Ammar Hassonjee – Looking Outwards 03

Computer Aided Knitting by MIT CSAIL

The CSAIL lab at MIT recently completed a new project that develops systems for streamlining the process of automating knit garments. One of the systems developed is called “InverseKnit” in which photographs of knitted patterns are analyzed using a program to create instructions for robots to fabricate clothing.

According to the CSAIL website, researchers first started by creating a dataset of knitting instructions/patterns and then programmed a network to interpret these images into rules that can be used to fabricate clothing items such as a sock.

What I admire about this project is its goal to revolutionize an age old process of knitting and apply algorithims in order to streamline this process we’ve been using for thouasands of years to make clothes. The real world application of this project is incredible as it can potentially reduce the manufacturing cost of clothes by so much. I think the algorithms used are image based processors that use the knitting image patterns as inputs and then analyze the geometry in the patterns. The original intent of the project was acheived as the creators sought to craft a simple and straightforward knitting machine that fabricates with accuracy, and they accomplished that.