Curly Plant Mesh - Advanced Techniques

Step-by-step Guide

This guide is a follow-up to the Curly Plant Mesh - Essential Guide . It explains how to combine the Mesh tool and other digitizing tools to create complex embroidery designs.

Example #1 - Use of the Fractal Fill as Core for the Curly Plant Fill

The main principle behind this example is to create fractal lines, convert them to outlines and then to carvings of the mesh object. Once the mesh object has carvings, they can be used as a platform (core) to grow the plant fill from.

1. Draw Mesh Object , it must be large enough. 10x10cm (4x4 inches) for example.
   

   Mesh object drawn with vectors

2. Open Parameters window
3. Select Net > Fractal fill
4. Select Fractal Kind (#25, for example)
5. Switch on Smooth option if you wish
6. Set Average Width of Gap to some larger value (20, for example)
7. Select Single Layer
8. Generate Stitches to see layout of stitches
   

   Net > Fractal fill with large spacing

9. Select this new Mesh object and use main menu > Convert > Fill, Mesh & Sfumato > Create Separate Outline Elements command
10. Select the newly created object, which is in fact a group of outlines sitting on top of the original Mesh object. Ungroup this new outline objects.
11. Delete outline representing outer contour of the object. We will not need carving line of this shape
    

    Delete the contour line item

12. Select remaining outline objects
13. Use main menu > Convert > Outline > Outline To Carving command. The outline items should disappear from the Object Inspector panel because they become carvings of the original Mesh object
14. Select the Mesh object and open Parameters window
15. Change mesh mode from Net to Plant > Curly Branching
16. Change the Growth Kind to From Core
17. Switch to Core tab and change Core Kind to Carvings
18. Generate Stitches
    

    Plant sprouts growing from the fractal core

19. Adjust other parameters (flowers, leaves, etc.) if you wish
    

    Leaf and flower parameters changed

Example #2 - Use of Lettering as Core for the Curly Plant Fill

The main principle behind this example is to create lettering, convert it to outlines and then to carvings of the mesh object. Once the mesh object has carvings, they can be used as a platform (core) to grow the plant fill from.

1. Draw Mesh Object , it must be large enough.
2. Create lettering (you need to have Font Engine plugin for Embird). Select plain fill mode without utlines for the lettering.
   

   Lettering

3. Place lettering object on top of the Mesh object. Resize lettering to fit inside of the Mesh object.
4. Use main menu > Transform > Envelope command to enter the envelope mode. Adjust the lettering object with envelope. Notice the space left around lettering inside the Mesh object to allow growing of the sprouts.
   

   Lettering adjusted with envelope placed on the Mesh object (rectangle)

5. Lettering is now in the form of plain fills. Use main menu > Convert > Fill, Mesh & Sfumato > Create Outlines from Fill command to create outlines of the lettering
6. You have 2 lettering objects one on top of the other now. The first is in pain fills, the second is in outlines.
7. Delete the first lettering object (plain fills)
8. Use main menu > Convert > Outline > Outline To Carving command. The outline items should disappear from the Object Inspector panel because they become carvings of the original Mesh object
   

   Mesh object with carvings created from lettering

9. Select the Mesh object and open Parameters window
10. Switch off the Include contours (both outer and inner) in the common mesh settings
11. Change mesh mode from Net to Plant > Curly Branching
12. Change the Growth Kind to From Core
13. Change Span to Inner
14. Change Maximum Sprout Generations to 2
15. Switch to Core tab and change Core Kind to Carvings
16. Generate Stitches
    

    Plant sprouts growing from the lettering core

17. Because of the limited number of sprout generations the sprouts do not extend to the contour of the mesh object and they roughly follow the shape of lettering
18. If lettering is thick, the sprouts may appear also inside of the letters. This is not true with above example as letters are thin and there is no space for the sprouts inside them

Example #3 - Symmetrical Corner Decorations

This example demonstrates combination of curly plant ornament and Corner tool , which puts copies of selected objects into corners of the hoop

We will create one copy of the ornament with use of the Mesh tool and then convert ornament to outlines and use Corner tool on these outlines. Conversion to outlines is importatnt step if we want each corner copy to look exactly the same as others. Mesh plant object, which is source of the ornament uses pseudo-random generation. This means that rotated versions of the same plant object generate different ornaments. This is the reason why we need to create one ornament, convert it to outlines and apply Corner function on these outlines rather than on the original mesh object.

The first step is to draw the mesh object . Draw the mesh object in horizontal position (not rotated). In this simple example, we can utilize Snap to Grid option for easy drawing of the mesh object. Notice the 90 deg. angle at the top of the object. This part will later fit into the hoop corner.

Place Origin point of the plant

Select finished mesh object, invoke the Parameters window . Switch to Plant category , Curly Branching sub-category . Select Growth Kind: Mirror .

Other parameters to be changed are - Include Contours: No , Span: Interior , Flower Count:50% . Now generate the stitches fot the mesh object. Note : your ornament will look different than illustration below because the plant generation is pseudo-random.

Use main menu > Convert > Fill, Mesh & Sfumato > Create Outlines from Mesh command to get ornament in outline objects. All these outlines are grouped into a single item in the Object Inspector window.

Select this object and use main menu > Transform > Transformation Window ... command to invoke panel with controls for various geometric transformations . Switch to Rotate tab in this panel and use its controls to rotate ornament by 45 degrees.

Move rotated ornament to the left-top corner of the hoop.

Use main menu > Build > Corner ... command to invoke the Corner Tool panel with corner options. Select proper corner option and tap Apply button in the top bar.

Identical copies of the ornament are placed into corners of the hoop. Original mesh object which was used as the source of the ornament is left untouched. You may delete it now or save into separate file to preserve it for further work. Resulting design should look more or less like below example.