Knitter For Linux

Knitter is a program for producing and visualizing three-dimensional models of knitting patterns. It uses GTK+ for a GUI and has been tested on Linux, Windows and OSX.

The program takes in a knitting pattern (expressed very similarly to traditional patterns, but without ambiguities) and produces a three-dimensional model. You can't tell from the screenshots below, but you can actually rotate that model around and zoom in and out using the mouse. Also, those little red spheres are stitches. The red lines going between stitches represent yarn, or at least "connectedness" of stitches. For lines going left and right, the lines would actually be yarn connecting the previous and next stitches. Lines up and down represent loops in the yarn that connect stitches in different rows. We aren't actually drawing the stitches quite yet (we will in a future version), but this lattice structure should accurately represent the structure of a real project using the same instructions.

One of the goals of this project is to support KnitML as an upcoming standard for exchanging knitting patterns. The current version of Knitter does not support all aspects of KnitML, but it is capable of basic functionality, with support for more complex contructs coming later.

The native language for Knitter is closer to a typical knitting pattern. For example, a swatch that's 10 stitches wide and 10 rows tall would look something like:

# Simple 10x10 swatch sk co 9 turn # make a loop, cast on 9, turn fabric { k 10 turn } 9

Notice the braces instead of the * typically used. The reason I used the braces was so that repeated blocks could be nested. Note that if you ran this pattern as is, the stitches would fall off the screen immediately due to gravity. You'll need to fix some of the stitches in space for them to stick around.

# Simple 10x10 swatch, fixed in space sk fix(-4,0,0) co 9 fix(4,0,0) turn { k 10 turn } 9

Here the first slipknot has been fixed in space a little to the left, and the last stitch on the first row has been fixed a little to the right. When the simulation is run, the fabric will be generated and will flop down and be anchored at these two points, as if you were holding them there.