Challenges Facing a High-Level Language for Machine Knitting

Abstract

Knitting is the process of creating textile surfaces out of interlocked loops of yarn. With the repeated application of a basic operation – pulling yarn through an existing loop to create a new loop – complicated three-dimensional structures can be created [4]. Knitting machines automate this loop-through-loop process, with some physical limitations arising from their method of storing loops and accessing yarns [1, 3]. Currently, knitting machines are programmed at a very low level. Projects such as AYAB [2] include utilities for designing knit colorwork, but only within a limited stitch architecture; designers working in 3D usually do so via a set of pre-designed templates [4]. In this talk, we will discuss our current progress in understanding what machines can knit, and how this understanding has informed the design of our low-level knitting machine language. We also describe problems that face any high-level knitting description language, and speculate on ways they might be addressed.