The oldest known knitting item dates back to Egypt in the Middle Ages, by way of a pair of carefully handcrafted socks. Although handmade clothes have occupied our closets for centuries, a recent influx of high-tech knitting machines have changed how we now create our favorite pieces.
These systems, which have made anything from Prada sweaters to Nike shirts, are still far from seamless. Programming machines for designs can be a tedious and complicated ordeal: When you have to specify every single stitch, one mistake can throw off the entire garment.
In a new pair of papers, researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) have come up with a new approach to streamline the process: a new system and design tool for automating knitted garments.
In one paper, a team created a system called “InverseKnit”, that translates photos of knitted patterns into instructions that are then used with machines to make clothing. An approach like this...
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