ART

Status

Field	Value
Extension(s)	.art
Common ecosystem	Bernina
Format family	Native or machine-like working file
Satin Studio status	Researching
Open / import	No
Export	No
Confidence	High for ecosystem role.

What it is

ART is a Bernina format often treated by users as a machine file, but many ART versions are native or object-rich working files tied to Bernina software.

Satin Studio direction

Satin Studio should not treat ART as a simple stitch stream unless a specific version is verified.

Versions and variants

ART is especially version-sensitive. Some versions behave like native working files with editable objects rather than only final stitches.

File identification notes

Reported ART-family files can use a compound-file style container with separate internal data streams for summary information, design information, compressed stitch/content data, and design-icon bitmap data.

Observed structure notes

• ART-family files have been reported as compound-document containers rather than flat stitch streams.
• One observed research path opens a stream named Contents, skips a four-byte size field, applies a byte transform based on 0xD2, then zlib-decompresses the result. That is a lead, not a complete ART version specification.
• Because ART versions can contain editable Bernina objects, stitch extraction alone is not enough for a faithful import.

Structure sketch

ART is version-sensitive and object-rich. Treat the structure as a container until a specific ART version is identified.

struct ArtContainer<'a> {
    compound_header: &'a [u8],         // reported compound-file style container
    streams: &'a [ArtStream<'a>],      // summary, design, compressed content, icon data
}

struct ArtStream<'a> {
    name: &'a str,
    payload: &'a [u8],
}

What we still need

Versioned Bernina ART files, container maps, object semantics, and clear licensing/research notes.