Machine files
Different embroidery machines understand different languages. Each has its own control commands for the various machine functions. Before you can stitch a design, it must be in a format which can be interpreted by the machine. Machine or ‘stitch’ files are low-level formats for direct use by embroidery machines. They contain only stitch coordinates and machine functions. They are generally created on-the-fly when sending designs to machine. Or they are converted when saving to disk or memory stick.
Manual objects
When they are read into EmbroideryStudio, machine files do not contain object information such as outlines or stitch types, but present the design as a collection of stitch blocks called ‘manual objects’. Manual objects are created wherever machine functions – e.g. color changes or trims – are detected in the design. They have only general and connector properties. Manual objects, in turn, consist of individual stitches, called ‘manual stitches’.
