Categories
AdaCAD

AdaCAD

AdaCAD is an experimental workspace that applies parametric design to the domain of weave drafting. It supports algorithmic and playful approaches to developing woven structures and cloth, for shaft and jacquard looms.

We currently support upwards of 140 registered users and the tool has been integrated into weaving curriculum across arts and engineering. We are actively maintaining and building on it, adding new features and responding to requests from the community.

Use it online at
adacad.org

Documentation and Learning Resources
https://docs.adacad.org/

How To Videos:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLy2lIjrar_02XiqfJG8kLpeWOyCtDXeFJ

Project Team:
Laura Devendorf, Mikhaila Friske, Shanel Wu, Emma Goodwill, Deanna Gelosi, Etta Sandry, and Caleb Loewengart.

Publications

Laura Devendorf, Kathryn Walters, Marianne Fairbanks, Etta Sandry, Emma Goodwill. AdaCAD: Parametric Design as a New Form of Notation for Complex WeavingIn Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 1-18. 2023

see also: Parametric Design as Weaving Notation

Mikhaila Friske, Shanel Wu, Laura Devendorf. 2019. AdaCAD: Crafting Software
for Smart Textiles Design.
 In Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’19). ACM, New York, NY, USA. ACM, New York, NY, USA, Paper 345, 13 pages

see also: AdaCAD: The Beginnings

Categories
AdaCAD Open Source Provocations

Parametric Design as Weaving Notation

Part of the research in the lab involves publishing new research in the area of human-computer interaction, specifically as it relates to ongoing integration of craft techniques and engineering practices. Our most recent research, completed in collaboration with Kathryn Walters, Marianne Fairbanks, and 2022 Experimental Weaver in Residence, Etta Sandry studied how the AdaCAD software we have been developing brings about new drafting practices to weavers.

What is Parametric Design?

Recent versions of AdaCAD have implemented the framework of parametric design to the context of woven draft making. Parametric design is a form of design that creates dataflows between different parameterized operations that generate new outputs, in this case, weave drafts. Changing the parameters and/or elements within the dataflow directly changes the outcome. To put it another way, parametric design has you create and connect together different operations that result in drafts, rather than describing each pixel within a structure directly. For example, the “invert” operation takes an input draft and flips the value of all the interlacements. The “stretch” operation duplicates all of the interlacements in a pic/end the number of times specified.

What operations do, then, is math on drafts. They take a draft as input, modify it in some user specified way, and spit out a new draft. More and more complex drafts can be created by chaining many operations together. In the example below, we create a series of operations that arrange different regions of satins next to each other. The designer can then change the satin structure, or width of the regions, to suit their weaving style or ensure clean edges between satin regions. AdaCAD will also calculate the number of pics needed such that the two satins will repeat at the same intervals when woven.

Making Custom Operations

With each collaborator, we developed a custom operation in AdaCAD to support their specific interests or practice.

With Kathryn, we made an operation that converted her existing notation for layer relationships in a textile into a dynamic operation that could map structures onto those relationships. The notation system assigns each weft to a system (a, b, c or d) and each warp to a system (1, 2, 3, 4). Pairings of warps and weft system can be grouped and assigned layers by putting them in parentheses. The first parenthetical group represents the top /front face layer and each subsequent group represents a layer below. Kathryn then connects structures into the different layer groups to determine the structure of that layer, independent of the others. AdaCAD takes care of the drafting that ensures they are on the correct systems and layers.

With Marianne, we developed the “all possible structures” function that uses the principle of combinatorics to systematically discover every possible combination of lifted and lowered heddles in a 4×4 structure (and there are 10s of thousands of them). AdaCAD lets you browse through every possibility, which Marianne started weaving on a shaft loom to study the effects of the different structures.

and with Etta, we developed a series of tools in AdaCAD that support direct-tie looms as well as techniques for sampling across the width of the cloth. The variable width sampler operation, shown below, allows you to use letters and numbers to describe the tiling of structures across the width of a draft. In the image below we have a20 b40 a20 c40 a20. Assigning tabby to a, and the structures to test to b and c, Etta could create and dynamically resize structural regions so that she could repeatedly weave them with different materials and study the effects.

Parametric Design as Weaving Notation

Through this research, we made an argument that parametric design could be best understood as a notation system for complex weaving that can help weavers formalize and document their draft making processes to both themselves and to other collaborators. It sparked our interest in notation systems more broadly, from sheet music to Fluxus event scores, to woven drafts, and how they foreground certain elements of the making process while leaving others to be considered at another time. And while it takes a bit of brain gymnastics to rethink drafting in this manner, it did come with some interesting new possibilities, for instance, to integrate different algorithmic processes into the design and to greatly lower the amount of time required to make quick changes to ones draft.

Taking significant inspiration from the Penelope Project and Ellen Harlizius-Klück’s article “Weaving as Binary Art and the Algebra of Patterns“, we felt like one of the primary benefits of a parametric design approach to weaving notation is to foreground the inherent algebraic nature of weaving to new audiences in a similar vein to how Harlizius-Klück argues that the jacquard punchcards made the algebraic thought processes of weavers legible to the designers of industrial machines. Notations, in this way, manifest the tacit in incomplete but rhetorically useful ways. In our case, it shows how weaving, and weavers, are performing incredibly complex operations using their own bodies, materials, and minds. It also represents these logics in a framework that is increasingly familiar to those in engineering design.

We are incredibly excited about this project, and the ability to collaborate with weaver’s whose practices continue to inspire us and we would like to continue developing AdaCAD to support weavers. If you are interested in learning more, you might consider attending one of following (or looking for talks recorded at these events) or just getting in touch. We’d love to hear from you.

Upcoming Events

April 22-28
Laura will present this research at the CHI Conference in Hamburg Germany

June 23-25
Laura will lead a panel with Kathryn Walters, Marianne Fairbanks, and Etta Sandry about AdaCAD at the Digital Weaving Conference.

June 26
We’ll host a AdaCAD Workshop at the Cleveland Public Library for those interested in attending.

Play with AdaCAD

Its free and always available online at adacad.org

Read the Full Paper
(its just a pre-print now and will be published in May 2023):

https://drive.google.com/file/d/13VaTk_I8aOXB16A7ZAGlzVq2arMPmNqO/view?usp=share_link

Categories
AdaCAD Open Source

Free AdaCAD Workshop

We’re hosting a free workshop for anyone interested in learning more about AdaCAD on June 26, just after the Praxis+Practice Digital Weaving Conference. At the workshop, we’ll introduce AdaCAD and provide one-on-one support on how you may integrate it into your practice.

This In-Person workshop will take place June 26 from 10am – 12pm at the Cleveland Public Library, Martin Luther King Jr. Branch and will be Facilitated by Laura Devendorf and Shanel Wu.

Register at: https://cuboulder.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9mZmiuxWIUAIukm

Registration and attendance are free and optional, though, we’d love to see how many people might join so please register just to help us plan 🙂

About AdaCAD

AdaCAD is a free and open source tool for drafting. It is a research project of the Unstable Design Lab that is supported by funding from the National Science Foundation. Our goal is to discover new software for draft making that (a) supports complex weavers and (b) facilitates collaboration between weavers and engineers. To do so, AdaCAD foregrounds how draft making is deeply computational and algorithmic.

About the Workshop

At the workshop, we intend to introduce AdaCAD on a shared screen to show its functions and walk through a draft making activity. We will invite participants to follow along on their personal laptops (and can provide a few laptops for those who cannot travel with theirs). We will answer questions, provide one-on-one support, and take feature requests for anything you’d love to see the software doing 🙂

What is Open-Source

AdaCAD is an open-source software project which means that all the code for running the software is made available for anyone who would like to build onto it or add new features themselves. Because the project is currently supported by the National Science Foundation, we are able to offer it for free. You can play with the software online at adacad.org, preferably with the Google Chrome browser.

Categories
Experimental Weaving Residency Public Resources

Experimental Weaving Talk Series Returns!

Wednesdays at 9AM, Mountain Standard Time
Online, Fall 2023

The Experimental Weaving Talk Series returns this Fall! Join us as we invite a new round of weavers to share their approach to weaving and experimentation. This talk series began in 2022 to engage different perspectives on what “experimentation” means to various weavers and how it becomes enacted across practices. Our goal with the series is to bring attention to weavers whose work animates possibilities for weaving. In defining experimental weaving, we also aim to illuminate how these are inherently practices of technological innovation and how students of technology can benefit from learning about the histories of weaving and the utility woven techniques.The talks are intended for the public and are all accessible online, as well as for students in the ATLAS Institute at the University of Colorado Boulder, as part of the “Experimental Textiles” course.

All talks will be hosted via Zoom:

Elizabeth Meiklejohn

September 27, 2023

Elizabeth Meiklejohn is a textile engineer, designer and researcher focused on complex structures and experimental techniques in weaving. Her work blends digital and hands-on methods to achieve dynamic forms and capabilities in fabrics, all while investigating material origins and tendencies. Elizabeth was the 2023 Experimental Weaver-in-Residence; this talk will present her work as well as the outcomes of the residency.

Elizabeth will share her background and areas of research as a textile designer, from 3D woven structures to self-shaping fabric behavior. Her talk will cover the time she spent as Unstable Design Lab’s 2023 Experimental Weaver-in-Residence, sampling, prototyping and creating an interactive fabric while developing new systems of notation for woven textiles.

elizabethmeiklejohn.com

@etmeikle

Patrice George

October 25, 2023

Patrice George recently retired from the Fashion Institute of Technology, where she was  Associate Professor in the Textile Development and Marketing Department for 18 years, specializing in woven textile design, and the history of the textile industry. She participated in beta-tests and product education in the emerging field of computer-aided design in the early 1980’s, creating an early course in computer-aided woven design for the School of Visual Arts in 1984. She has been a design consultant to the interior textile industry since founding her NYC studio, Patrice George Designs, in 1979. She has also been a guest instructor at textile schools, a consultant to international handweaving projects, and a frequent presenter and workshop leader at professional textile seminars and conferences.

We’ve invited Patrice to reprise the presentation she offered at the Praxis Digital Weaving conference: From the PC to the TC:  A VERY Short History of Digital Design For Woven Textiles

Patrice’s talk will trace the history of  digital weaving technology, from IBM’s first software patent in 1970 for Janice Lourie’s Textile Graphics System, through the adaption of digital textile technology by industrial mills, hand loom and power loom manufacturers, textile education and artists’ explorations.  The transition from slow design to advanced applications for woven textiles today will be discussed and illustrated.

Lucy Smyth

November 8, 2023

Lucy Smyth is a weaver based in Northern Ireland who works across art, design, education, and costume. Through the recurring themes of movement and contrast, Lucy interrogates the relationship between 2D and 3D to create sculptural interdisciplinary fabrics or artworks.

Driven by material and process, Lucy’s practice explores inherent behaviors to challenge and reimagine. This practical connection and the use of thinking tools such as paper folding, fabric manipulation, and sketching nurture her work to creatively evolve and achieve, achieving technically complex structures.

lucysmyth.com

@loom_labyrinth

Lars Shimabukuro

November 29, 2023

Lars Shimabukuro (b. Honolulu, Hawai’i) is a mixed and trans artist whose work expands ideas of homelands, family, and memory to include the queer landscapes that raised them. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Studio Art from Yale University in 2013, an Associate Degree from Haywood Community College (NC) focusing on weaving in 2019, and completed the Core Fellowship program at the Penland School of Craft in 2023. Lars has shown nationally and internationally, and teaches weaving at craft schools. 

Shimabukuro will share about their process of translating identity into weaving, and how weaving structures inspire the forms in their sculptural work. He will also share about his practice in other materials, and how those explorations are starting to incorporate textiles.

lars-shimabukuro.com

@landlockedfishcake

Acknowledgements

This series is hosted by Steven Frost and Laura Devendorf with the support of Etta Sandry.


Archive: 2022 Experimental Weaving Talk Series

Melanie Olde

Bio:  Melanie Olde is a weaver, researcher, teacher and artist. She researches cellular structures for form, function and array to interpret these in biomimetic, moving, woven 3-dimensional cloth to advance innovative exploration. Olde works on an AVL 24 shaft CompuDobby Loom in Canberra, Australia and has also worked with mechanical and computerized jacquard systems.
Melanieolde.com
@melanie_olde 

Kathryn Walters

Bio: Kathryn Walters is a PhD researcher in Textile Design at the Swedish School of Textiles. Her research investigates transformative textiles developing three-dimensional form. She explores emergent behaviour arising from the combination of material properties and textile structures, where textiles are seen as systems with responsive properties. Her process embraces the use of industrial jacquard looms as an extension of weaving as craft.
kmwalters.com/

Jessy Lu

Jessy Lu is an artist exploring textiles as a form of computation with respect to both their historical origin and technological future. With a background in R&D as a materials engineer, she has worked on exploratory applications for fabrics used in hardware technology. Her art practice focuses on exploring image processing techniques and the use of algorithms to determine pattern and color allocation. Currently, Jessy is working on a research project in Taiwan studying knots as a form of craft tradition, sculptural object, and as a framework for tactile modalities of aesthetic experience. 

jessylu.com
@lu_jue

Alyson Ainsworth

Bio: Alyson Ainsworth is a New York City-based weaver whose work explores overcoming traditional limitations of the loom. Through the use of materials, hand manipulations, and complex weave structure, she creates weavings that combine new techniques with the familiar. She is interested in pushing the boundaries of weaving as a discipline—from both art and design perspectives—and exploring the connection of functional and aesthetic textiles in the process. 
Alysonainsworth.com
@alysonainsworth

Victoria Manganiello

Bio: Victoria Manganiello considers weaving a form of communication. Her ethereal fabric pieces radiate color and light while referencing computer programming and bar codes. Manganiello is currently producing a documentary film about Women and Textiles and is an instructor at NYU and the Parsons School of the Arts in New York. Her textile-based installations combine hand-spun yarns and hand-mixed dyes with modern materials and techniques, creating conceptual hybrids that lean towards the future while employing methods from the past.

victoriamanganiello.com 
@victoriamanganiello  

Etta Sandry

Etta is the 2022 Experimental Weaver In Residence, this talk will present her work as well as the outcomes from the residency.
Bio: Etta Sandry is an artist, educator, and facilitator from the midwestern United States, currently based in Tiohtià:ke/Montreal. Her material-focused research is rooted in fibre and weaving and spans media through sculpture, writing, and installation. Etta completed her MFA in the Fibre & Material Practices program at Concordia University in the spring of 2021. She has exhibited her work in the United States and Canada and was the 2022 Experimental Weaver in Residence at the Unstable Design Lab in Boulder, Colorado. 
ettasandry.com/
@ee_teetee_ay

Categories
AdaCAD Public Resources

Virtual AdaCAD Workshops

AdaCAD is a design tool we have developed for weave drafting. It specializes in generating and managing complex weaving structures that are most often used in Jacquard weaving. It is free, open-source, and under active development as a tool intended to bridge engineering and craft. Specifically, it uses the design paradigm of “generative design” within the context of weaving that allows one to dynamically generate and adjust weave structures programmatically such as the structures shown above (generated using the “random” structure generator where the weaver and specify the size and ration of raised/lowered heddles) and the resulting fabric on the right.

Want to play with it on your own? Follow any of these links:

Alternatively, you can sign up for a workshop to learn more.

We’re running an hour-long workshop to teach people how to use the tool and our next workshop will be April 1 @ 10am Mountain Time (9:00 PST, 12:00 EST, 18:00 CET). If you would like to join, send us your email and we’ll send you a zoom link.

Categories
Open Source Public Resources

Prototyping Smart Textiles – A Reader

In support of our newly developed class, we found ourselves writing a reader to explain different techniques, material sourcing and structures of textiles that could be leveraged for so-called “smart” applications (but if you read our intro, you see we get into a bit more complexity on that). This has been authored by Laura Devendorf, Sasha De Koninck and Steven Frost but it is available via Github so you can contribute as well if you so wish. You can find the complete book at the link below:

Categories
Open Source Public Resources

Soft Object Open Curriculum

We developed a course and curriculum for teaching textile structures to an audience of students interested in engineering and physical prototyping. We have released this course, as well as our materials lists, kits, and assignments, as an open education resource here: https://unstable.design/soft-object/_book/

Categories
AdaCAD Open Source Public Resources

How to Use AdaCAD

AdaCAD is a drafting software that we are developing in the lab. Our hope is for the tool to support both experimental forms of weaving and experimental forms of draft making that borrow from principles of generative design.

Categories
AdaCAD Open Source Provocations Public Resources

AdaCAD – The Beginnings

Photo of the AdaCAD user interface

In 2017, the Unstable Design Lab received a grant from the National Science Foundation to develop AdaCAD, a software tool that would facilitate weavers who needed to integrate circuitry into their design.

This post includes a transcript of our first presentation about AdaCAD, delivered at CHI 2019. In this presentation, we talk about the rationale, process, and features of AdaCAD. Long story short, we presented how we learned that providing specific support for multilayer weaving and viewing your weave in terms of the draft as well as the paths of the individual yarn types within the design could go far to support weavers, and non-weavers, entering this emerging design space.

Since giving the talk in 2018, we have contributed development and you can view our current documentation and use the tool here: https://unstabledesign.github.io/

Links: