Threadsmith Design Stats

How it works

Reads a Tajima DST or Melco EXP file (or a stitch list) and reports stitches, jumps, trims, colour changes, size and hoop fit, thread length per colour with a bobbin estimate, sewing time at your machine speed and a thread-density check with the densest spots, plus a thread-look preview.

• DST records are decoded from balanced ternary (bits for ±1, ±3, ±9, ±27, ±81 per axis); runs of three or more jumps count as one trim, as on most machines. EXP bytes are two’s-complement 0.1 mm steps with 0x80 control codes.
• Sewn length = sum of stitch lengths per colour; top thread = sewn length + 0.8 mm take-up per penetration + 5 % waste; bobbin ≈ 33 % of sewn length.
• Sewing time = stitches ÷ speed + trims × trim time + colour changes × change time + 0.15 s per jump.
• Density: each stitch deposits length × 0.4 mm thread width into the 1 mm cells it crosses; values are thread layers (1 ≈ fully covered once).

Thread and time figures are planning estimates; real consumption depends on tension, fabric, stabiliser and machine.

Sources

• Embroidery format DST (header fields, ternary stitch encoding, control codes, trim convention) (EduTech Wiki, University of Geneva)
• Embroidery format EXP (2-byte two’s-complement stitches, 0x80 control codes) (EduTech Wiki, University of Geneva)
• pyembroidery – reference readers/writers for DST and EXP (EmbroidePy)
• Ink/Stitch manual – stitch types, underlay, pull compensation (Ink/Stitch project)
• Felzenszwalb & Huttenlocher, Distance Transforms of Sampled Functions, Theory of Computing 8 (2012)