Fractal Fill

Embird Embroidery Software Tutorial

This tutorial explains how to fill an empty area with a Fractal fill pattern. It is also possible to fill color areas of a converted background image.

Note: See also Double-click to Fill Empty Area in Editor, Quilt Fill, Mesh Fill, Create Emoji Design and Surprise Me! - Create a new design with only a few clicks.

1 - Run Embird and click the "Editor" menu to switch to the Editor window.

2 - Open a design using the "File > Open" menu; for example, open the free design "squirrel".

3 - Double-click an empty area to fill it with stitches (Picture No. 1).

1. Double-click an empty area to fill it with stitches

4 - Select the "Fractal" type of filling (Picture No. 2).

2. Select Fractal fill type

5 - A dialog with "Fractal" fill settings will appear (Picture No. 3). Select a pattern, change parameters, and click the "OK" button to fill the clicked empty area.

3. Fractal fill settings

There are various parameters available, allowing you to create many combinations:

Tip: Change a parameter and after a short while watch the Preview box to see how it affects the final result. In some cases, these previews are interactive - they allow you to change the focus of the applied fill pattern modification by clicking in the Preview box to move the red focus cross - e.g., for "Fish Eye" transformation.

Type - Choose the fractal type - fill pattern. Switch ON the Two colors checkbox and specify the rotation angle of this optional second color. Click the ... button to select a fill pattern from the grid, which also allows you to search by name.

Offset - Specify the offset from the outside boundary (i.e., offset from hoop edges in this example) which is not filled. Switch ON the small checkbox at the right side to include the boundary curve in the fill.

Bounce - Specify the bounce from cavities (i.e., offset from "squirrel" in this example, because this is a cavity in the filled area). Switch ON the small checkbox at the right side to include the cavity curve in the fill.

Distance - Specify the length of the fractal line (turtle step).

Angle - Specify the angle of the whole fill pattern rotation; 360 deg means a random angle.

Stitch Length - Specify the stitch length.

Layers - Specify the layers (strands of thread) for stitching.

Round corners, Smoothing filter, Crook - Apply various kinds of filters to obtain a more organic form of fill.

Decoration - Apply a chosen decoration element.

Transform - Apply a chosen transformation (Scale, Fish Eye, Skew, 3D).

Check the pictures below showing various fills:

4. Fractal fill pattern "Hilbert 1", bounce 8 mm

5. Fractal fill pattern "Hex-7-b", bounce 8 mm

6. Fractal fill pattern "Penrose", bounce 8 mm

6 - It is possible to convert color areas in a background image to stitches and fill them with Fractal patterns (Picture No. 7 and 8).

Note: See also Surprise Me! - Create a new design with only a few clicks.

7. Convert background image to stitches

8. Image converted to stitches, filled with Fractal "Sierpinski square 2" (offset and bounce are 0 mm)

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