UserManual:SeamlyMeOverview

Tape - Individual Measurements
Most people will design patterns and sew for specific people - either customers or family and friends. And, as one can read all over the internet, standard sizes do not fit everyone and always need adjustments. Therefore, Valentina has very cleverly provided the individual measurements system. If you followed the tutorial on Multisizes, then you will already have covered a number of things which I will only refer to in this tutorial. As we covered centimeters in Multisizes, we will use inches in Individual sizes. When you open Tape, you are presented with a blank screen, click on New and choose the following options in the popup screen:

And click on OK. You now have the basic measurement file ready to enter values into it. It’s wise to save the file. You may include the person’s name or any other info so that you can find the measurements when you start creating the pattern.

Before we enter the measurements, I’ll add a few details that I may need once I have completed the pattern: Click on the Information tab:

It really isn’t necessary to enter any information, but I am going to cover it just to let everyone know that the facility is available. The first option is which pattern-making system you are going to use:

For the sake of this tutorial, I am going to choose the McCunn system, as this Tape file is being created especially for the tutorial on making-patterns using the McCunn system.

I have added fictitious information. You may add mobile numbers or any other information that you deem necessary to identify and contact the person once the pattern blocks have been prepared and this information will be attached to this measurement file until you delete the file or change the information.

Menu
I am going to explain all the items in the top menu starting with File.



File
Click on File to get the dropdown list:


 * New - Creates a new measurement file, or you can use Ctrl+N or the button on the front screen.
 * Open Individual - This will open an individual measurements file or you can use the button on the front screen.
 * Open Standard - This will open a Multisize (Standard) measurements file.
 * Open Template - This will open a measurement Template file that you have previously created. Templates have not yet been covered in the tutorial, but once you have been over the tutorials, I’m sure you will be able to make your own measurement templates according to the items you wish to create and the measurements you prefer to work with, which will also include the basic information that you would like, thus saving you time in setting things up from scratch each time you wish to create a measurements file. The only difference in a template file from other files is the location that the file is saved to. And by choosing ‘Open Template’ will take you directly to the templates folder.
 * Valentina has very kindly offered a template, that includes various formulas, which you can find in the program files, tables, templates directory (Valentina\tables\templates).


 * Create from Existing - This option will create a new measurements file from one you created before, which you will be able to edit and save under a different name.
 * Save - Saves a measurement file, or you can use Ctrl+S or the button on the front screen. I’m a firm believer in saving often, so I normally use the Crtl+S or the button, depending on wether I have the mouse in my hand or my hands on the keyboard.
 * Save as - Saves a new measurement file, or you can use Ctrl+S or the button on the front screen. Depending on the type of measurement file created, this option will automatically insert the extension of .vit or .vst. You may choose the location that the you want the file saved in if it’s not the same location as chosen in the ‘Preferences’ and you may name the file as you wish, the name ‘measurements’ has automatically been generated.
 * Export to CSV - You can save your measurement file as a comma delimited file for use in a word document, spreadsheet or database of your choice.
 * Read Only - This is a very clever inclusion that locks the measurement file so that no changes can be made to it.
 * List of Recent Measurement Files - Next is a list of recent files opened to help you quickly find and open the one you are busy with. This list accommodates 5 files.
 * Preferences - And here we come to the all important one. This is where we set up our personal preferences. These preferences will be the same every time you open Tape.
 * Click on Preferences and the follow screen pops up:


 * TI008.png
 * On the left are 2 tabs – Configuration and Paths


 * Configuration
 * GUI Language – You can change this if you chose a language when installing Valentina and would prefer to use a different language.
 * Decimal Separator Parts with OS Options – I suggest you don’t change this because it is automatically set to use whatever you have set your operating system to use.
 * Patternmaking System – One often studies a lot of different patternmaking systems and incorporates different items from each, however, if you have only 1 system that you use, you may wish to specify which system and perhaps the books name here. This is by no means compulsory.
 * Measurement Editing – Reset Warnings – I’m not too sure what this does, so I’d leave it alone.
 * Toolbar – Text appears under the icon (recommended for beginners) – By removing the tick in the box, the names of the icons will be removed as you can see below:


 * TI009.png


 * TI010.png


 * Default Height and Size – You may edit this to measurements in the range that you normally work with if you wish.
 * Paths
 * Click on the Paths tab to edit the following:


 * TI011.png
 * Select the line that you would wish to change, click Edit and navigate to where you’d like the default to be and click ‘Select folder’.


 * TI012.png


 * My Individual Measurements – I have a folder on my desktop called Valentina. Inside this folder, I have a Measurements folder that I wish to store all my measurements in.
 * My Multisize Measurements – I leave this at the default, but you may change it.
 * My Templates – I also leave this at the default.
 * Once you have setup all your preferences, you may click on ‘Apply’ and ‘Ok’ to close it. These preferences will be the defaults for all your measurement files unless you specify differently.


 * Quit - Closes the Tape program, you may also click on the X at the very top right.


 * TI013.png
 * (The line will minimize the program to the taskbar and the squares will exit the full screen mode. Once you have exited full screen mode, the squares will become a single square which you may click to revert back to full screen mode.)

The next item on the menu is...

Measurements
Add Known and Add Custom – Have buttons on the screen that have been covered in the Multisize tutorials and will be further explained later in this tutorial.
 * Database – This is a list of Known measurement areas.
 * Measurement Diagram – This has a button on the screen and it toggles the diagram area, on the right side of the main screen, on and off. (I like to have the diagram showing to check that I can check the correct measurement is chosen.)

Window

 * New Window – will open a new instance of Tape.
 * Below New Window are the details of the current open file which are also in plain view at the top left of the screen.

Help

 * TI016.png


 * About Qt – This gives information about Qt, click OK to close it:


 * TI017.png


 * About Tape – This gives information about Tape. You may click the box ‘Check for Update’ to upgrade to the latest version and click on OK to close it.


 * TI018.png


 * TI019.png

Shortcut Buttons
Below the Menu on the top left are a few shortcut buttons. They have been covered in the File menu section, however, here is a brief description of each.


 * New – Click to create a new measurement file.
 * Open Individual – Click to open an Individual measurement file previously created.
 * Save – Click to save the file. If the file hasn’t been changed since the last time you saved it, this button will be greyed out as you can see in the image above.
 * Add Known – Click to add a measurement from the Database of Measurements.
 * Add Custom – Click to add a Custom measurement that you can’t find in the database of measurements.
 * Measurement Diagram – This button will toggle the right side diagram on and off.

Entering Individual Measurements
Armed with our list of measurements that we have taken of our client, we are ready to proceed. First we add all the Known items to the list, so click on Known, and the Measurement Database window opens where we tick all the items that we will need – the same as we did in the Multisize Tutorial:

Next, we open all the Custom measurement items that we will need with detailed descriptions so that we will be able to find them once we start creating our patterns (as described in the Multisize Tutorial). A moment may be taken to sort the items into the order of our measurement sheet, if you wish, also covered in the previous Multisize Tutorial. It is at this point where things change quite a bit from the Multisize Tutorial...

Entering Measurements
When entering Individual Measurements, we only take ONE person's height and width into consideration. Therefore, we only have ONE box to enter measurements into. However, this box not only takes actual measurements but also formulas. For instance: If you consider the image below, you will notice that I have entered the measurement at height_waist_front as 39 inches and the height_neck_front as 57 inches. These are the measurements from the floor to the waist and neck fronts. To determine the measurement from the neck front to the waist front, I don’t need to actually measure the person. All I need to do is to enter the formula: height_neck_front – (minus) height_waist_front and that will give me the measurement of 18 inches.

To read up more on Formula Creation, here is a link to the tutorial: https://wiki.valentinaproject.org/wiki/UserManual:Formula_creation. But for a brief recap, the following may be used in formulas: How or why one would use these is way beyond this tutorial, however, they are available for those who wish to use them. For most, the simple operators should be sufficient. Another example of using them would be to find the diameter of the waist girth measurement: If the waist_circ = 31.5”, this formula will return 10.0268” which corelates to 31.5” * 7 / 22. This concludes the tutorials on Tape
 * Constants (integers or decimal numbers)
 * Variables (any of the ones listed in the Tables of variables)
 * Operators
 * +  for addition
 * -  for subtraction
 * *  for multiplication
 * /  for division
 * ^  for raising a number to an integer power (e.g. 3^2 = 9)
 * Algebraic or trigonometric functions
 * sin
 * cos
 * min
 * max
 * avg
 * fmod
 * pi
 * waist_circ / _pi

Groups of Measurements

 * About Tape
 * Starting a New Set of Measurements
 * Standard (Multisize) Measurements
 * Individual Measurements