The DesignAdvisor: An intelligent knitwear design aid

Abstract

Alliance Textiles in collaboration with the Department of Computer Science at the University of Otago developed a computer based knitwear design program that enables a member of the public to easily and quickly design a knitted garment. Once the garment is designed, a knitting pattern is produced and from which the person could knit his/her garment. The system is extremely flexible to use but a tool is only as good as the person who uses it. Inexperienced knitters may experience complications with the designs they create. Having a program that could provide interactive advice or assistance would benefit these types of people. This project is concerned with the design and implementation of such a program which we called the DesignAdvisor. By analysing the design style of the garment and comparing it to pre-defined design styles, comments on the appropriateness of the garment in terms of the design style it most closely matches can be made. These comments, which are a combination of text and graphics, have been designed to instruct the user in aspects of good knitwear design. This thesis describes the theories surrounding intelligent design aids and their role in the design of DesignAdvisor, details the implementation of DesignAdvisor, and proposes modifications and improvements that can be made to the original implementation.