I recently learned about Seamly2D and SeamlyMe and they appear to have quite a bit in common with FreeSewing, along with some significant differences of course. On the similarities side, they tend to like automating patterns from measurements via algorithms rather than creating standard sized designs. On the differences side, the patterns there seem less curated and Seamly requires running software as opposed to FreeSewing having a web-based UI for end-users. Has anyone here used Seamly2D or SeamlyMe much? I was thinking it would be great to explore if and how the two systems (Seamly and FreeSewing) could have compatible design and measurement formats the convert to/from each other. I’m still in the exploring phase, so I haven’t dug in too deeply, I just figured I’d ask to avoid duplicating any prior work done.
There is obviously some overlap, with the main difference (IMHO) being the target demographic.
Seamly really wants to be used by people in the fashion industry, attract investors, and in general monetize their efforts.
So they make a point-and-click GUI application because that’s what fashion designers are used to.
FreeSewing does not care what the industry does, and treats it as a pure technical challenge. Hence, you get patterns-as-code.
Technically, I do think it should be possible to have some synergies. However, the very different motivations of the people involved and the backdrop of the fork drama with Valentina (where our sympathy gravitates towards Valentina (the developer) rather than Seamly (the PR person) make it an unlikely marriage.
I am a happy user of both Seamly and Freesewing. I would say that they are completely different. Freesewing enables you to print presented patterns tailored to your measurements, whereas Seamly allows you to create your own patterns and use them with different measurements.
@joost I think Seamly has moved on a lot since the time of the fork. There have even been some updates in the link you provided. I chose Seamly over Valentina because Seamly currently has no paid version, whereas Valentina does. Also, Seamly has also an active forum.
Glad to hear it. I was merely explaining why – in my opinion – collaboration has so far not happened organically.
I really appreciate the background. It’s super helpful for understanding the context. My initial idea was more to see if/how the saved file formats could be converted to/from each other, and the general complexity of each. For example, it looks like the measurements in SeamMe are stored in a pretty simple XML format that could be imported into FreeSewing and vice versa with some translations, perhaps as simple as some XSLT conversion files via the FreeSewing page Import Data | FreeSewing. The patterns in Seamly2D are also just XML, but I’m sure the structure is a little more complex. I see some YAML and JSON export formats in FreeSewing. I know that without some coordination between Seamly and FreeSewing, there would likely be breaking changes introduced even if we did get something working at a point in time. At this point, just an idea for how the two could integrate should there ever be interest or momentum behind it. If I get some extra time, I may make a tiny little prototype proof of concept. I’m a retired software engineer, so I see how it can be done, but I’m a little slower on the development side now that I’ve taken time off.
I once looked at the Seamly/Valentina code to see if designs and patterns could be transferred/converted back and forth between it and FreeSewing. However, the differences seemed so big that I gave up.