Image Center
What It Does
Image Center converts photographs, drawings, logos, charts, and other images into weaving patterns. You load an image (or paste one from the clipboard), adjust how it's interpreted, and then send the result to your draft — as a liftplan, a tie-up, directly into the drawdown, or into the pattern layer of a Pattern and Ground draft.
The basic conversion turns each area of the image into either a filled cell (warp up) or an empty cell (weft up), creating a black-and-white grid that represents your weaving structure. You control the size of the grid, how light or dark areas are interpreted, and you can crop, rotate, draw on, or remove backgrounds from the image before converting.
Image Center also has two special modes:
Chart detection recognizes images that are already weaving charts — book scans, screenshots from other software, even phone photos of a printed chart — and reads them cell-for-cell instead of guessing.
Jacquard mode turns a photograph into jacquard-ready cloth four different ways — tone bands or color regions filled with weave structures, continuously shaded weaves, or double cloth — and exports a loom-ready TIFF or BMP file.
Opening Image Center
Ribbon: Tools tab > Image Center button
Image Center opens as a separate window so you can work with it alongside your draft. Closing the window hides it rather than discarding your work — reopening from the ribbon picks up where you left off.
The Image Center Window
The window is divided into three areas:
Left Panel — Library
This is where you organize and browse your images. It has three sections:
Albums Collections you create to group related images. For example, you might have albums for "Logos," "Nature Photos," or "Geometric Shapes."
Folders Directories on your computer that Image Center watches for images. Click + Add Folder to add a new watched folder. Any images in that folder (PNG, JPG, BMP, GIF, WEBP, TIFF) appear automatically — including the TIFF loom files you export from Jacquard mode, so exports round-trip straight back into your library.
TempoWeave includes a set of sample images to get you started — these appear in the Folders section when you first open Image Center.
Working Set A collection for images you've opened individually (via the Open Image button) or saved from a drawing, without adding them to an album or folder. These persist between sessions.
Center Panel — Workspace
This is where you load, manipulate, and convert your image. It has a toolbar at the top, two side-by-side views in the middle, and controls at the bottom.
Right Panel — Thumbnail Gallery
Shows thumbnails of all images in the currently selected album or folder. Click any thumbnail to load it into the workspace. You can zoom the thumbnails larger or smaller with the + and - buttons at the bottom.
When Jacquard mode is on, the jacquard controls appear at the top of this panel, above the gallery.
The Workspace in Detail
Toolbar
New Blank
Start a blank white canvas at the current grid size, ready to draw on
Open Image
Load an image file from your computer
Save Image
Save the current image (including anything you've drawn) as a PNG; it's added to your Working Set
Paste Image
Load an image straight from the clipboard — a screenshot, a snip, or an image copied from a browser. Ctrl+V (Cmd+V) does the same
Rotate CW / CCW
Rotate the image 90 degrees clockwise or counter-clockwise
Flip H / Flip V
Mirror the image horizontally or vertically
Invert
Photographic negative — swaps dark and light (handy for flipping warp-faced and weft-faced readings)
Crop
Draw a rectangle on the image to use only that portion
Reset
Remove the crop and use the full image again
Magic Wand
Click on a background color to remove it from the conversion
Tolerance
Controls how similar colors need to be for the Magic Wand (0 = exact match, higher = more inclusive)
Clear
Remove the Magic Wand selection
T (Text)
Compose text as a pattern — type a word or phrase and it becomes grid cells
Brush size
Size of the drawing brush (1–5 cells) used when painting on the preview
Fill
What the brush paints: Solid black/white, or any weave structure — structure strokes are evaluated at absolute cloth coordinates, so they stay seamless no matter how many times you paint over an area
The Two Views
Original Image (left) — Shows your loaded image with any crop region or Magic Wand selection overlaid. The crop area is shown as a rectangle, and Magic Wand selections appear as a red overlay.
Preview Grid (right) — Shows the converted weaving pattern in real time. Black cells represent filled squares (warp up), white cells represent empty squares (weft up). This preview updates instantly as you change the threshold, grid size, or crop.
Drawing on the preview — Click or drag on the preview grid to paint cells with the current brush size. Your edits are painted back into the source image, so they survive changes to the threshold or grid size — and you can save the result with Save Image. If you have unsaved drawing when you load another image or quit, TempoWeave asks first.
Bottom Controls
Grid Size
Rows — How many picks (weft rows) the pattern will have (4–9999)
Cols — How many ends (warp threads) the pattern will have (4–5000)
Lock Aspect When checked (the default), editing Rows automatically recalculates Cols to keep the image's proportions, and vice versa — no math required. When a chart has been detected, the lock uses the chart's cell counts as the true ratio. Uncheck it to set the two independently.
Detect Grid Runs chart detection manually (see the next section). Detection also runs automatically when you load, paste, rotate, flip, or crop an image.
Jacquard Toggles Jacquard mode (see its own section below).
Threshold A slider (0–255) that controls where the line falls between "filled" and "empty." Lower values mean only very dark areas become filled cells. Higher values mean lighter areas are included too.
When you first load an image, TempoWeave automatically calculates a good starting threshold by analyzing the image's brightness distribution. You can then adjust it to taste. (In Jacquard mode, the threshold slider is replaced by the jacquard controls.)
Dither Check Dither to replace the hard threshold with Floyd-Steinberg dithering: midtones render as a fine stipple of cells instead of solid areas. This is the better choice for photographs headed to plain black/white conversion — shading survives as texture. The threshold slider is inactive while dithering is on.
Save Tuning Saves your current threshold, rows, and columns settings for this specific image. Next time you select this image, your settings are restored automatically — saved tuning takes precedence over automatic chart detection, so your explicit choice always wins.
Copy Buttons Three buttons for sending the pattern to your draft:
Copy to Weft — For pasting into the liftplan area (up to 128 columns)
Copy to Tie-up — For pasting into the tie-up matrix
Copy to Drawdown — For pasting directly into the cloth
Chart Detection
If the image you load is itself a grid chart — a scan from a book, a screenshot from another weaving program, or a photo of a printed chart — Image Center recognizes the gridlines and reads the chart cell-for-cell. No more guessing the right Rows and Cols or fighting the threshold slider.
When a chart is detected you'll see a toast like "Chart grid detected: 29 rows x 14 columns," and Rows/Cols snap to the chart's true cell counts. The preview shows the chart exactly, because each grid cell is sampled from the center of its chart cell — the gridlines themselves never contaminate the result.
What it handles:
Clean screenshots and scans, including ones where the chart's outer border is clipped
Phone photos of charts in books — a bit of camera tilt and perspective is fine, because each gridline is traced individually through the image
Charts inside a larger page: crop to the chart region first, and detection runs on the crop
What to know:
Detection runs automatically on load, paste, rotate, flip, and crop. The Detect Grid button re-runs it manually.
If you previously saved tuning for an image, the saved settings win on load — press Detect Grid to apply detection instead.
Changing Rows or Cols away from the detected counts switches back to normal resampling (that's your escape hatch if you want to resize a chart).
Ordinary photos and drawings are left alone — detection only engages when the image genuinely reads as a chart.
The workflow this enables: snip a chart from a PDF, press Ctrl+V (Cmd+V) in Image Center, and Copy to Weft — three steps, no files, no cleanup.
Jacquard Mode
Jacquard mode turns an image into weavable jacquard cloth. Click the Jacquard toggle in the bottom controls and the jacquard panel appears at the top of the right sidebar. The Mode picker at its top chooses one of four conversion methods:
Tone Structures
The image is split into tone bands by brightness (2–8, set with the Tones spinner), and each band is filled with a weave structure. Dark areas might become weft-faced satin, light areas warp-faced satin, and midtones twills — the classic way damask and jacquard designs create shading.
The tone legend shows one row per tone: a gray swatch and a structure dropdown. The built-in structures:
8-End Satin (weft)
Darkest — weft dominates the face
5-End Satin (weft)
Dark
1/3 Twill
Weft-leaning midtone
Tabby
Balanced
2/2 Twill
Balanced midtone with diagonal
3/1 Twill
Warp-leaning midtone
5-End Satin (warp)
Light
8-End Satin (warp)
Lightest — warp dominates the face
8-End Satin 2/8 … 6/8
The shaded satin ramp — intermediate riser counts between weft-faced (1/8) and warp-faced (7/8)
Sensible defaults are assigned automatically (darkest tone gets weft-faced satin, lightest warp-faced). For the smoothest damask shading, assign the 8-end satin ramp by hand across your tones — staying in one satin family means no structure mismatch at tone boundaries.
Painting tones: click a tone's swatch to make it the active brush, then paint on the preview to reassign areas by hand. Tone edits are painted back into the source image, so they stick.
Color Structures
Like Tone Structures, but the image is clustered by actual color instead of brightness — so a red flower and green leaves of similar darkness get different structures. The legend swatches show the found colors, sorted dark to light. Everything else works the same: assign structures per color, paint with a color's swatch to reassign areas.
Shaded Weave
Instead of discrete bands, the local tone around every cell continuously adjusts the float length within a single weave family — no banding, no region boundaries, just smooth photographic shading in cloth. Pick a Weave family (straight, point, diamond, broken, or advancing twill; 5, 8, or 12-end satin; 2×2 or 3×3 basket), a Detail level (Finest samples tone very locally with a small repeat; Bluntest averages broadly with a large repeat), and the twill direction (Z by default, check S to reverse). Because everything stays in one family, this mode is also the safest for float lengths.
Double Cloth
Dark areas bring one cloth layer to the face, light areas the other — a true two-layer jacquard exchange using exact 4×4 double-cloth units. There are no settings; use the Invert toolbar button to swap which side shows where.
Show Weave, Selvedge, and Export
Show Weave (Tone and Color Structures modes) toggles the preview between your design view and the developed cloth — every cell resolved through its structure. Shaded Weave and Double Cloth always preview as developed cloth. Structures are anchored to absolute cloth coordinates, so satin and twill lines run continuously across motif boundaries with no seams.
Selvedge adds the given number of ends of opposite-phase plain weave to both edges of the exported file (your design stays clean on screen) — a ready-to-weave edge on the loom.
Export TIFF / Export BMP write the developed cloth as a true 1-bit monochrome file, one pixel per end and pick, black = warp up. The TIFF uses the same polarity convention as established TC2 tools, and exported files appear right back in your gallery if the folder is watched.
Jacquard workflow
Paste or load a photo — continuous-tone images (flowers, portraits, landscapes) work best
Use the Magic Wand to clear the background if needed (masked areas go to the lightest tone)
Set Cols to your loom's warp count; Lock Aspect fills in Rows
Pick a mode: Shaded Weave for photographic shading, Tone/Color Structures for graphic designs with distinct areas, Double Cloth for two-layer exchange
Adjust, paint, and check the developed cloth
Set a Selvedge width if you want woven-in edges
Export TIFF and take the file to your jacquard software
A caution about floats: within each structure, float lengths are bounded. But in Tone and Color Structures modes, boundaries between regions can occasionally stack longer floats where two structures fail to bind. Check critical pieces for long floats before weaving — an automatic float checker is planned. Shaded Weave mode avoids this by staying in one family.
How to Use It
Basic Workflow
Open Image Center from the Tools tab
Load an image — click Open Image, select a thumbnail, or just press Ctrl+V (Cmd+V) with an image on the clipboard
If it's a chart, detection sets Rows and Cols for you; otherwise set the size you want (Lock Aspect keeps proportions)
Adjust the Threshold slider until the preview grid looks right
Click one of the Copy buttons
Switch to your draft, select the Select tool, position your cursor where you want the pattern
Press Ctrl+V (Cmd+V) to paste
Choosing a Copy Destination
Copy to Drawdown is the most direct option — it pastes the pattern straight into the cloth. Use this when you want to place a motif or image directly in your fabric.
Copy to Weft (Liftplan) pastes the pattern into the liftplan area, where it becomes the shaft-lifting sequence for each pick. Your draft must be in liftplan mode. This is also the route into a Pattern and Ground draft: after Copy to Weft, use the Paste Pattern button on the P&G toolbar (or Ctrl+V) to place the image in the pattern liftplan.
Copy to Tie-up pastes into the shaft-to-treadle connection matrix. This is useful for small images (up to the size of your tie-up) that define a structural unit.
Working with the Magic Wand
The Magic Wand helps you remove backgrounds from images so only the subject converts to a weaving pattern.
Click the Magic Wand button in the toolbar
Click on the background color in your image
The selected area appears as a red overlay — these pixels will be treated as empty (white) in the grid
Adjust the Tolerance slider if too much or too little was selected
Lower tolerance = stricter color matching (selects less)
Higher tolerance = looser matching (selects more)
Click additional areas to add them to the selection
Use Clear to start over
The Magic Wand works well for images with solid or near-solid backgrounds — product photos, logos on white backgrounds, simple line art with a colored background.
Working with Crop
Crop lets you focus on just part of an image.
Click the Crop button in the toolbar
Click and drag on the image to draw a rectangle around the area you want
The preview grid immediately updates to show only the cropped portion
Use Reset to go back to the full image
Cropping is especially useful for photographs where you only want a small detail, for pages where the chart is surrounded by text, or when an image has borders you want to exclude. Chart detection re-runs on the cropped region automatically.
Drawing from Scratch
Image Center doubles as a simple pattern sketchpad:
Click New Blank to get a white canvas at the current grid size
Pick a brush size and draw directly on the preview grid
Use the T button to add text as pattern cells
Save Image stores your drawing as a PNG in the Working Set
Copy to your draft like any other pattern
Step-by-Step Example: A Chart from a Book
You found a motif chart in a weaving book and want it in your draft:
Photograph the chart with your phone (straight-on is best, but a little tilt is fine)
Get the photo to your computer and copy it, or open the file
In Image Center, press Ctrl+V (or Open Image)
Watch for the "Chart grid detected" toast — the preview should show the chart perfectly
If the photo includes more than the chart, Crop to the chart area; detection re-runs
Fix any stray cells by clicking them in the preview
Copy to Weft, then paste into your liftplan
Step-by-Step Example: Converting a Logo
Open Image Center and load the logo file
Set Rows and Cols for your desired size — Lock Aspect keeps it proportional
Click the Magic Wand and click the logo's background color
Adjust the Threshold until the logo details look crisp
Click individual cells in the preview to clean up stray dots
Click Save Tuning to remember these settings
Copy to Drawdown, switch to your draft, and paste with Ctrl+V
Step-by-Step Example: A Jacquard Portrait
Paste a photo into Image Center (Ctrl+V)
Set Cols to your loom's warp count, for example 1320; Lock Aspect sets Rows
Click Jacquard and choose Shaded Weave mode
Pick 8-End Satin as the weave and Medium detail — the preview shows the portrait as smoothly shaded satin
Try other weaves and detail levels; the preview updates instantly
Set a Selvedge width if you want woven-in edges
Export TIFF and load the file in your jacquard loom software
Organizing Your Image Library
Adding Folders
In the left panel, click + Add Folder
Navigate to the directory and select it
All supported images in that folder appear in the thumbnail gallery
Using the Working Set
Images you open with the Open Image button, and drawings you Save, are added to the Working Set automatically. This keeps them accessible without needing to remember where the file is on disk.
Browsing
Click any album, folder, or "Show Working Set" in the left panel to view its images as thumbnails in the right panel. Click a thumbnail to load it into the workspace.
Tips
Paste beats saving — For anything already on your screen (PDFs, websites, other software), snip it to the clipboard and press Ctrl+V in Image Center. No files needed.
Charts just work — If the image has gridlines, let detection read it. Only reach for the threshold slider with photos and drawings.
Start with simple, high-contrast images for threshold conversion — bold logos, silhouettes, and line drawings convert cleanly.
Smaller grids = simpler patterns — A 16×16 grid is easy to weave but won't show much detail. A 100×100 grid captures more but creates a much larger pattern area.
Draw to fine-tune — Click or drag on the preview to fix cells; edits survive threshold and size changes.
Save your tuning — If you've dialed in an image, Save Tuning remembers it — and it takes precedence over auto-detection next time.
Threshold direction — Lower = only dark areas fill (sparser). Higher = lighter areas fill too (denser).
Crop before adjusting threshold — The automatic threshold works better when it analyzes just the area you care about.
In Jacquard mode, trust the ladder — The default dark-to-light structure assignments follow standard damask practice. Change one tone at a time and watch Show Weave.
Photographs shine in Shaded Weave mode — it's the mode that turns a portrait or flower into smoothly shaded cloth with no banding.
Paint with structures — Set the brush Fill to a satin or twill and paint texture by hand; strokes are always seamless.
Dither for plain black/white photos — When you're not in Jacquard mode, the Dither checkbox keeps photographic shading as stipple.
Jacquard sources should be photos — Continuous-tone images posterize well. Charts and line art belong in the normal threshold mode.
Undo after pasting — If the pasted pattern doesn't look right in your draft, Ctrl+Z removes it. Adjust in Image Center and try again.
Magic Wand + Crop are exclusive — Enabling one disables the other.
Your files are safe — Rotate, flip, crop, and wand never modify the original file on disk. Drawing edits only reach disk if you click Save Image.
Quick Reference
Grid Rows
16
4–9999
Grid Columns
16
4–5000
Lock Aspect
On
—
Threshold
Auto-calculated
0–255
Dither
Off
—
Brush Fill
Solid
Solid or any structure
Jacquard Mode
Tone Structures
Tone / Color / Shaded Weave / Double Cloth
Jacquard Tones
4
2–8
Shaded Weave Detail
Medium
Finest–Bluntest
Selvedge
0
0–24 ends
Magic Wand Tolerance
32
0–255
Brush Size
1
1–5 cells
Copy to Drawdown
Main cloth area
5000 × 40000
Copy to Weft
Liftplan area (or P&G Paste Pattern)
128 columns
Copy to Tie-up
Tie-up matrix
128 × 128
Export TIFF / BMP (Jacquard)
1-bit loom file, 1 pixel per end/pick
5000 × 9999
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