Embroidery file formats?

Question

My wife has a Bernina embroidery machine and I'd like to experiment with creating designs programmatically. I'd like to either find out how to output data in a format the machine's software will accept, or else find a free or inexpensive utility that can convert from a format I can produce (such as HPGL, or something else documented) to a format the machine can accept. My intention would be to output a file with one XY coordinate per stitch, plus instructions to change thread (pause for thread change); I don't need something to generate area fills, adjust stitch spacing, optimize stitching order, etc.; I'd expect to handle those things myself.

Anyone have any suggestions?

Answer 1

According to this thread (admittedly a few years old, so maybe they've opened up recently) the details of the .art file format is closely guarded by Bernina and not made available to developers, requiring that all work is done through their official design tools.

I would think you could reverse engineer the file format with some trial-and-error modification of the .art file bytes, but the trick is getting those modified files back into the machine. Perhaps a good start would be to modify some bytes and then try to get their design software to re-open the file. The big gotcha with this approach would be if they use a checksum.

Answer 2

Bernina's .ART format is indeed proprietary, but Berinina owns a software company, OESD, that makes conversion software (e.g. the OESD Magic Box). You can create files using a documented file format, such as .PES, and use their software to convert the PES files into ART.

Here's a resource on the layout of some of the embroidery file formats

disclaimer: the company I work for sells OESD products.