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The fitted shirt sewn from this pattern, on a tailor's form under the same light
Fitted shirt — flat patterngrainlinecffront · cut 2drafted 11 min · 8 sizes verified

Pattern engineering / 01

Make the
cut.

Patterns that sew.

Draft from measurements, grade the whole run, and export a file the factory can actually open. Every size is checked before it leaves your screen — so you're not exporting each one to measure it again.

One email when it opens. Nothing else, and no card.

See a sewn sample

Free forever for opening, converting and checking pattern filesNo cardRuns in the browser

Fall / Winter
2026

What we heard

Grading isthe pain.

“Usually it is the grading, it is pain.”

— Freelance 3D pattern maker

“Sometimes you need to scale in 30%, sometimes 50%, sometimes 100%.”

— Freelance pattern maker, on moving a file between two CAD systems

“I need to go back and export each of it alone, and then double check the dimensions — which not always is accurate when you do it automatically.”

— Freelance 3D pattern maker

“The problem is not between sharing the files, import and export. The problem is their knowledge.”

— Freelance pattern maker, on factories

Software has promised to draft your patterns for twenty years. Professionals still check every size by hand, because the geometry was never guaranteed.

From recorded discovery interviews, 2026.

Inside the studio

Three moves.
One file.

Hands drawing an armhole curve on pattern paper with a grading ruler
01

Draft

From measurements or from a block. Named after the thing you're making, not a memorised command.

The same bodice front cut at eight nested sizes, fanned out so the grade is visible
02

Grade

Swap the size chart and the pattern re-solves. Not a table of per-point offsets.

A marker: pattern pieces nested tightly across a width of cloth on a cutting table
03

Mark

Nest, check yield, export a cut file for the machine you own.

Built for the whole run

Every size.Every seam.Checked.

Grading here is not a table of per-point offsets. Swap the size chart and the whole pattern re-solves against it — so the shape holds at 3XL the same way it holds at M, and non-linear size progressions are the same operation as a standard run, not a separate feature.

Then it checks itself. Seam lengths walked, notches matched, darts closed, every measurement compared against your tolerance. You get a report, not a hope.

  • Full size run in one action — no per-size export to verify it
  • Your tolerance, declared up front, checked on every size
  • Grade rules you can read, edit and reuse across styles
Size M, solved
Size — M

Verification · size M

±0.25 cm±0.5 cm±1 cm
MeasurementTargetMeasuredDev.
Chest, half50.0050.000.00Within tolerance
Shoulder43.4043.400.00Within tolerance
Nape to hem68.0068.000.00Within tolerance
Neck width19.0019.000.00Within tolerance
Armhole walked23.9923.990.00Within tolerance
Sleeve cap, front25.4925.51+0.02Within tolerance

All 6 measurements within ±0.5 cm. Whole run checked.

Set the tolerance before you grade.

“She basically paid me for nothing because she couldn't use it after all.”

A pattern maker we interviewed graded a full run to a 1 cm tolerance the client had stated. The real tolerance was 0.5 cm. The work was finished, correct, and unusable.

Declare the tolerance at the top of the file. Every size is measured against it, and anything outside it is flagged before you export.

The hand-off

Send a link.Not five files.

Right now you export AAMA, then ASTM, then a single size as a fallback, then an Excel report, then a screenshot — because you can't be sure what the factory can open. Then someone there scales it wrong anyway.

Send one link instead. It opens in any browser, on any machine, with no account and no software. Pieces, measurements, notches, grainlines, the size run, the marker. They can print it at real size or download whatever format their machine actually wants.

  • No account, no install, no licence on their side — it's free forever
  • Real-size print that is actually real size, at A0 or tiled to A4
  • Every format still available: DXF-AAMA, DXF-ASTM, single-size DXF, PDF
  • Measurement report and piece list travel with the link
  • You see when it opens and which size run they pulled
A laptop on a cutting table showing the Gradestudio share page, with shirt pattern pieces, a piece list, and tailor's shears beside it

The factory opens a link. Nothing to install.

Pieces, the size run, and a print that is actually real size.

The receipts

Every one of thesewas sewn.

Same file, same export you'd get. No renders, no avatars.

fitted shirt on a dress form
Flat pattern for the fitted shirt, seam-match indicators visible

Fitted shirt · cotton poplin

Pieces
11
Size run
XS–3XL
Drafted
14 min
Verified
7
A-line skirt on a dress form
Flat pattern for the A-line skirt, seam-match indicators visible

A-line skirt · wool suiting

Pieces
6
Size run
XS–XL
Drafted
9 min
Verified
5
raglan sweatshirt on a dress form
Flat pattern for the raglan sweatshirt, seam-match indicators visible

Raglan sweatshirt · loopback jersey

Pieces
7
Size run
S–2XL
Drafted
11 min
Verified
6
tailored trouser on a dress form
Flat pattern for the tailored trouser, seam-match indicators visible

Tailored trouser · wool twill

Pieces
10
Size run
XS–2XL
Drafted
18 min
Verified
6
shift dress on a dress form
Flat pattern for the shift dress, seam-match indicators visible

Shift dress · viscose crepe

Pieces
8
Size run
XS–3XL
Drafted
16 min
Verified
7
single-breasted blazer on a dress form
Flat pattern for the single-breasted blazer, seam-match indicators visible

Blazer · wool flannel

Pieces
16
Size run
XS–XL
Drafted
28 min
Verified
5
A studio monitor showing Gradestudio's drafting canvas, with a shirt's pattern pieces laid out on a paper grid

The drawing surface, as the file sees it.

Seam allowance, grainlines and notches live in the geometry.

A clear system

A pattern ismore thana shape.

A pattern stored as construction rulesshoulder≡ back shoulderarmhole= sleeve cap − easebust dartcloses to apexside seam≡ back side seam, walkedhem⟂ centre frontconstruction

Most pattern software stores a list of points. Gradestudio stores the construction: this seam matches that one, this dart closes here, this curve is the sleeve cap minus ease. The shapes come out of solving those rules.

Seams can't mismatch, because the correspondence lives in the file. Grading re-solves the whole pattern, so it holds at the extremes. Anything suggested to you goes through the same solver, so it's valid before you ever see it.

This is also why it's quick. You're not checking the pattern after you build it, because it was never able to be wrong.

Under the hood

It writesthe rules.Not the shapes.

Every system in this category now claims AI. Here is exactly what ours does, where it sits, and what it will not do.

Most tools that generate patterns output geometry — a list of points and curves. Geometry can be wrong quietly, and you find out when the sample comes back.

Gradestudio's assistance outputs construction: this seam corresponds to that one, this dart closes here, this curve is the sleeve cap minus ease. It goes through the same solver and the same verification report as a pattern you drew by hand. A proposal that would leave a seam mismatched isn't caught late — it can't be written down.

Nothing reaches you unsolved.

The same bodice front cut at nested sizes, fanned out so the grade is visible
How AI pattern making software works here, in three steps. One: a request, in plain words or a measurement set. Two: a constraint program — construction rules naming which seam corresponds to which, where a dart closes, and what the armhole equals — rather than a list of points. Three: the pattern is solved across the size run and measured against the declared tolerance, producing the same verification report as a pattern drawn by hand.

01A request

In your words, or a measurement set dropped in.

“Grade this to the client's chart, 34-46, 0.5 cm tolerance”
  • Chartclient/aw26.csv
  • Range34-46
  • Tolerance0.5 cm
Size run 34-46, nested
  1. 34
  2. 36
  3. 38
  4. 40
  5. 42
  6. 44
  7. 46

02A constraint program

Not shapes. The rules that produce them. Readable, editable, and yours to correct.

03A solved, checked pattern

The same report § 4 shows you. The assisted path and the hand-drawn path end in the same check — that is the whole point.

Verification · size M

Tolerance ±0.5 cm

MeasurementTargetMeasuredDev.
Chest, half50.0050.000.00Within tolerance
Shoulder43.4043.400.00Within tolerance
Nape to hem68.0068.000.00Within tolerance
Neck width19.0019.000.00Within tolerance
Armhole walked23.9923.990.00Within tolerance
Sleeve cap, front25.4925.51+0.02Within tolerance

All 6 measurements within ±0.5 cm. Whole run checked.

How it gets better

Every checkteaches it.

When the solver walks a seam, matches a notch or measures a size against your tolerance, it produces something unusual: a definite answer about whether a pattern was right or wrong.

That answer is the part nobody else has. A tool that stores a list of points has no way to know a grade was wrong — which is why one of them will quietly make two lengths agree rather than tell you they don't. It cannot learn from a mistake it cannot see.

So the checks are the lesson. Every run that passes, every tolerance that flags, every fix a pattern maker accepts or overrules — all of it sharpens what the assistance proposes next, on the kind of garment you actually make.

We are at the beginning of this. Here is exactly where:

A cycle in four nodes: you draw or it proposes, the solver checks, a definite answer comes back, and the next proposal is better. The cycle is drawn once and stops.

  1. 01you draw / it proposes
  2. 02the solver checks
  3. 03a definite answer
  4. 04the next proposal is better
A nested size run drawn on kraft paper on a wooden cutting table, with dressmaking shears and a pattern weight
Size runs verified
64
Pattern pieces nested and marked onto fabric on a cutting table, every seam drawn
Seams walked
892
A calico toile on a dress form, marked with balance lines at the bust and seams
Tolerances flagged
17
Hands drafting a bodice on the table with a french curve and a sloper
Patterns opened
41

And the part that has to be said in the same breath: your patterns are not in it.

What it learns from

  • That a seam of this kind failed to walk
  • That a grade broke at this size, in this direction
  • That a pattern maker accepted this fix, or overruled it

What it never sees

  • Your pattern pieces
  • Your measurements
  • Your size charts
  • Your styles
  • Your clients
  • Your name

Your patterns are yours. We learn from the checks, never from the work. The record of a rule being broken carries no geometry, no measurements and nothing that identifies you or your client — and it is the only thing that leaves your account. Export everything, any time, in open formats.

Read exactly what we store

What it does

  • Grades a full size run

    At launch

    Automatic pattern grading that re-solves the pattern against a new measurement chart instead of shifting points. Holds at the extremes, where rule tables break.

  • Checks its own work

    At launch

    Walks every seam, matches every notch, closes every dart, measures every size against your declared tolerance. You get a report.

  • Suggests the next move

    At launch

    Trues seams, completes curves, snaps to valid geometry while you draw. Same solver, so a suggestion is always a legal one.

  • Drafts from measurements

    At launch

    Your chart in, a solved block out, ready to work on.

  • Reads a pattern you already have

    At launch

    A photograph of a paper pattern, or a DXF from another system, becomes a live constraint model you can grade and edit.

  • Learns from corrections

    Later

    Every fix a pattern maker accepts or overrules teaches it which proposals are worth making — on real garments, not a synthetic dataset.

What it will never do

  • Guess at geometry

    If something can't be resolved, it stops and asks you. It never quietly makes two lengths agree.

  • Promise the garment will fit

    Construction is guaranteed — seams match, the size run holds, it's correct before you cut. Fit depends on ease, fabric and whose body it's for. No software can promise that one, and anyone who does is selling you something.

  • Replace the pattern maker

    It removes the re-measuring, the re-exporting and the second guess. The judgement stays yours.

  • Train on your patterns

    Your work isn't training data for a shared model. Ever.

  • Learn from your patterns

    It learns that a rule was broken. It never sees the pattern that broke it, and never will.

Later

Sketch to pattern, and photograph to pattern, are coming — but not first. Making patterns from a prompt is only worth having once it lands on a substrate that verifies everything it produces, and that substrate is what we're building now. Ship it the other way round and you get a plausible pattern that doesn't sew, which is a thing this industry has already been sold twice.

One email when it opens. Nothing else, and no card.

A rail of sample garments across a working studio, with a cutting table and two people at work behind it

A working week, in a room where the patterns get used.

Every style on that rail started as a flat pattern and a size chart.

The arithmetic

The drawingwas neverthe slow part.

A pattern maker we interviewed walked us through a plain t-shirt, from nothing, in her own tools:

Draft the pattern
~1 hour
Grade the size run
~1 hour
Prepare the files
~30–60 min
DXF-AAMA, DXF-ASTM, a single-size fallback, an Excel report, a screenshot of the pieces
Build the marker
20–60 min
plus 15–20 min of shrinkage and fabric-width prep

Today 3.4 h

  1. Draft the pattern
  2. Grade the size run
  3. Prepare the files
  4. Build the marker

With Gradestudio 1.4 h

  1. Draft, grade, hand off

Roughly three to four hours, and only the first of them is pattern making. The rest is verification and hand-off — re-measuring sizes the software already claimed were right, and exporting the same style five ways because you can't be sure which one they'll manage to open.

That's the part we take.

You still fit the garment. You still make the design calls. You stop paying for the work that only exists to check the work.

Times reported by a working freelance pattern maker, August 2026. Your mileage will differ by garment and by tooling.

A tiled printed shirt pattern on a wooden cutting table, with a tablet showing the same pieces on the Gradestudio share page

The same file, on paper, at real size.

Tiled to A4 or sent to A0. What they print is what you sent.

Four ways in

Who it's for.

01

Pattern makers

Draft, grade and hand off without re-measuring every size.

  • Grade rules and size charts you can reuse
  • Every DXF flavour, plus the spec report, from one export
  • Send clients and factories a link instead of a folder
For pattern makers

02

Studios & brands

Own your patterns, open them yourself, send the factory something they can use.

  • Draft from measurements
  • Graded specs and tech packs
  • Your archive in one place, printable at real size, years later
For studios

03

Small manufacturers

Take a style from block to cut marker without leaving the browser.

  • Size runs and grade rules
  • Markers, yield and shrinkage
  • DXF that opens in AccuMark and Gerber
For production

04

Students & schools

Learn on the tool the industry is moving to. Free, and it runs on the laptop you already have.

  • Free for students, free site licence for schools
  • No lab, no dongle, no install
  • Guided drafting with the training built in
For education
A pattern maker working over paper pattern pieces at a large studio table
A calico toile being pinned at the shoulder seam on a tailor's dress form

Free forever

Open, convertand checkany pattern file.

Drop in a DXF, a Gerber file, a PDF or a photograph of a paper pattern. We'll open it, tell you what's wrong with it — mismatched seams, broken grade rules, missing notches, wrong scale — and let you print it at real size. No account. Free for good.

01

Pattern viewer

Open a pattern file without owning the software that made it.

02

Scale check

Find out whether a file is at 100%, 50% or 30% — before you draft on top of it.

03

Real-size PDF

Export a PDF the print shop can actually print at size. A0 or tiled to A4, with a measured test square.

04

Seam check

Walk every seam, match every notch, list every mismatch. Free, on any file, from any system.

Either way

Works the samewhether a machinecuts it or you do.

Every pattern runs through the same checks no matter what happens to it next. Send it to an automatic cutter, print it at A0, tile it to A4 and tape it, or trace it onto card by hand. The geometry was already verified, so what you cut is right either way.

It goes the other direction too. Photograph a hand-drafted pattern and it runs through the same solver and the same checks as anything drawn here.

A full-size pattern printed and taped together on a worn wooden cutting table, with chalk, shears and a tape measure

Launch pricing

Our pricesare public.

Every other system in this category makes you request a quote. Here's ours. Training is included on every plan, including the free one — we don't sell courses. Prices in EUR, excluding VAT. Cancel any time.

Gradestudio plans and what each includes
FeatureOpen€0foreverAnyone with a pattern file. Factories, print shops, clients.Open a fileStudio€19per monthDesigners and small brands drafting their own.Get early accessRecommendedPattern Maker€49per monthFreelance and in-house pattern makers.Get early accessProduction€119per seat / monthSmall manufacturers running production.Get early access
Open, view and print any pattern file
Convert DXF / Gerber / Optitex / PDF / photo
Seam, notch and grade-rule check
Real-size PDF, A0 and tiled
Receive share links
Draft from measurements—
Active styles—5UnlimitedUnlimited
Grading — full size run, re-solved—Up to 6 sizesUnlimitedUnlimited
Per-size tolerance check——
DXF-AAMA · DXF-ASTM · single-size DXF—AAMA onlyAllAll
Excel measurement / spec report——
Send share links to factories—
Version history and pattern archive—12 monthsUnlimitedUnlimited
Markers, nesting and yield———
Shrinkage and fabric-width handling———
Cut files for every major cutter———
Team seats and shared block library———
Training, guides and support

Not sure? Open, convert and check as many files as you like on the free plan. It doesn't expire and we don't ask for a card.

Students €0

Free while you study, verified with a student email. Everything in Pattern Maker except markers.

Verify with a student email

Schools & universities €0

Free site licence, unlimited students, no hardware requirement, curriculum materials included.

Talk to us about a site licence

One style, once

Pay as you go across a full size run, all export formats, unlimited revisions for 90 days.

Get early access

For reference, the published prices in this category:

  • Gerber AccuMark $219 / user / mo
  • TUKAcad $199 / mo
  • TUKAdesign $99 / mo
  • Browzwear Freelancer $75 / mo
  • CLO 3D Individual $50 / mo

Lectra, Optitex, Audaces, StyleCAD, Style3D do not publish a price.

Learn

Learn it here.Free. Forever.

Drafting fundamentals, grading rules, marker efficiency. Written by pattern makers. Open to everyone, customer or not. We don't sell courses.

Start drafting

From a body measurement to a bodice block that closes, one step at a time.

Read

Grading, properly

What a grade rule is, why the shape has to re-solve, and where a size run breaks.

Read

The glossary

Sloper, toile, ease, truing, walking a seam. Every term, plainly.

Read

Switching guides

Moving off AccuMark, Gerber, Optitex or Lectra without losing your blocks.

Read

It has to work with everyone else

So it does.

Imports

  • DXF-AAMA/ASTM
  • Gerber
  • Optitex
  • PDF
  • Scanned paper
  • Photograph

Exports

  • DXF-AAMA
  • DXF-ASTM
  • Single-size DXF
  • Cut files for every major cutter
  • Plot-ready PDF
  • A0 and tiled
  • Excel measurement report

Your files are yours.

Export everything, any time, in open formats.

Your patterns aren't training data.

We don't train shared models on your work.

How a check becomes a label

Hosted in the EU.

Questions

Straight answers.

Ready when
you are

Draft your first piece for free.

Free forever for opening, converting and checking. No card.

One email when it opens. Nothing else, and no card.