A Document Format for Sewing Patterns

Abstract

Sewing patterns are a form of technical document, requiring expertise to author and understand. Digital patterns are typically produced and sold as PDFs with human-interpretable vector graphics, but there is little consistency or machine-readable metadata in these documents. A custom file format would enable digital pattern manipulation tools to enhance or replace a paper based workflow. In this vision paper, basic sewing pattern components and modification processes are introduced, and the limitations of current PDF patterns are highlighted. Next, an XML-based sewing pattern document format is proposed to take advantage of the inherent relationships between different pattern components. Finally, document security and authenticity considerations are discussed.

Publication
Proceedings of the 23rd ACM Symposium on Document Engineering