Weaving applications read the text file, display it in graphical weave-draft format, and enable you to edit the draft and immediately see the effect of your changes in the computer-generated 'cloth.' The most useful way to open a WIF file is with weaving software. The best news? You don't have to hand-enter all those treadling and threading details to play with the draft in your weaving software. With WIFs, WeaveZine can publish a thumbnail image of the draft-to give the reader the basic look-and-feel of the textile-then offer the complete details as a downloadable WIF file. These types of drafts produce cloth that is organic and rich, but up until now, have been hard to publish because you would have to interrupt the article with a long draft section, which does not display well in print or online.

It also makes it possible for us to elegantly publish weave drafts with very long repeats in the threading and treadling. On WeaveZine, WIF files make it possible for us to offer weave-draft information in a downloadable format that users can import into weaving software to customize (swapping out warp and weft colors or changing the treadling and treadling) and/or use to drive a computer-assisted loom. Having an established standard for describing weave drafts is a boon for websites such as where weavers upload and download WIF files to exchange weave-draft information. Now, if a weaver using Fiberworks PCW wants to share a project with a weaver who uses pixeLoom, the first weaver can select File->Save As->WIF Format in order to export the project into the WIF format which the second weaver can then import using File->Open. Most weaving software implements the WIF standard as an import/export file format. If the weaver owned more than one brand of weaving software-perhaps because each had different features they needed for their designing-they could not transfer weave drafts between the two programs, and would instead have to re-enter everything by hand.

plm files.īefore the WIF standard, there was no way for a weaver using one program to share their electronic drafts with someone using another. The reason a generic standard is necessary is that each weaving program stores draft and project information in its own proprietary file format. Using WIF files, weavers can electronically store and exchange weave drafts, display them graphically with weaving software, and use them to drive computer-assisted looms. (If you're willing to wade through formatting, you can even open WIF files in a text reader such as Windows Notepad.) What makes WIF files so wonderful is they're a generic standard, and can be read by nearly all weaving software. It is a specially formatted text file that describes a weaving project.

Arahweave software free