Well like everything even in the embroidery business we have different types of machines which are used for making embroidered logos, patches, designs, badges etc. Now each machine has its own unique way of embroidery and they have its own way of sewing out.
Some of the famous embroidery machines are:-
Brother PE540D
Janome 12000 Memory Craft
Singer Futura XL-400
Brother DZ820E
Janome Memory Craft 200E
Brother SE400
Singer SE300
Brother PE770
Since there are different machines it means there will be different digitizing software’s also as one single software will not be compatible on all the machines. Each machine will have its own loops and stitch method so as per that one has to choose the digitizing software or vice versa.
Some of the commonly used digitizing software are:-
SewWhat-Pro (SWP}
Thread
Size It! By Amazing Designs
Punto Embroidery Digitiser
PE-Design by Brother
Millennium III by Proel TSI
MasterWorks Lite by Designer’s Gallery
Monogram It! By Amazing Designs
Letter It! By Amazing Designs
Hatch Embroidery by Wilcom
Generations Automatic Digitizing Software by Notcina Corporation
Floriani Embroidery Suite by G7 Solutions & RNK LLC
FontWorks by Designer’s Gallery
EQStitch by The Electric Quilt Company
EmbroideryWare by JimmySoft LLC
EmbroideryStudio by Wilcom
Embroidermodder
Embrilliance StitchArtist, Briton Leap, Inc.
Embird
Elna DigitizerEX by Elna, Inc.
Elna CustomizerEX by Elna, Inc.
Digitizer MB by Janome
DG/ML by Pulse Microsystems
Digitize ‘N Stitch by Amazing Designs
Creative Drawings by Drawstitch Ltd.
Creative 4D Design Creator by Pfaff
BuzzEdit v3 by Buzz Tools Inc
Buzz-2-Stitches by Buzz Tools Inc
Brother BES4 Dream Edition Embroidery Lettering Software
Bernina Embroidery Software Version 7 by Wilcom
AutoPunch by Singer
Applique It! by Amazing Designs
Each digitizing software will give its unique format which a particular machine can run to make it into a patch. The file formats fall under two categories one is the source format which is the primary file format of the embroidery digitizing software and the second file format is the machine formats that are specific to a particular brand of embroidery machine. The major difference between the source file format and the machine file formats is that primary file formats are easily editable; that is they can be easily resized, edited, and scaled whereas the same is not possible with machine file formats.
Here are some embroidery machines and the source file formats which run on them:-
PES – Babylock/Brother
SEW – Elna/New Home, Janome 8000/9000
HUS – Viking 1+/Rose/Iris/Scandinavia
SHV – Viking Designer 1
ART – Bernina Artista
JEF – Janome 10,000/11,000/300E/350E
XXX – Singer
PCS – Pfaff
EMD – Elna/Singer
VIP – Viking/Pfaff
VP3 – Viking/Pfaff
DST – Tajima
CSD – Singer
PSW – Singer
Usually, embroidery machines have one or two machine formats that are particular to their brand. But we have seen that some formats like .dst of Tajima’s, exp/cnd format of Melco’s and,fdr source format of Barundan’s have become so popular and effective that they have become industry standard formats and very often these formats are supported by all the embroidery machines be it even of a rival company. So we can say these are the universal digitizing formats and will run on most of the embroidery machines the world over.
I hope this post reflects some light on the type of digitizing software’s and embroidery machines. To get the perfect embroidery patch the right combination of both mind and machine is needed.