Digitizing patterns with illustrator question

[veronicah18719123]

Hi,

I am trying to digitize a pattern piece into illustrator and I'm having a hard time getting the measurements correct.  I watched a few youtube videos on how to do this and it looked so easy so I purchased the product and wanted to digitize my piece so I could start grading.  I took a picture of the paper pattern piece with my iphone and once I was home I downloaded the pictures and started to work on getting it digitized.  But the measurements are no where near what they need to be.  I tried to adjust and I would get one side, such as the pant top the right size and the bottom of the leg would be wrong or vice versa.  What would I be doing wrong?  What would the best way be to take the picture of the paper pattern piece and use this to download and put in the digital pattern to my computer.  I work in a manufacturing facility so I was trying to take my work home with me to try on getting it graded.  When I had more time to work on it.

Thanks,
Veronica

[Mylenium]

Photos have optical distortion, you know, and AI is the wrong tool for extensively manipulating pixel data. Or in short: Your workflow proabbly doesn't make much sense. That is not to say that it would/ should be impossible, but you will need to spend more time with the program and learn some advanced techniques to produce freeform deformations, use wrap objects, clipping masks and so on. It really comes down to experience and knowing this stuff, which would also be true if you were using Photoshop. You simply can't expect to download a complex software and tackle a reasonably complicated workflow right away.

Mylenium