The commercial realisation of complex textile craft techniques by CAD and inkjet printing

There are many techniques in textile crafts which are virtually impossible to produce commercially, for example hand and computer generated embroidered textiles and hand knotted woven fabrics. With the growing interest in the consumer market in the UK particular for textile craft products, it is becoming increasingly important to develop reproducible techniques to enable these products to be made to a commercially acceptable level.
With the capability of ink jet printing being able to print at high resolution and in almost true colour, it is possible to simulate these techniques on fabric. In doing so, accurate colour representation must be achieved; the method of colour management used will be examined.
This paper will start by discussing textile CAD systems and comparing them to general graphic software. It will describe the steps required to obtain identical images of the textile craft onto a CAD system, with the correct resolution, number of colours and size.