This printer enables you to manufacture apparel, and by only pushing a button! Drawing attention in fashion industry and used by many designers, 3D technology now appears in Kniterate knitting machine.
Kniterate was founded by Gerard Rubio, who two years ago began his foray into 3D knitting with the OpenKnit project, an open-source digital fabrication tool itself made from 3D printed parts. With his new venture, Kniterate, Rubio is continuing to make his vision of a democratic textile manufacturing process a reality.
The Kniterate system essentially lets you digitally design your own knitted clothes through an easy-to-use design software. The software, which is preloaded with templates for beanies, scarves, socks, sweaters, and a number of other garments, lets you decide on the pattern, size, detailing, and even text you want included on the garment before it is sent to the knitting machine. Once the design process is complete, the data from the file is sent to an Arduino Mega-driven knitting machine itself equipped with 80 five gauge knitting needles. According to Rubio, while the current prototype for the machine has 80 industrial knitting needles, the next prototype will have as many as 240.
