Shoe Pattern Generator


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Welcome to the Shoe Pattern Generator. 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.

What's New?

* April 2008 - Improved graphics resolution, Sabbage Sectioner 'Style', Zip Boot Style, 3 new drawing commands

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
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by Rick Roman