It's a "simple" little thing called digitizing. You need a program that can range in price from 15 grand to as little as $500. The artwork has to first be transformed to vector format. Corel or photoshop can do this part also. Then, you need the digitizing program to convert those vector lines to stitches. For outlines, that isn't that hard, but if you want to get into really nice designs and logo's, good digitizing has a pretty steep learning curve. Most of us find that manually punching(converting) a design is much easier than using the so called automatic programs. Every machine manufacturer has their own brand of software and there are some good aftermarket programs as well, and we all have our personal preferences. In my humble opinion, the auto software has serious limitations and drawbacks, but is good in some instances and I do use it occasionally. I'm sure others will chime in here with their opinions, but for the most bang for the buck, Embird is pretty good and has good support through yahoo groups as well. Just a suggestion since you don't sound like you want to make a living doing digitizing
Jim
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