Liliana: Recien encuentro su pregunta, perdon que no habia dejado una respuesta. Cualquier software profesional (hoy en dia) viene con un programa de entrenamiento. Yo compre el programa Optitex; lamentablemente sin guia pero hay un wiki que supone, alguien puede ensenarse solo. Yo, como torpe, he faltado. Me cuesta entender. Ademas y sobre todo, uno tiene que saber como hacer patrones/modelos.

Cody: this is an older entry. If anyone is interested, there’s two newer entries that are must reads, particularly if you’re trying to draft in illustration programs. The first is Cad vs Cad and the other is CAD software compatibility in marker making.

With respect to whether it is easy, it depends. As I told Liliana, you have to already know how to make patterns and it depends on the facility with which you learn computer programs. Optitex is a full fledged industrial program (recommended) with a broad range of features and capacity. It’s also more expensive than CorelDraw. One might be better off hiring it out to someone who has the tools until you can determine whether acquiring the needed skills and money would be of advantage to you.

As far as I’ve been able to determine, the only mainstream retailer that uses 3D scanning is Brooks Brothers, and even they only currently do menswear.

Aside from a very steep learning curve, a good designer can already visulize a garment by sketching, so why spend tens of thousands on software when working it out in a sketch is faster and cheaper? Also, do you have to send all your sample fabrics to a testing lab for the inputs on the CAD software? Sounds expensive to me. And time consuming.

The software isn’t aimed at helping the designer visualize a garment. A sketch is to a pattern as “I want a big house” is to a blueprint. The software is aimed at helping the patternmaker convert the sketch into a pattern.

The software allows you to see the _intricacies_ of fit for a given pattern. It cuts out numerous interations of patternmaking/sample making/revision/fit model/etc/etc/etc.

With 4-way stretch fabrics, getting the fit right can be a bear. The software doesn’t take the work out, but it does take a lot of the time out of the problem (not to mention the yardage – since samples have to be made of production fabric, muslin and substitutes are useless for lycra fitting). Without the software, its also easy to stop at “good enough” rather than “perfect.”

One neat thing I didn’t mention about the software is that it generates a “heat map” for you as well. Let’s say your pattern causes a bit of excess fabric to gather where you don’t want it to. You can press a button and see a highly detailed representation of the tightness/looseness of the garment across the model’s body. If the garment is too tight or too lose in a specific region, it can give you a quick clue where you may want to alter your pattern. Then, make a few clicks to move a few points on the 2D pattern and render it again to see the result.

As far as fabric testing, you can have your fabrics tested or you can use the common fabric types already loaded in the software. For us, it made sense to test our fabrics as we only use three.

I have no experience using the software with wovens. For knits though, its dandy.