Shoe Pattern Generator


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Shoe Pattern Generator(SPG) - User Guide

About
Simple Use
Member Use
Printing your pattern
Drawing the curved lines

About the Shoe Pattern Generator

Author: Rick Roman, Shoemaker, Romango Handmade Shoes, Eugene Oregon

Access and use of this program is provided, free of charge, in the interest of promoting bespoke shoemaking. This project is entirely open source. It is an Apache-Tomcat application written in Java using using MySQL, Struts and OBJ. Source code may be found at: http://sourceforge.net/projects/shoeweb

It does cost me time and money to host this web site and keep the developement effort going. If you would like to help out, you can make a donation via PayPal

This web site allows you to create patterns for shoe uppers and lasts by the Geometric Method, as described by George Koleff and others. You may create your own patterns and then scale them based on specific foot and/or last measurements.

In his book Shoe & Boot Design based on the Geometric Method , George describes this method and provides many examples for different types of shoes and boots. The Geometric Method is a series of line drawing steps, for a given style , using foot or last measurements, to produce a pattern which can be used to cut out leather for shoe uppers. This site includes some of the styles from George's book, with permission from the publisher , so that all you need do is provide the measurements and you can generate a pattern.

A pattern, generated by this web site, consists of only straight lines. These lines serve as the guides to hand draw the curved parts of the pattern. There are two reasons that the site does not draw the curves too. First, the specific shape of the curves is a matter of artistic design that the computer cannot predict. Second, the straight lines are a matter of simple coordinate geometry. Drawing curved lines is a considerably more complex computer operation. It is quite easy to draw the curved lines once you have the guides.

This web site mearly automates the generation of patterns. It is not a substitue for the detailed descriptions found in George's (or other) books. It does, however, eliminate much of the time and error-prone hand drawing of patterns. In addition, you can copy and modify patterns to your own specifications and/or create entirely new patterns from scratch.

Simple Use

The most simple use of the SPG is to enter measurements as a guest (not logged in), select a style and select the Generate button. This will return your master pattern as a graphic.

Member Use

You may become a member by sending me a request at rick@romangoshoes.com. This is only necessary if you want to use the more advanced features. There is no charge for this. It's just so I can associate your work with an account in the database. Once you become a member and log in, you will have the ability to copy and create styles, enter customers and enter measurements for those customers. In addition, you may create pattern runs where you can associate a customer's measurements with a paticular style.

If you create a style, you may make it available to other users by marking it public. Although there is no requriement that you do so. Your styles may remain private to you indefinitley. Of course, customers and measurements are always private.

You cannot edit an existing public style, made by someone other than yourself. But you may copy any public style and then edit it to your own liking.

If you become a member, it is advisable to create one or more customers. Then you may enter measurements and store them. You may also create pattern runs that associate a set of measurments with a Style. These operations are done from the Customer's page.

Printing your pattern

To print out the graphic, you will need to right click on the graphic and save it to your local computer. The trick to printing is to make sure the graphic is not rezized by the program you use to print. You cannot print directly from your browser because it will always scale the grapic to fit on the paper.

I have a copy of PhotoShop 6 that works well. I open the graphic, crop it to fit on legal paper with landscape orientation. A pattern for a men's 10.5 (US) size just barely fits on legal paper. If your pattern is too big you may have to split it into parts and then tape them together. Many other graphic editors should work as well. Perhaps the program that came with your digital camera would work. If you know of a free program that can both crop and print, I'd like to hear about it so I can post it here.

Another alternative would be to take the graphic down to your local copy shop and have them print it for you. They will have many paper size options.

Drawing the curved lines

A pattern, generated by this web site, consists of only straight lines. These lines serve as the guides to hand draw the curved parts of the pattern. There are two reasons that the site does not draw the curves too. First, the specific shape of the curves is a matter of artistic design that the computer cannot predict. Second, the straight lines are a matter of simple coordinate geometry. Drawing curved lines is a considerably more complex computer operation. It is quite easy to draw the curved lines once you have the guides. If you are familiar with the Geometric Method, you may be able to figure out which curved lines follow which guides. Otherwise, I suggest you get a copy of Koleff's book.

by Rick Roman