digitizemypatternPattern digitizing
Pattern digitizing is turning a paper or cardboard pattern piece into a CAD file that keeps its true size, its notches and its grain line. Three ways do it: send the pieces to a bureau, trace them on a digitizing table, or photograph them and let software find the outline. The file that comes out is usually a DXF on the AAMA and ASTM standard, because that is what apparel CAD reads.
Updated September 3, 2026 · digitizemypattern
What does a digitized pattern actually contain?
Four things, and each lives on its own layer. A file with the outline alone is not a digitized pattern, it is a drawing of one.
The closed outline at true size
One closed polyline per piece, in inches or millimetres, not in pixels. Scale comes from something measured: the table grid, the tablet, or in our case a sheet of Letter paper in the photograph.
Marks, not bumps
Notches are separate objects on their own layer. A notch modelled as a dent in the cut line is a dent the cutter will cut, which is the most common fault in a cheap digitizing job.
The direction of the fabric
A grain line has to be in the file. Without one, industrial software refuses to import the notches at all, so a default is written in when the piece has none drawn.
Internal lines and names
Drill holes, pocket placement, fold lines, piece name and size. These are what turn a shape back into a working pattern on the cutting floor.
How much does pattern digitizing cost?
Per piece, with a minimum per style, when a bureau does it. digitpatterns.com publishes $7.50 per piece with a $50 minimum on every style, $75 to grade one piece to five sizes, $35 to convert a file from one format to another and $100 an hour for drafting from scratch. Read on their price page 3 September 2026.
Drafting is the expensive part, not digitizing. smartpatternmaking.com lists $2,199 to $2,899 to build a pattern for a garment from scratch and $499 an hour for consulting, read the same day. Bureaus that quote by email, such as topnotchpattern.com, stitchlift.com and alisonhoenes.com, publish no numbers at all.
A digitizing table is the other route: hardware plus the software that drives it, bought once and then sitting in the room. It pays for itself only if pieces arrive every week.
Which method should you use?
It depends on how many pieces you have and how fast you need them back. The three routes differ in waiting time far more than in the file they produce.
Send the pieces away
Good for a whole style at once and for anyone who does not want to learn a tool. You pay per piece, wait for the queue, and you are back in the queue for every correction. The minimum per style makes a single piece expensive.
Digitize on a tablet
A large sensing surface, a puck with a crosshair, and you click along the edge point by point. Precise and slow, and the accuracy depends on the hand holding the puck. Worth it in a room where patterns arrive constantly.
Photograph the piece
One picture from above with a sheet of paper in frame for scale. The outline comes back in about a minute and you correct it yourself in the browser. Cheapest for one piece, and the only route with no queue.
How accurate is digitizing from a photograph?
On our own control photograph, 95 per cent of the traced points landed within 1 pixel of the paper edge and all six notches were found, six out of six. At the scale of that photograph one pixel is about 0.02 in. The figure we quote for an ordinary piece shot straight down in even room light is about 0.06 in. Measured 3 September 2026 on the sample photograph published on this site.
What breaks accuracy: a curled or creased piece, a strong shadow across the edge, a piece the same colour as the surface under it, and a camera held at an angle with no paper in frame to straighten against. All four are fixable before you press the shutter.
What do you get out of it here?
Three files for every piece, in one archive, with nothing locked to us.
AAMA and ASTM for CAD
Cut line, notches, grain and internal lines on separate layers, the way Gerber AccuMark, Optitex, Lectra Modaris, StyleCAD, Seamly2D and AutoCAD expect them.
Tiled for a desktop printer
The piece split across Letter sheets with an overlap and join marks, plus a test square on page one so you can confirm the scale with a ruler before cutting.
Straight to a plotter
Standard HPGL with clean pen-up and pen-down moves for plotters and cutting tables. Internal lines go to the second pen, so a marker draws them instead of a knife cutting them.
Questions people ask before digitizing
What is the difference between digitizing and pattern making?+
Digitizing copies a pattern that already exists on paper into a file. Pattern making creates the pattern in the first place, from measurements or from a garment. The two are priced differently: a bureau lists $7.50 a piece for digitizing and $100 an hour for drafting.
Does digitizing include grading?+
No. Grading is scaling one size into a size run, and it is charged separately, $75 for five sizes at digitpatterns.com. We do not grade. The DXF we return is what a grading system takes as its starting point.
Will the file open in my CAD?+
The DXF is written to the AAMA and ASTM convention, which apparel systems read directly. Layer 1 is the cut line, layer 4 the notches, layer 7 the grain line and layer 8 internal marks, and a RUL file goes with it in the archive.
Can you digitize a garment instead of a paper pattern?+
Not from a photograph of the garment as worn. The piece has to lie flat, which means taking the garment apart or copying its pieces onto paper first. Once it is flat, it photographs like any other piece.
How many pieces can I do at once?+
One piece per photograph, any number of photographs. A jacket is shot piece by piece, and each one comes back as its own file, which is also how you keep the pieces named and apart.
What does it cost here?+
Nothing while the demo runs: every piece, all three formats, unlimited corrections, no card and no minimum per style. Prices after the demo are not set yet, and they will be published on the site when they are.
Keep reading
One piece, one photograph, one minute.
Free while the demo runs. No minimum per style and no queue.