On-Demand Machine Knitting (2014 - present)

• Jim McCann
• Gabrielle Ohlson
• Jenny Lin
• Vidya Narayanan
• Lea Albaugh
• Jessica Hodgins

Knitting machines are powerful, flexible fabrication devices that are difficult to program. We aim to change that by updating the knitting design pipeline.

At the core of our proposed pipeline is Knitout, a low-level machine-neutral format for describing knitting machine programs. Knitout is intended as an output language for design tools and an input language for simulators and machine-specific backends.

In addition to the Knitout format, we are working on producing a new set of open source high-level design tools, including those based on our Knitting Compiler work at Disney Research, and our more recent work on Automatic Machine Knitting of 3D Meshes.

Related Publications

• 
  A Compiler for 3D Machine Knitting (external link)
  • Jim McCann,
  • Lea Albaugh,
  • Vidya Narayanan,
  • April Grow,
  • Wojciech Matusik,
  • Jen Mankoff,
  • and Jessica Hodgins
  SIGGRAPH 2016
• 
  Automatic Machine Knitting of 3D Meshes
  • Vidya Narayanan,
  • Lea Albaugh,
  • Jessica Hodgins,
  • Stelian Coros,
  • and Jim McCann
  ACM Transactions on Graphics
• 
  Efficient Transfer Planning for Flat Knitting
  • Jenny Lin,
  • Vidya Narayanan,
  • and Jim McCann
  ACM Symposium on Computation Fabrication 2018
• 
  Digital Fabrication of Soft Actuated Objects by Machine Knitting (external link)
  • Lea Albaugh,
  • Scott Hudson,
  • and Lining Yao
  CHI 2019
• 
  Visual Knitting Machine Programming
  • Vidya Narayanan,
  • Kui Wu,
  • Cem Yuksel,
  • and Jim McCann
  SIGGRAPH 2019
• 
  KnitPick: Programming and Modifying Complex Knitted Textures for Machine and Hand Knitting
  • Megan Hofmann,
  • Lea Albaugh,
  • Ticha Sethapakdi,
  • Jessica Hodgins,
  • Scott Hudson,
  • Jim McCann,
  • and Jen Mankoff
  UIST 2019
• 
  Coupling Programs and Visualization for Machine Knitting
  • Catherine Tianhong Yu,
  • and Jim McCann
  SCF 2020
• 
  Engineering Multifunctional Spacer Fabrics Through Machine Knitting (external link)
  • Lea Albaugh,
  • Jim McCann,
  • Scott Hudson,
  • and Lining Yao
  CHI 2021
• 
  An Artin Braid Group Representation of Knitting Machine State with Applications to Validation and Optimization of Fabrication Plans
  • Jenny Lin,
  • and Jim McCann
  International Conference on Robotics and Automation 2021
• 
  uKnit: A Position-Aware Reconfigurable Machine-Knitted Wearable for Gestural Interaction and Passive Sensing using Electrical Impedance Tomography (external link)
  • Catherine Tianhong Yu,
  • Riku Arakawa,
  • Jim McCann,
  • and Mayank Goel
  CHI 2023
• 
  RobotSweater: Scalable, Generalizable, and Customizable Machine-knitted Tactile Skins for Robots (external link)
  • Zilin Si,
  • Catherine Tianhong Yu,
  • Katrene Morozov,
  • Jim McCann,
  • and Wenzhen Yuan
  ICRA 2023
• 
  Semantics and Scheduling for Machine Knitting Compilers
  • Jenny Lin,
  • Vidya Narayanan,
  • Yuka Ikarashi,
  • Jonathan Ragan-Kelley,
  • Gilbert Bernstein,
  • and Jim McCann
  SIGGRAPH 2023
• 
  Estimating Yarn Length for Machine-Knitted Structures
  • Gabrielle Ohlson,
  • Angelica Bonilla Fominaya,
  • Kavya Puthuveetil,
  • Jenny Wang,
  • Emily Amspoker,
  • and Jim McCann
  SCF 2023

Links

• Knitout on github