rustitch

A Rust library for parsing embroidery files and rendering stitch data to images.

Supported formats: PES, DST, EXP, JEF, VP3

Part of the stitch-peek-rs project.

Usage

Add rustitch to your Cargo.toml:

[dependencies]
rustitch = "0.2"

Generate a thumbnail

// PES files (backward-compatible API)
let pes_data = std::fs::read("design.pes")?;
let png_bytes = rustitch::thumbnail(&pes_data, 256)?;
std::fs::write("preview.png", &png_bytes)?;

// Any supported format
let dst_data = std::fs::read("pattern.dst")?;
let png_bytes = rustitch::thumbnail_format(&dst_data, 256, rustitch::Format::Dst)?;
std::fs::write("preview.png", &png_bytes)?;

Parse and inspect a PES design

use rustitch::pes::{self, StitchCommand};

let data = std::fs::read("design.pes")?;
let design = pes::parse(&data)?;

println!("PES version: {}", std::str::from_utf8(&design.header.version).unwrap());
println!("Label: {}", design.pec_header.label);
println!("Colors: {}", design.pec_header.color_count);

let stitch_count = design.commands.iter()
    .filter(|c| matches!(c, StitchCommand::Stitch { .. }))
    .count();
println!("Stitches: {stitch_count}");

Resolve and render manually

use rustitch::pes;

let data = std::fs::read("design.pes")?;
let design = pes::parse(&data)?;
let resolved = pes::resolve(&design)?;

println!("Segments: {}", resolved.segments.len());
println!("Bounding box: ({}, {}) to ({}, {})",
    resolved.bounds.min_x, resolved.bounds.min_y,
    resolved.bounds.max_x, resolved.bounds.max_y);

let png_bytes = rustitch::render_thumbnail(&resolved, 512)?;
std::fs::write("large_preview.png", &png_bytes)?;

Format detection

use rustitch::format::{self, Format};
use std::path::Path;

// Detect from file extension
let fmt = format::detect_from_extension(Path::new("design.jef"));
assert_eq!(fmt, Some(Format::Jef));

// Detect from file content (magic bytes)
let data = std::fs::read("design.pes")?;
let fmt = format::detect_from_bytes(&data);
assert_eq!(fmt, Some(Format::Pes));

Supported formats

Format	Manufacturer	Colors	Notes
PES	Brother PE-Design	Embedded (PEC palette)	Versions 1-10
DST	Tajima	Default palette	3-byte bit-packed records
EXP	Melco/Bernina	Default palette	Simple 2-byte encoding
JEF	Janome	Embedded (Janome palette)	Structured header with color table
VP3	Pfaff/Viking	Embedded (RGB)	Hierarchical format with per-section colors

Formats without embedded color info (DST, EXP) use a default palette of 12 high-contrast colors, cycling on each color change.

How it works

Detect the file format from magic bytes or extension
Parse the format-specific binary encoding into a common StitchCommand stream (stitch, jump, trim, color change, end)
Resolve relative movements into absolute coordinate segments grouped by thread color
Render anti-aliased line segments with tiny-skia, scaled to fit the requested size
Encode as PNG with proper alpha handling

License

MIT