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 300 registered users and the tool has been integrated into weaving curriculum across arts and engineering. We are actively maintaining the project, adding new features and responding to requests from the community for new features.
How it Works
AdaCAD encodes common weave structures and manipulations into ‘operations’ - blocks of code that can quickly generate weaving drafts based on the input parameters.
Designers connect these operations together on screen to combine and manipulate structures into more complex arrangements, or dataflows. In doing so, they create a flexible specification of their structure that can be quickly manipulated.
Example Project
AdaCAD allows some to encode the logic of a woven structure, making it open to manipulation, exploration and adaptation to a wide range of equipment. For example, we recreated one of artist-in-residence Elizabeth Meiklejohn’s multi-layer lattice samples into a parameterized AdaCAD file, allowing us to remake it on a the full width of our TC2 digital loom.
The original sample designed by Elizabeth Meiklejohn.
Our conversion of the design in AdaCAD
