pfaffies-digest            Thursday, 5 June 1997       Volume 01 : Number 1541

From: Kelly Floyd <102336.3302@CompuServe.COM>
Date: 05 Jun 97 10:45:34 EDT
Subject: PFAFF: Autotrace

When autotracing, the stitches always start at the far leftmost pixel of the
bmp.   For example, draw a heart with paint brush, import it to the PCD
software.  Autotrace the heart; the first stitch point will be some here on the
top left third of the heart and traces left to right.  Now, take that same
heart.  Draw a line from the far left edge to the bottom tip of the heart; be
sure the line extends past the left most part of the heart.   Import it to PCD
and autotrace.  The first stitch will be again at the left most pixel except
this time it will be at the start of the line and go to the bottom of the heart.
Delete the stitches where the extra line is placed.  

You can control where the first stitch starts in this manner.  You can also
control how the lines are place, too.   If I want the heart to trace counter
clockwise from the bottom of the heart, I would draw the line to the tip of
heart.  I would then erase a couple of pixels on the left side of the heart at
the tip with the line connecting at the right side of the gap.  This would force
autotrace to place the stitches counter-clockwise.  I erase small gaps
throughout the design to force autotrace to place the stitch points exactly
where I want them.

If part of your design is not completely connected, you can also draw connecting
lines where you want the stitch path to go.

I use autotrace for everything.  I run two copies of PCD-WIN running at the same
time when I do my B-fills. By second copy, I do not have two copies on the hard
drive, I just run two copies of the software by opening a second copy in
windows.  I autotrace the design, and save it.   I mark the end of my outline by
placing an extra stitch and dragging it out of the way. This way I can easily
delete the outline later.  After deciding how I want the design to stitch out,
I open a second copy of  PCD-WIN and bring up the outline.  Select B-fill for
the first color to stitch and fill the first section of your design.  Adjust the
color as needed, DON"T CLICK ANYWHERE INSIDE THE DESIGN AREA, and use the copy
command to copy the area just filled to the clipboard.  Use ALT-TAB to switch to
the second copy of PCD (Permanent design copy). Tap the end key to make sure you
are at the end of the outline and paste the second section to the end of the
outline.  Use the move tool to position the filled area as required. Use ALT-TAB
to go to the other copy of pcd-win (Temporary Design Copy).  Fill the next
section, copy, and switch to other copy of PCD.  Paste the filled section to the
end of the design and then move it into position. Put stitches on the dragged
stitch line to bury the stitches either under a section that will be filled
later or follow that outline to the next section so that the outline stitches
will hide the travelling stitches.  Continue doing this until your design is
filled.  Save often!  Tap the home key to go to the first stitch point on your
design on the permanent copy.  Hold the shift key down and click on the extra
stitch placed earlier.  The outline and only the outline should be highlighted.
Use the cut command to get rid of the outline.  Tap the end key now and use the
paste command to put the outline back in to the design and moving the outline as
needed.