kpg - knitting pattern generator

Introduction

kpg http://sourceforge.net/projects/kpg/ is a free program that can create knitting patterns out of pictures. It can either create straight patterns or illusion patterns that only reveal the picture when viewed at an angle.

The knitting patterns are simple rectangles (squares) that use simple stiches, a regular "knit stitch" and optionally a "perl stitch". The patterns can be used to create large blankets or many smaller patch-work squares suitable for making a large knitted piece. Experienced knitters are able to take the simple square knitting patterns and integrate them into more complex pieces such as jumpers/sweaters.

kpg can take any kind of bitmap image and create a knitting pattern. It is recommended that low colour images/pictures be used to ensure the knitting process is as simple as possible. It is possible to use a black and white picture and create a pattern using only one colour and using different stitches for the picture. Examples below.

kpg http://sourceforge.net/projects/kpg/ is the only free open source tool I know of to create knitting patterns. Essentially a png2knitting_pattern converter. In theory the patterns kpg generates could be used for crochet (with minor modification).

Features

• Convert a picture to a knitting pattern, various image formats supported:
  • .png
  • .gif
  • any thing PIL supports :-)
• Outputs HTML that "looks nice" suitable for printing (or editing). Plain text is also an option
• Template for knitting pattern can be edited in a regular HTML editor like NVU http://www.nvu.com/ if you do not like the default patterns that are generated
• Colour database - can create a list of yarn/thread colours and kpg will pick the closest colour (see mycolors.txt).
• Can create "mono" patterns with only one yarn/thread.
• GUI and command line tool available
• Installable Windows setup.exe
• Python source code available
• Known to run under Intel Linux and Win32
• Free!

Road map ideas include run as cgi and generating intarsia knitting charts (see http://www.sweaterscapes.com/intars.htm and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intarsia_%28knitting%29).

Screen shots

Windows

Linux

Downloads

Downloads are available from sourceforge http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=153389

You can check out the latest release in CVS http://kpg.cvs.sourceforge.net/kpg/

Examples

Example Illusions

• Smiley face source picture http://kpg.sf.net/examples/acid_smiley_36x15.gif
  • non-illusion pattern http://kpg.sf.net/examples/acid_smiley_36x15.html
  • illusion pattern http://kpg.sf.net/examples/acid_smiley_36x15_illusion.html
  • illusion preview 1 http://kpg.sf.net/examples/acid_smiley_36x15_simulated_straight.png
  • illusion preview 2 (at angle) http://kpg.sf.net/examples/acid_smiley_36x15_simulated_angle.png
• Hat source picture http://kpg.sf.net/examples/bw_hat_from_irfanview_edited_in_paint.PNG
  • illusion pattern http://kpg.sf.net/examples/bw_hat_from_irfanview_edited_in_paint_illusion.html

Example Logo

• http://kpg.sf.net/example.html - example pattern produced with kpg (includes input picture). The picture used was 100 pixels square so this means 100 rows with 100 stitches per row, i.e. 10,000 (ten thousand) stitches total.

• http://kpg.sf.net/example.pdf - same example pattern suitable for printing in Adobe Acrobat reader

• http://kpg.sf.net/progress.jpg - photo taken half way through knitting.

• http://kpg.sf.net/just_off_the_needles.jpg - photo taken immediately after knitting (before trailing threads are snipped).

The image was created in inkscape as an SVG http://kpg.sf.net/example.svg then exported (as PNG). The GIMP was used to index the image (and remove dithering) then saved as a PNG. kpg was then used to create the pattern, actually wxkpg (an easy to use GUI for kpg) was used to create the pattern). The generated html file was then opened in OpenOffice and printed from there.

If you use kpg I'd love to have a photo of the final item (along with the source image) for this web page. Contact details are here http://sourceforge.net/users/clach04/

Good sources of images are low colour count images like logos and cartoons, for example, http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=snoopy&btnG=Google+Search

Example Usage

./kpg.py -m mypicture.png

kpg.py -s mypicture.png

Requirements

• Python http://www.python.org/
• Python Imaging Library (PIL) http://www.pythonware.com/products/pil/
• Time and patience, you may need a gfx program to prepare the picture/image, I like the GIMP http://www.gimp.org/ I also found Inkscape http://www.inkscape.org/ to be a great tool for creating the actual image.
  If you use Ubuntu http://www.ubuntulinux.org/ (a truly excellent desktop Linux distro) Python, PIL, and the GIMP should be already installed.

Links

• OpenOffice http://www.openoffice.org for printing out patterns or converting them to pdf.
• AbiWord http://www.abisource.com a smaller word processor that can also print out the patterns kpg generates.
• PDFCreator for Windows http://www.pdfforge.org/products/pdfcreator and http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator is an excellet PDF printer driver. If you use Internet Explorer it can create PDF's directly from within IE using the PDFCreator Toolbar
• YaHP Converter http://www.allcolor.org/YaHPConverter for converting to pdf
• The Gimp http://www.gimp.org best (free) solution I've seen to reduce colour depth (amongst other things).
• IrfanView http://www.irfanview.com great free Windows gfx viewer that can reduce colour depth/counts making it suitable for processing images before making a knitting pattern from it.
• Python http://www.python.org/
• Python Imaging Library (PIL) http://www.pythonware.com/products/pil
• py2exe used for the Windows exe http://www.py2exe.org
• Inno Setup used for the Windows installer. http://www.jrsoftware.org/isinfo.php
• wxWidgets (wxWindows) for python http://www.wxpython.org used for the cross platform gui to kpg.
• Templating is performed via a patched/customised version of http://freespace.virgin.net/hamish.sanderson/htmltemplate.html and http://freespace.virgin.net/hamish.sanderson/texttemplate.html (check CVS for patched versions). I did seriously consider using http://genshi.edgewall.org/ as Genshi is very powerful/capable (and I would recommend it) but I had some HTML that Genshi can't render (sortable tables from http://mochikit.com/).

kpg is similar to cross stitch pattern generators:

• crossstitch.py by Nathan Hurst http://njhurst.com/programming/cross-stitch (kpg was modeled on crossstitch).
• kxstitch a GUI stitch designer http://kxstitch.sourceforge.net

How To / Tutorial

http://njhurst.com/programming/cross-stitch has tutorial on how to prepare images before using this tool to convert to a knitting pattern. The main process is:

1. Reduce number of colours, ideally for knitting ONLY use a couple of colours as more colours makes the knitting process more complex. When reducing the number of colours try to avoid dithering.
   In the GIMP

   • Menu item "Image->Mode->Indexed" then set "Maximum number of colors" to a reasonably small value (for example, 3)
     In IrfanView (Windows Only)
   • Menu item "Image->Decrease Color Depth..." then set depth to a reasonably small value (for example, Custom "3"). Un-check "Use Floyd-Steinberg dithering"
     

2. Save the image as a indexed image. The recommended format is PNG as you can elect to have palettes with "non-standard" colour counts. For example, three which is not a multiple of 2.

3. Run kpg with the image as input. Under Windows simply find wxkpg from the Start Menu and click the "Select Image" button to find the bitmap, then click the "Create knitting pattern" button.
   If using the command line version, simply run with the image as an input command line argument, this will (by default) create a HTML file in the same directory as the image. E.g.

          python kpg.py myimage.png
      

   Or under Unix like systems:
   
   

          ./kpg.py myimage.png
      

   
   The image can be in any (indexed) bitmap format supported by PIL (e.g. png, gif, etc.).
   

4. Print out the pattern, it is recommended to open the HTML pattern file in a word processor for printing to ensure that the colour table is printed correctly and to ensure that row instructions do not get broken across pages. I recommend OpenOffice http://www.openoffice.org/

Currently kpg creates patterns where the foreground colour is knitted in a different stitch to the background. Simple two colour pictures could be knitted with just one colour thread and still be visible as a pattern in the final knitted material. Simply ignore references to different colour threads and follow the stitch pattern.

Project Page http://sourceforge.net/projects/kpg/