How do I prepare a drawing for single-thread line embroidery?

Updated on 11 October 2026

Drop the drawing into the Homotope workshop and pick the Single stroke preset: each line becomes a single centreline path, stitched with one thread, which you import as an SVG or DXF into your embroidery software to choose the stitch there.

Felt-pen bicycle sketch scanned askew as a JPEG: lines of varying width on yellowed, grainy paper. — 1,000 × 760 px JPEG scan and the engine SVG, “Single stroke” preset, untouched: the paper is gone and each line becomes a single pass at the measured width. Downloading a single-stroke trace counts as a production export.

The same sketch as a centreline trace: a single stroke per pass. — 1,000 × 760 px JPEG scan and the engine SVG, “Single stroke” preset, untouched: the paper is gone and each line becomes a single pass at the measured width. Downloading a single-stroke trace counts as a production export.

×6 detail: the woven basket: paper grain and bleeding felt tip, then a single stroke per hatch. Drag the slider to compare; hover over the image or hold your finger on it to move the magnifier.

Try it with your image Open this example in the workshop

One path, a single thread

Single stroke traces the axis of each line, not its two edges: the needle follows the drawing once, without going back over it.
A single ink, so a single thread: the fixed palette is not available with Single stroke. For several threads, prepare flat shapes, as in the embroidery guide.
In the DXF, one open polyline per pass (closed for a loop); in the SVG, one path per pass.

The settings that matter to the needle

“Spurs” (Advanced): length, in pixels, under which a small branch or an isolated speck is removed (4 by default). A spur left in becomes a back-and-forth of the needle: raise the value on a grainy scan.
“Smoothing tolerance”: the allowed gap between the measured axis and the curve (0.6 px by default); higher gives a looser curve and fewer nodes.
Real size: “Drawing width (mm)” sets the width of the DXF, the width of the design in the hoop.

Nothing leaves your computer: see vectorize without uploading.

What Homotope does not do

No stitch file (DST, PES…), no stitch length, no stitching order, no density: digitizing happens in your embroidery software, if it imports SVG or DXF (check its documentation). To photograph the drawing, see a pencil sketch to SVG; for a pen plotter, the single-line file.

Production exports (DXF, EPS, PDF, separations): 2 free per month with an account, unlimited with Pro; without Pro, 1 credit each beyond those 2. A new account gets unlimited production exports for 7 days, once. The preview and the “Ready for cutting?” check are free; the conversion runs in your browser and the server only counts the export. The details: how much vectorizing costs.

The other trades: the production page.

Frequently asked questions

Can I embroider several colours with Single stroke?

Not in one file: Single stroke traces a single ink. For several threads, prepare flat shapes with Logo or Illustration, as in the embroidery guide.

Where do the small stray lines come from?

They are spurs or specks from the scan: raise “Spurs” in “Advanced”, or clean the drawing before dropping it.

Does Homotope make a PES or DST file?

No: it produces the trace, as SVG or DXF; the stitch, its length and the order are chosen in the embroidery software.

Is the trace counted?

Any download with Single stroke is a production export: 2 free per month with an account, then 1 credit each, unlimited with Pro.

Guides and conversions

Try it with your image