Embroidery workflow on a Mac

Question

After meeting with a few designers and artists who do Embroidery design, and seeing scanned, embroidered designs by famous designers slowly take over design blogs as a means of expression in itself, I am thinking about getting into it and eventually offering it as a design service to my clients (to create branded collateral, along with other "easy" products like prints, stickers, etc) - or simply as a way to show ideas.

However, it seems that few machines and software are compatible with Mac OS. I understand that it is a difficult design process, requiring much effort and has a learning curve, and that no app will "do it for you".

However, before going any further into this project, since it will likely require paid for apps and expensive hardware, I would like to know of proper workflows that exist and are compatible with Mac OS.

What is a proper Mac-based workflow for Embroidered designs, from creating the PES files to exporting to the machine?

_{[Not asking for a tutorial, obviously - just to better understand what tools exist and can work in my workflow, and also to budget accordingly].}

Answer 1

I use a Mac and I have to use a program inside VMWare/Windows(Corel Drawings X3). I import an EPS8 file inside the program that opens the CorelDraw at the same time. We can manipulate the vector in the CorelDRAW window and see the result in the drawings windows.

I know there is a plugin for Adobe Illustrator called Embroideryi2, but it is too expensive (in my opinion).

There is another option called Embroidery effect (for Windows also), but this is for visualization only. It will not save the embroidery file.