Clo3D has become super popular and that raises the question – is it as good as other industry patternmaking software? What software does the industry as a whole prefer? Gerber Accumark, I’d say, is actually the most common patternmaking software at least with factories. Optitex, Tukatech, and StyleCAD are also popular ones. (They all import and export between softwares.)
Clo is fairly new to the pattern drafting scene compared to these others. It is designed from the 3D perspective and grew out of a 3D fabric rendering software for the gaming industry.
The other big patternmaking programs started from the 2D pattern drafting side of things and their 3D features are newer additions.
Clo does have more 2D drafting and grading features now than it did when it started, but it is still catching up on the 2D side in my opinion. The 2D workflow and exported files aren’t quite as good as the other programs yet. Clo is frequently making improvements, though, and I know good patternmakers who use Clo as their primary patternmaking program.
I think Clo gets a bad rapport for being not as good for patternmaking partly because it is so easy to jump in and learn Clo with no prior patternmaking knowledge. Clo has become super popular in recent years and is much more affordable than other patternmaking software. Because it is so accessible, more people are downloading it just to try it out and learn the patternmaking skills as well as the software in tandem. Some of the patterns are not good. (My patterns when I first started learning patternmaking years ago were not good either.) Traditionally, only the serious professional patternmakers and companies could afford patternmaking software. They more likely had experience in the field already.
When it comes down to it, it is the skill of the patternmaker, not the software or tool for the most part that makes a good pattern. You can certainly create a pattern in Clo. Currently, I don’t think it is quite as easy as in Optitex, but that might change in the future. Don’t get too caught up in deciding which patternmaking software is the best and focus more on the skills of the patternmaker.