Keyboard shortcuts

Toggle the Glitch panel with 'g'; Export panel with 'e'; message bar with 'm'. Hide all UI elements with 'x'; initiate Glitch or Export with 'enter'. Select an image with numbers '1' to '4'.

Can be used as a standard
x-stitch pattern generator

Dithering and glitching are optional. No dithering will take place if No Dither is selected before and after glitching. No glitching will take place if the Glitch Amount slider is set to zero.

Dithering when using large images

If you're using Stitch'n'Glitch as a dithering/glitching application for large images, this process can be speeded up by avoiding the error diffusion algorithms (Atkinson, Jarvis-Judice-Ninke, Stucki) and sticking to the pattern dither algorithms (Clustered 4x4, Bayer 2x2, 4x4, 8x8, Random Pattern) which are faster but less accurate. No Dither would be faster still.

A Note About Colour Patterns

If you have exported a colour pattern and plan on stitching it, it is strongly recommended that you print it in colour rather than B & W (particularly if there are more than 20 colours). This is because the 80 colours are made up of 20 simple shapes repeated in 4 contrasting colours.

The default image

Who is the person in the default image (i.e the image used if the starting dialogue box is cancelled)? Her name is Lenna and the image has been in use as a test in image processing programs for 40 years.

Initial image update

If you were wondering why the pixels of each session's first glitch don't update progressively as the rest do, this is to do with how the images are stored and displayed. Don't worry, it's still working!

Maximum accepted image size for
pattern generation can be adjusted

The maximum size of image (in bytes or number of pixels) that a pattern can be made from is altered by editing the preferences.txt file. This file can be found: (On Mac) by right-clicking the .app file -> Show Package Contents -> Contents -> Resources -> Java -> data. For Windows, the data folder should be in the dame directory as the .exe.

Raise one or both of the figures to try to create very large cross-stitch files (not recommended - may crash the application) or lower the figures if you are more interested in glitching/dithering without converting to the DMC palette.

Missing Colours

On rare occasions when exporting a simplified colour pattern a couple of colours may be missing. There will be a warning in the message bar if this is the case. If you want to find out which colours they are, export a B & W pattern of the same image and cross-check. Or you can just replace these pixels with whatever colour thread you like (Yay DIY glitch!).

Flicker issue

If glitching/dithering a large image, the GUI elements may flicker and turn crazy colours momentarily. This seems to have no effect on Stitch'n'Glitch's functionality (Yay random application glitch!).

This is an open-source project in appreciation of textile art's history of sharing techniques and patterns. Feel free to modify for your own use in keeping with the same spirit. Source code is included in the download as well as available on my Github page. If you would prefer to download the original version, the site has been archived.

Stitch'n'Glitch is built with Processing. As such, it is a Java application and requires Java to be installed in order to run. More tips and technical information can be found in the README.txt file that comes with the download.

• Get in Touch

  I'd love to hear your thoughts about Stitch'n'Glitch, your suggestions for the future or any problems you have with it. I also love to see projects using the software.
  
  If you use and enjoy Stitch'n'Glitch, please consider a donation - any amount is really appreciated!