Ornament
Chinese pattern library, cited
Free · In‑App Purchases · Designed for iPad. Not verified for macOS.
A reference library of Chinese historical ornament, built around one question most pattern packs never answer: where is this from?
Every pattern here is drawn by the app from a rule recorded in a historical source — a plate in a Song or Ming treatise, or an object in a museum collection. Open any pattern and the source is right under it: the book, the volume, the plate title, the scan page. Nothing is traced from a modern pattern book, and nothing is AI-generated.
WHAT YOU GET
• A growing library of geometric patterns, each with its provenance written out
• Adjustable density, stroke weight and scale — the pattern is generated, not a fixed image
• Colour systems taken from what the treatises actually specify, with the distinction kept honest: the SYSTEM is documented, the exact colour values are ours
• All-over repeats and border repeats, filterable
• Export a full sheet or the single repeating tile as SVG
• On iPad, press and hold to drag a pattern straight into Procreate, Affinity and the like
FOR WORK YOU HAVE TO EXPLAIN
Collect candidates into a project set, then export the set as one comparison sheet plus a plain-text citation list — ready to paste into a credits page, a proposal or an exhibition label. That list is the reason this app exists.
HONEST ABOUT WHAT WE DON'T KNOW
Entries whose shape we could not establish from a plate are marked as drafts, and you can filter them out with one switch. Where an entry takes a plate's lattice but not its fine detail, the entry says so. We would rather tell you the limit than let you cite something that does not hold.
SOURCES
Chiefly Yingzao Fashi (Li Jie, 1103), the oldest surviving official Chinese building standard, and Yuanye (Ji Cheng, 1631), the first Chinese treatise devoted to garden making — both read from public-domain scans — together with museum objects published under CC0.
PRIVACY AND PRICE
No account, no sign-in, no analytics, no ads. The app works fully offline and collects nothing. Browsing, provenance and colour are free for good. A single one-time purchase unlocks exporting — not a subscription.
Ratings & Reviews
- This app hasn’t received enough ratings or reviews to display an overview.
Filter by period — the library now spans Neolithic to Qing, and you can browse one era at a time.
Three patterns added, all from objects rather than treatises:
• Grain Pattern — a Warring States jade disc in the Cleveland Museum of Art, whose own catalogue title names the pattern
• Triangular Pattern — a Neolithic painted urn
• Toothed Lozenge Net — a Neolithic painted vase
The Persimmon-Calyx Quatrefoil now cites a Warring States mirror alongside its Song treatise plate, pushing its attested span back by roughly 1,300 years.
Also fixed: notes recording how an object differs from the pattern as drawn were written but never shown — they now appear under each artifact. Filtering down to no results now offers a way back. Two patterns had hairline seams when tiled.
The developer, 伟强 夏, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .
Data Not Collected
The developer does not collect any data from this app.
Accessibility
The developer has not yet indicated which accessibility features this app supports. Learn More
Information
- Seller
- 伟强 夏
- Size
- 3.4 MB
- Category
- Graphics & Design
- Compatibility
Requires iOS 17.0 or later.
- iPhone
Requires iOS 17.0 or later. - iPad
Requires iPadOS 17.0 or later. - Mac
Requires macOS 14.0 or later and a Mac with Apple M1 chip or later. - Apple Vision
Requires visionOS 1.0 or later.
- iPhone
- Languages
- English and Simplified Chinese
- Age Rating
4+
- 4+
- In-App Purchases
Yes
- Unlock exports $2.99
- Copyright
- © 2026 Sakulla