Contour Fill
What it is
Contour fill covers areas with stitches following the contour of an object.
How to Create
Create a closed path with a fill color.
Set Start and End Point
Set start and end points for autofill objects with Visual commands.
Params
Run Extensions > Ink/Stitch > Params. Set fill method to Contour Fill and tweak the settings to your needs.
| Settings | Description | |
|---|---|---|
| Automatically routed fill stitching | ☑ | Must be enabled for these settings to take effect. |
| Fill method | Contour Fill | Contour Fill must be selected to sew spiral lines of the contour |
| Contour Fill Strategy |   |
Inner to outer (default) is able to fill shapes with bottlenecks Single spiral fills a shape with a single spiral from the outside to the inside Double spiral fills a shape with a double spiral, starts and ends at the outside border of the shape. |
| Join Style | Round, Mitered, Beveled | Method to handle the edges when the size the contour is reduced for the inner spirals |
| Avoid self-crossing |  |
Wheter inner to outer is allowed to cross itself or not |
| Clockwise | ☑ | Direction to move around the contour |
| Smoothness | Smooth the stitch path. Smoothness limits how far the smoothed stitch path is allowed to deviate from the original path. Try low numbers like 0.2. Hint: a lower running stitch tolerance may be needed too. | |
| Expand | Expand the shape before fill stitching, to compensate for gaps between the shapes. Negative values contract instead. | |
| Maximum fill stitch length | The length of each stitch in a row. “Max” is because a shorter stitch may be used at the start or end of a row. | |
| Spacing between rows | Distance between rows of stitches | |
| Running Stitch tolerance |  |
All stitches must be within this distance of the path. A lower tolerance means stitches will be closer together. A higher tolerance means sharp corners may be rounded. |
| Randomize stitches | ☑ | Randomize stitch length and phase instead of dividing evenly or staggering. This is recommended for closely-spaced curved fills to avoid Moiré artefacts. |
| Random stitch length jitter | Amount to vary the length of each stitch by when randomizing. | |
| Random Seed | Rolling the dice or setting a new value will change the random stitches | |
| Minimum stitch length | Overwrite global minimum stitch length setting. Shorter stitches than that will be removed. | |
| Minimum jump stitch length | Overwrite global minimum jump stitch length setting. Shorter distances to the next object will have no lock stitches. | |
| Allow lock stitches | Enables lock stitches in only desired positions | |
| Force lock stitches | ☑ | Sew lock stitches after sewing this element, even if the distance to the next object is shorter than defined by the collapse length value in the Ink/Stitch preferences. |
| Tack stitch | Chose your favorite style | |
| Lock stitch | Chose your [favorite style](/docs/stitches/lock-stitches/ | |
| Trim After | ☑ | Trim the thread after sewing this object. |
| Stop After | ☑ | Stop the machine after sewing this object. Before stopping it will jump to the stop position (frame out) if defined. |
Underlay
Underlay in Countour Fill doesn’t follow the contour, but uses the fill angle which can be defined in the fill underlay params.
