape Texture fill option allows to create new looks Add seem or stitch type symbols to ensure construction accuracy Easy to use. Use a mannequin for reference while drawing, scan and vectors hand drawn images Build your own library of style books as you design Powerful modifying tools (scissors, extend , change corners, curve and uncurl objects.) Object mirroring Scale up or down visually or by drifting a factor Stretch any objects visually or by defining a distance.

Casual wear

4. Adobe IllustratorIt is used to create graphics for print , multimedia CDs and the internet. In the hands of a creative artist this package can be used to create anything from small designs to large, complex projects or paintings. Illustrator provides the user with a wide variety of general and specialised tools and commands that can be used to create basic geometric shapes as well as precise drawings and patterns. Through this software only 2D designs can be produce. 5. Adobe PhotoshopIt is without doubt one of the most powerful image editors on the market today. It offers professional level capabilities in print and electronic media. Photoshop is a raster based image editing program. One may better call it as a digital darkroom. It can open and edit a wide variety of digital images images created on PhotoShop or another software or traditional photographs that have been scanned (a technique that creates a digital image of physical images) . What are once accomplished with chemicals in the photographers dark room is now accomplished in the computer by manipulating pixels. Photoshop can create images with its paintbrush tool, airbrush tool, pin tools and pencils tool, one can draw paint and form a background with various tools. Photo shop also boosts its layering feature. This enables us to combine images and create collages by working on one part of an image at a time. Each layer is totally separate from the others, thus enabling us to change its capacity and edit to your hearts content. One can stylize, sketch, zoom, blur, apply textures, and various filters, layer, transform, merge, malt, rotate, preview and modify the images and thus get wild with ones creativity. Photoshop is a powerful application for color painting, retouching photos and editing images. The program consists of full range of tools and editing images. The program consists of full range of tools, which aid in selection, painting, editing, color correcting and also applying a vast variety of special effects. It excels as an art of production tool and penetrates nearly every sphere of creative production. PhotoShop creates and manipulates high quality digital images. One of the most distinguishing feature of this program, is the adjustment layer with these layers we can apply tonal and color corrections to an image or to specific sections of an image, such as brightness or curve adjustment, to the image without permanently changing it. 6. Auto CAD It is a very powerful designing and drafting software on a desktop computer. It serves almost all the purposes of a designer and a draftsman. Software replaces the conventional method of drawing, using drawing boards and drafters and also brings the whole new set-up of the desktop computer. It follows the users instructions and quickly produces the exact drawing to the users specifications. It also lets you to correct drawing errors easily and make revisions without redoing the entire drawings. As a final output it produces clean precise final drawings either on a printer or a plotter. Auto CAD Applications: Can be used as a very powerful drafting tool which replaces the drawing boards and conventional method of drafting. AutoCAD is a powerful design tool AutoCAD can be used in 3-D modeling of complex architectural, civil engineering structures. Used in customizing the design and design applications.

7. Designer: Designers jeans, designers colors, designer telephones everything got the word designer tucked to it lately but window designer actually deserves the name. It is a serious tool for serious artists but one easy enough to be used by the beginners. Designer is the real graphics program for the PC Designer is the real graphics dynamo.

Apparel designing

Designer used many of the same commands as it is less talented sibling i.e. windows draw. But it adds sophisticated curves, the ability to mix object oriented and bit mapped graphics, rotate anything to any angle and mix your own color from a palette of up to 3.6 million. It also has a scanned image support and an extra large working area. Designer is the first object graphics program that is a really comfortable for creating complex graphics. If you want to do something simpler the basic tools are available in an on-screen palette. The scope of this program is overwhelming. helpful in constructing the garment with draw tools editing the design using style tools creating effects through 3D tool importing and exporting garments printing the design

8. Picture PublisherSpecial features are Scanning the figures and patterns Modifying through Mask Tools Coloring figures by Paint on Mask Tool Handling of Tiff File

9. LECTRA : Computer design, inc. , a lectra systems company , is a provider of CAD software used in the design of fabrics, apparel , accessories and footwear. The designers to create photo-realistic renderings of new designs to shorten the design cycle can use this software. While providing collateral for merchandising, advertising and catalogs. Lectra systems are global suppliers of CAD/CAM systems for the footwear and other sawn products industries. Romans CAD are a complete footwear design and engineering system featuring both 2D and 3D capabilities. Lectra systems also offer a wide variety of samples and production cutting systems utilizing laser, knife and Watergate technologies. The Fabric Drapery module in such software allows the

designer to drape a design on a model by dragging and dropping the design on the model. Patterns can be created and applied on the design. The Image Repeat option allows the designer to repeat images, rotate them and perform overlays. The Fabric recoloring option allows the designer to change the colour of the fabric used in t he design and in customizing colors. 10. TEX Illustrator: (Garment Styling and Illustration Software for Windows.) Illustration is the basis of all end products and our software, Tex Illustrator helps to achieve that with less effort. It is software based on giving the user a clear visual picture as to how he desires his styled garment to look like. The three major aspects of Tex Illustrator are styling, illustration and presentation. This software is very user friendly and helps the designer to style or design a garment of his/her choice in a variety of different ways, by just piecing up a style and parts from the preset style library containing a variety of styles and parts. The user may also add extra details or descriptions with handy drawing tools provided. Not only that, the user can also try filling in different patterns of desired fabric types (woven or printed) to visualize the finished look of the garment . This would not only satisfy the visual appeal but also help the designer in presenting his work to the buyers or to put it up in a Catalogue. Different features available in tex illustrator: The most important feature of this software is in built library. You can style your own garment. If the user is not satisfied with parts provided in library he may use the simple drawing tools to draw the style as desired. The next feature is the illustrated output. The presentation aspect is the final aim of the product.

11. CADian-2002

Indias premiere CAD / CAM company HOPE Technologies Ltd. in association with Intel USA, presents CADian, a technology which is best known for its user friendliness, rich functionalitys and price. CADian offers many unique productivity features: including the ability to open multiple drawings at once; a drawing explorer that lets you review and exchange drawing content with drag-and-drop ease; and visual customization of menus and toolbars- no programming required. CADian provides in place editing of Microsoft objects written in Microsoft word, Microsoft excel. In place editing helps you to share data with the different users and the programs.

Raster image display: Image enabler of CADian 2002 supports the image file such as scanned files or photos or drawings. Some of the supported formats are BMP, CALS, GIF, JPG, PCX, TIF, TIFF, DAT, HRF, TGA, PNG, RAS, RLC and BIL. CADian lets one easily create 3D designs using the 3D drawing tools. Work with multiple open drawings CADian can open a number of drawings in a individual session. You can drag and drop/ cut-paste objects from one drawing to another. Real time pan and zoom CADian allows users to work with their drawings using time pan and zoom. Visual Basic for applications CADian includes a full implementation of Microsoft Visual Basic, Applications edition (VBA), a dev. Environment that simplifies the creation and execution of visual Basic Application. 12. Gerber Garment Technology: The worlds leading manufacturer and supplier of automation solutions for the sewn goods industries, including apparel footwear, automotive/ aerospace and furniture. Accumark software for grading, cutting and marking. Conclusion:

Graphic Softwares are intricate part of fashion designing .Different software such as Corel Draw, Photoshop, fashion CAD etc. are used in clothing sector which immensely benefited the designer. Large embroideries can be machine produced based on design developed using AUTOCAD or other design software. These software allows the designer to shrink, enlarge, rotate , mirror design, and select colors and types of stitches that can then be embroidered on materials ranging from satin to leather to make products like baseball caps and jackets.

About the Author: Author is Associate Professor and Head, Department of Textiles & Apparel designing, College of Home Science, MPUAT, Udaipur (Raj.)