Resources
The CSQ file format is claimed by Gammill® to be proprietary. However, there's nothing stopping us from defining CSQ for our own uses so I have created a document that describes the file format (CSQ V1). If there are issues, please raise them by following the link at the bottom of the page.
The QLI and CSQ file formats are a proprietary (secret) file formats used by Gammill® Statler machines to encode patterns. As of writing this, Gammill® does not provide and tools, or a Windows file explorer plugin to view QLI thumbnail, CSQ thumbnail or preview images of these files formats without running their "Creative Studio" application. QLI Explorer is a Windows file explorer thumbnail and preview plugin that runs in Windows 8 or Windows 10 64 bit systems. This means you can see your local QLI files like you can image files on your Windows machine. There is an installer you can run or you can build the code yourself from source under the GPL V3 open source license. This package also intalls qlitool for managing your QLI and CSQ files.
Follow this link for more information: QLI Explorer
Now that I have a Gammill® Statler , the QLI file format has been a little challenging so I created a file converter that is able to convert QLI files to the SVG WWW standard format that's supported in virtually all modern web browsers. This allows me to view the files without openning creative studio, hundreds of files at a time. The script was developed on Linux, it should run on Windows with the appropriate python software installed. The scripts are available here:
https://bitbucket.org/owebeeone/qli_to_svg
qli_to_svg is released with the GPLv3 license.
3D Solid Modelling Tools
From time to time I've built 3D printed parts for the Gammill® Statler. I'm in the process of cleaning that up and releasing some of these. The first is PythonOpenScad which I used to build some of these tools. In particular, I build a replacement handle button that was causing Kim to have serious physical issues. The replacement uses a minature tactile switch which is much more comfortable and very short travel and easier to use than the stock buttons that are not suited for prolonged repeated use. If you're interested in knowing more, email us for more info.
Rulers, Lengths and Angles
Need a ruler and all you have is a printer? You can print rulers and protractors and better yet, you can print them on a transparent sheet and viola, nice looking rulers on the cheap. You do need to make sure to not scale the print for these to work. Some printers have some variation in their ability to print accurately so make sure you understand how to do that.
The "Ruler Protractor" looks like the one below. If printed on transparent sheet, it's better to use the "mirrored" version so that the print is on the "bottom" side. These are meant to be cut from the printed sheet on the marked cut lines. It contains a 31cm ruler (12 inches) a 360 degree protractor and 2 triangles (45 degree and 30/60 degree).
Note that Acrobat does page scaling which kind of defeats the purpose of this so make sure you turn off any page scaling and make sure you have set the paper size correctly (to A4) and disable any page scaling when printing (set to None).
ruler_protractor
The "cm_grid_A4" files print a simple grid with lines marked every cm (0.5 cm in red) and graduations on the lines in mm. This can be used to measure complex shapes. I've used this to measure the hearts shapes so I could accurately replicate some pieces for a quilt.
cm_grid_a4