Guides for PatternScan Pro

PatternScan Pro's key features step by step: Learn how to photograph your patterns optimally, create a calibration profile, and use the reference correctly.

Guide: Digitizing True to Scale

Accuracy in PatternScan Pro is a chain: printed references, flat placement, a clean photo, a contour that really sits on the line, and a final scale check. This guide walks the whole chain, and its last step, the scale correction, catches what slipped through earlier. No app makes measurements right on its own, but every link in this chain is in your hands.

Two iPhones showing pattern capture with Reference Tiles and the measured result

Guide: Photographing with PatternScan Pro Mobile

PatternScan Pro Mobile is the companion app for capturing: you photograph your pattern pieces with live feedback, the upload runs in the background, and every scan appears in your library on the desktop within seconds. This guide walks you through the capture, the hints the app gives you, and where the desktop takes over.

Export options: SVG, PNG, DXF, DXF AAMA/ASTM and PACX for CLO3D

Guide: Exporting and Opening Your Files

One digitized pattern, five export options. This guide shows you the export menu, which format fits which software, and the import steps in the programs you use.

PatternScan Pro editor on a laptop showing a digitized pattern piece

Guide: Getting Started with PatternScan Pro

From paper pattern to finished file in one pass: this quickstart takes you through your first digitization in about ten minutes. Every step links to a detailed guide if you want to go deeper.

Contour being drawn point by point with the mouse in the editor

Guide: Drawing Contours by Hand

Automatic detection needs cut-out, free-standing pieces. For everything else there is the pen tool: you draw the contour yourself, directly on your photo, and calibration, distortion correction and every export work exactly the same afterwards.

Bezier handles turning a straight line into a curve, with an exact length entered

Guide: Editing Contours, Control Points and Curves

Every detected contour in PatternScan Pro is a path with control points that you can edit freely. This guide shows you how to move, add and remove points, how to shape curves with the Bezier handles and their shortcuts, and how to type exact measurements straight onto the pattern.

Seam allowance, grainline arrow and a notch on a pattern edge

Guide: Seam Allowance, Grain Line and Notches

After contour detection you finish your pattern in the desktop editor: add the seam allowance, set notches, define the grain line and turn the piece straight. This guide shows you all three tools, their shortcuts, and what each export format includes.

Pattern piece on a dark surface framed by the four Reference Tiles

Guide: How to Photograph Sewing Patterns

Good photos are the foundation for accurate digital sewing patterns. This guide shows you the setup, the correct placement of the Reference Tiles and the shot itself, and how to check and correct the scale in the app afterwards. You need your cut-out pattern (white or cream), a dark flat surface, good lighting, and your printed Reference Tiles.

Printed Reference Tiles sheet next to the printed checkerboard sheet

Guide: Printing and Using the References

PatternScan Pro works with two different references: the Reference Tiles for photographing sewing patterns, and the Checkerboard Reference for creating calibration profiles.

Printed checkerboard reference on a dark surface

Guide: Creating a Calibration Profile

By creating a calibration profile, PatternScan Pro corrects your camera's specific lens distortion and delivers accurate measurements. You photograph a checkerboard pattern (25 mm squares) from different angles, the app analyzes the images and calculates a precise calibration profile. You'll need the printed checkerboard pattern, good lighting, and 15-30 photos from different perspectives.