Online control of the knitting process requires research concerning automated monitoring of cotton fabric fractional area space on the knitting machine and deviations from preset dimensions. A study to establish a fundamental scheme for online dimensional control of knit fabrics is constructing a prototype image quality acquisition probe to determine the fractional space covered by the knit loop, correlating the imaged area space covered by the yarn to the relaxed loop state, and developing a physical model of yarn behavior in a knit loop configuration.