New tartan design tool feedback

[Pinch]

Hello fellow tartan enthusiasts!

I'm hoping to get some feedback from you guys on a new tartan designer tool that I've been building for clan.com this past year. It's currently released in Beta but I'd love to hear feedback and suggestions from you guys as the people who usually try it out are usually much less well versed with the nature of tartan.

Generally impressions of the approach or what you think could be improved upon while it's still in development. Maybe parts that you didn't find intuitive and maybe had to check the help centre / gave up on?

Of particularly interest to you guys with more knowledge in the field may be some of the settings in the left menu. Toggling a different warp/weft, symmetry (mirroring), and previewing it in different weave styles. The latter are mostly a bit of conceptual fun, I'm not sure if many mills have the capability to weave herringbone tartan!

Thanks for your time, hopefully you'll give it a shot and let me know what you think. Even if it's negative, but please be kind

There are a few areas still under development, for instance the help centre, but I'm hoping you might be able to inform what needs more TLC there. There will also be colour snapping to particular yarn shades (this is currently otherwise controlled by automatic closest yarn selection in “Advanced Colour Settings” of the Save menu).

Cheers,
Chris.

[figheadair]

Without wishing to appear negative, you did ask, and I'm a weaver so understand the technicalities better than most.

Whilst fairly simple to use, I find it quite slow and ponderous but there again, I have access to a faster programme, not that it doesn’t have its limitations too.

I do not see the point in offering people different weaves as a) often they will not understand the terms, and b) they will not understand the differences in the cloth, for example twill verses plain weave.

A cloth woven in a 2/2 twill is structurally the most stable cloth which is why it was traditionally used for most tartan, for denim and other hard-wearing materials. Why would you want to offer a plain weave or basket weave? And it is really suggesting that they could have cloth woven in a 3/3 twill?

The biggest area for development is the graphics themselves. The plain weave and basket weave are represented the same, just in different sizes, whereas they are structurally different. Similarly, the herringbone graphic is wrong in that the weave does not reverse back and forward as a true herringbone does.



This graphic shows a 2/2 twill that transitions into a true herringbone.

[OC Richard]

First, I love the ability to create any colour!

Most tartan designers I've tried limit you to stock colours, generally not allowing me to make what I want.

What's really cool is that I can adjust the colours after they're part of a tartan. I don't think I've seen one like that. Sometimes you don't know exactly what colour is needed until the tartan starts coming together.

However I found the method of building the tartan counterintuitive and clumsy.

[Pinch]

Thanks for your honest feedback, I appreciate that naturally yes there will be more efficient tools for professionals, however this one is more tailored towards enabling non-professionals where efficiency isn't the primary concern.

Why would you want to offer a plain weave or basket weave? And it is really suggesting that they could have cloth woven in a 3/3 twill?

For a bit of context here, this isn't a design tool designed specifically for weaving - it's for allowing people to design any tartan and have it woven, or alternatively printed on a mug / t-shirt / etc. The weave style preview would not have no bearing on an actual weave. That's the reason we offer sub-optimal weave styles, as it will just as a way of users to have a slight more control over how the lines intersect visually.

The biggest area for development is the graphics themselves. The plain weave and basket weave are represented the same, just in different sizes, whereas they are structurally different. Similarly, the herringbone graphic is wrong in that the weave does not reverse back and forward as a true herringbone does.

This graphic shows a 2/2 twill that transitions into a true herringbone.

This is very useful to me thanks, is there any consistency to how many threads are between each transition?
Ultimately I'm just a programmer, so am not familiar with all the weave styles that are physically possible, so your advice here is actually very informative in helping me make it more accurate.
I'd also be interested to learn how the Plain/Basket should actually differ too, or if there are other common styles I've overlooked (is houndstooth, for example, possible with tartan?)

[Pinch]

First, I love the ability to create any colour!

Most tartan designers I've tried limit you to stock colours, generally not allowing me to make what I want.

What's really cool is that I can adjust the colours after they're part of a tartan. I don't think I've seen one like that. Sometimes you don't know exactly what colour is needed until the tartan starts coming together.

However I found the method of building the tartan counterintuitive and clumsy.

Thanks Richard! Are you able to provide more insight on what in particular you found counter-intuitive and clumsy so I can potentially improve it?

[figheadair]

This is very useful to me thanks, is there any consistency to how many threads are between each transition?Ultimately I'm just a programmer, so am not familiar with all the weave styles that are physically possible, so your advice here is actually very informative in helping me make it more accurate.
I'd also be interested to learn how the Plain/Basket should actually differ too, or if there are other common styles I've overlooked (is houndstooth, for example, possible with tartan?)

Traditionally, a herringbone was only used on the selvegde area, not across the whole wide of the cloth. Herringbone bands were generaly 10 or 12 ends wide i.e. the change in direction was every 11th or 13th thread.

Plain weave - 1 over/1 under.

Basket weave - 2 over/1 under.

Houndstooth is simple a four thread alternating check.

[OC Richard]

Thanks Richard! Are you able to provide more insight on what in particular you found counter-intuitive and clumsy so I can potentially improve it?

I suppose it's just due to what I'm used to.

For my brain the clearest way to conceptualise and compare tartans is like this



and tartanmaking programs that work that way (which have been all that I've tried) are easy for me to use.

In all probability there are many ways that people see tartans, but I only know the way I see them.

[Pinch]

Thanks again guys.

I've renamed Herringbone as I've clearly misunderstood it, and re-implemented Basketweave.

Yes the format in those books does look particularly good for comparison, though this isn't really a comparison tool. Additionally it is actually represented in the strip above the ruler, so you could just ignore the intersecting preview if you explicitly wanted to focus on that style of stripped down view.

[kilted2000]

Would you mind sharing the technologies you used to build this? I'm a software engineer so I'm interested in this sort of thing.

[Pinch]

Would you mind sharing the technologies you used to build this? I'm a software engineer so I'm interested in this sort of thing.

Sure, it's almost entirely just custom Javascript (JQuery) and a few minor third party Javascript libraries for some components like colour picking. The fabric preview is drawn in a HTML canvas, generated in a tiling manner and tiled as a repeating pattern.