Automatic machine knitting is a digital fabrication technology that allows for the production of knitted garments and fabrics using automated knitting machines. While automatic machine knitting is widely used in the global textile industry, the tools available to designers to create these fabrics and garments are often difficult to use and lack advanced features.
To address this issue, researchers have developed design tools that aim to improve the design pipeline for automatic machine knitting. One such tool is KnitGIST (Generative Instantiation Synthesis Toolkit for knitting), which is a program synthesis pipeline and library that generates hand- and machine-knitting patterns by intuitively mapping objectives to tactics for texture design. KnitGIST generates a machine-knittable program in a domain-specific programming language.
Another design tool for automatic machine knitting is KnitPick, which is a pipeline for interpreting hand-knitting texture patterns into KnitGraphs that can be output to machine and hand-knitting instructions. KnitPick also includes two algorithms for manipulating KnitGraphs: KnitCarving, which shapes a graph while respecting a texture, and KnitPatching, which combines graphs with disparate textures while maintaining a consistent shape. KnitPick is the first system to bridge the gap between hand- and machine-knitting when creating complex knitted textures.