We have seen a huge growth in digital textile printing over the past few years. But all digital printing is ultimately driven by software, both for design and production workflows, and the textile market is no exception. Many standard graphic design programs, including Adobe Illustrator and CorelDraw, are widely used for textile design. But there are many other characteristics that must be considered when dealing with textiles printing.

This includes the need for patterns to repeat in a consistent and predictable way so that all the different parts of the garment can fit together without the pattern effect clashing. Color also needs to be handled more carefully. The basic principles of color management remain the same, that is, to ensure that the color is consistent and predictable from screen to proof and final product. But the use of color sampling is much greater, and textile designers often change the colors in the pattern, perhaps to create more variation or to match the color scheme of the customer.

For these reasons, a number of design programs have been developed specifically for textiles. Most of these have been around for many years and cover various aspects of textiles, such as knitwear and wovens, but all have added digital textile printing.

Nedgraphics, part of the Fog Software Group, develops a modular CAD/CAM textile design software. Different modules are integrated into various Studio products for different applications, such as digitally printing fabrics, knitwear or carpets. Nedgraphics 2024 also gets a new program, Dobby Essentials, a simplified version of Dobby for creating woven fabric designs.

However, all Studios share a common core. The latest version, Nedgraphics 2024.1, has a number of improvements. These include a new layout option that displays tiles of multiple designs side by side to compare different effects. There is also a new color restoration window to help users find the best color combination, and improvements have been made to the color atlas window.

The latest version also supports the Unified 3D Material format (U3M), which is increasingly used for the digital production of 3D objects, including clothing. It can include the physical properties of fabrics, such as stretch, thickness or how they drape, which can be captured by online 3D viewing software to ensure that everyone in the supply chain has an accurate understanding of how the final garment will look.

Nedgraphics also offers a number of plug-ins for Adobe's Photoshop and Illustrator software. The plug-ins were developed by Aquario Design belongs to Constellation In. Constellation Inc owns Fog Software and Nedgraphics, and has now rebranded as Nedgraphics for Adobe. Most of these plug-ins are for Illustrator and enhance functionality in areas such as repeating patterns and managing colors.

Optitex, which was temporarily owned by EFI, is now also part of Fog Software, with the same management team as Nedgraphics. This summer, Fog Software announced a strategic merger of the two companies to expand its presence in the textile market.

Optitex offers a number of programs for different aspects of textile design and software. These include Pattern Design Software or PDS, which allows designers to create garment patterns and their size variations in 2D, but includes a 3D simulation tool that can adjust edits directly back to the 2D pattern.

To complement this, there is a print-on-demand solution, Print and Cut, which arranges garment pieces on blank rolls to optimize the best use of fabric and DTG ink. There is also a cutting layout tool, Marker, which automatically nests different elements together to minimize the amount of fabric left after cutting. Another program, CutPlan, offers a similar service, but for multiple sizes and orders.

There is an online solution, O/Cloud, which allows designs to be viewed in 3D and is accessible to everyone involved throughout the supply chain. This allows for easy sharing of design assets and feedback. Optitex has also partnered with Adobe to allow Optitex’s 3D designs to be imported into Illustrator so that designers can experiment with different textures and patterns.

AVA CAD/CAM develops textile design and production software specifically for MacOS. Recently, the company has been focusing on the wall covering sector and has divided its software into different versions to target specific markets, such as clothing and fashion. This has enabled AVA to keep prices down as each version only has the features required for a specific target market. Earlier this year, the company launched the latest version of its core software, AVA v5.9, with a number of improvements. The interface has been tidied up, with new color palettes and the option to automate repetitive tasks added. Text handling has been improved, with the addition of a new text tool where users can drag and drop to open a box and start typing. The dynamic text feature, which links text to design elements, has also been simplified. Color handling has also been enhanced, with full support for Adobe Swatch Exchange, CFX color files (including ink data for tonal decomposition), and ICC 4.3 profiles. For output, AVA has worked with PrintFactory to ensure that there are drivers available for most textile printers.

French-American company Pointcarre is another company specializing in textile design software, including digital printing as well as weaving and knitting. The printing software targets rotary and digital printing and includes a color engine that can simulate the color output of a rotary printing with digital printing for accurate sampling. It also supports repetition and layering.

Pointcarre’s latest product is Design Maker, which uses artificial intelligence to let textile designers describe the effect they want to create new designs. It can also work from imported images.

InEdit Specializes in Textile Printing Software. ©Nessan Cleary

InEdit is now owned by EFI Reggiani, which develops the Neo series of software for the digital textile printing market. The best-known software of EFI Reggiani is probably the NeoStampa RIP, which is widely used in many digital printers. InEdit also develops several design programs. These include NeoTextil, which is a plug-in for Adobe Photoshop specifically aimed at textile designers. It has a number of different modules that add up to a full-featured design package. So it has nT Step and Repeat, for setting up repeating patterns from an image. Then there's nT Masquerade, for automatically creating separations, and nT Colorations, for generating color variants. Finally, nT Virtual Vision can generate realistic simulations to display designs on models or objects in any given environment.

All in all, there are a range of different programs targeting the digital printing textile market. All of these are mature software packages, so which one to choose is mostly a matter of personal preference, but you should be aware of which software works best with your supply chain partners.