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.

Building upon the essential guide, it offers step-by-step instructions for creating complex designs by using fractal fills and lettering as cores for the plant fill. Additionally, it demonstrates how to generate symmetrical corner decorations by combining the curly plant ornament with the Corner tool, offering users practical methods to enhance their embroidery projects.

Example #1 - Using the Fractal Fill as a 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) from which to grow the plant fill.

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

   Mesh object drawn with vectors

2. Open the Parameters window.
3. Select Net > Fractal fill.
4. Select a Fractal Kind (e.g., #25).
5. Switch on the Smooth option if desired.
6. Set the Average Width of Gap to a larger value (e.g., 20).
7. Select Single Layer.
8. Generate Stitches to see the stitch layout.
   

   Net > Fractal fill with large spacing

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

    Delete the contour

12. Select the remaining outline objects.
13. Use the 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 the Parameters window.
15. Change the mesh mode from Net to Plant > Curly Branching.
16. Change the Growth Kind to From Core.
17. Switch to the Core tab and change the Core Kind to Carvings.
18. Generate Stitches.
    

    Plant sprouts growing from the fractal core

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

    Leaf and flower parameters changed

Example #2 - Using Lettering as a 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) from which to grow the plant fill.

1. Draw a Mesh Object; it should be large enough.
2. Create lettering (you need the Font Engine plugin for Embird). Select plain fill mode without outlines for the lettering.
   

   Lettering

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

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

5. The lettering is now in the form of plain fills. Use the main menu > Convert > Fill, Mesh & Sfumato > Create Outlines from Fill command to create outlines of the lettering.
6. You now have two lettering objects, one on top of the other. The first is in plain fills, and the second is in outlines.
7. Now delete the first lettering object (plain fills).
8. Use the 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 the Parameters window.
10. Switch off Include contours (both outer and inner) in the main mesh settings.
11. Change the 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 the Core tab and change the 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 the lettering.
18. If the lettering is bold, the sprouts may also appear inside the letters. This is not the case in the example above, as the letters are thin and there is no space for the sprouts inside them.

Example #3 - Symmetrical Corner Decorations

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

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

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

Vector contour of mesh object that will generate the ornament for corners

Place the Origin Point of the plant.

Mesh object with Origin point

Select the finished mesh object and invoke the Parameters window. Switch to the 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 for the mesh object. Note: your ornament will look different from the illustration below because the plant generation is pseudo-random.

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

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

Ornament converted to outline objects and rotated by 45 degrees

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

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

Icon of the corner option

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