How to Use View Modes, Stitch Preview & Alignment Tools in Embroidery Software

The View menu in eXPerience 8 controls how your embroidery designs and workspace appear on screen, allowing you to inspect stitch structure, analyze density, and align elements with precision.

1. Accessing View Options

You can access display controls through two primary locations:

• Click the View icon located on the main toolbar.
• Open the View dropdown menu from the top menu bar.

2. Switching Between Stitches, Artwork, and Outlines

• Show Stitches: Enable the Stitches option to display the actual embroidery stitches. When unchecked, the software hides the stitches and reveals the underlying vector Artwork (shapes and fill colors).
• Filled Outlines: Disable Filled Outlines when in artwork mode to show only the vector wireframes/contours and their assigned outline colors without the solid color fill.

Tip: Turn off Stitches when reshaping or adding vector nodes to focus on line geometry without visual clutter from stitch textures.

3. Previewing 3D Stitches and Stitch Points

• 3D Realistic Preview: Check 3D Preview (or press the P hotkey) to render stitches with realistic thread luster, texture, and depth.
• 2D Stitch Lines: Turn 3D Preview off to view stitches as thin technical lines.
• Stitch Points: With 3D Preview turned off, enable Stitch Points to display small square markers representing every needle penetration point.
• Adjusting 3D Light Direction: In 3D Preview mode, click and drag the Light Direction control handle in the preview settings to change where the virtual light hits the embroidery surface.

Tip: Use Stitch Points view to diagnose tension issues, spot erratic jumps, or manually adjust individual needle penetrations.

4. Inspecting Stitch Density with Thickness View

Enable Thickness View to evaluate overlapping stitch layers and prevent overly dense embroidery that could cause thread breaks or fabric damage:

• Green: Standard single-layer stitching (no overlapping).
• Orange to Red: Multiple overlapping stitch layers.
• Dark / Saturated Tones: High density areas indicating heavy stitching.

Tip: If complex designs show dark red overlapping zones, use software editing tools to remove underlying stitches before sending the file to your machine.

5. Utilizing Workspace Guides and Alignment Tools

• Crosshair: Enable Crosshair to attach a full-screen alignment cross to your mouse cursor for precise visual positioning against design elements.
• Grid: Toggle the Grid on for structured visual measurements, or toggle it off for an unobstructed view of your design.
• Guidelines: Toggle Guidelines to show or hide your custom horizontal and vertical placement guides.
• Snap to Grid & Guidelines: Enable Snap so the cursor automatically locks to nearby grid lines or guidelines while drawing and moving objects.
• Hoop View: Toggle the Hoop view on or off to check your design placement and boundaries relative to your selected embroidery frame.

Tip: Temporarily disable Snap when drawing freehand curves or positioning fine details to prevent the cursor from jumping to grid intersections.

6. Customizing the User Interface (UI) Colors

1. Open the UI customization section in the View menu.
2. Click the color swatch next to any interface component you wish to change.
3. Select your desired color, then adjust the Brightness and Transparency sliders to suit your workspace preference.