There are many knitting machine Programs on the market, for use with your Personal Computer. With these, it is possible to design shapes, stitch patterns, etc.. Such programs will even download the information into your electronic knitting machine.
DesignaKnit at http://www.softbyte.co.uk/ is one of the leading programs. A download Demo of the program is available.
PASSAP has its own Creation8, the newest release of Creation6/Form6 program used to design both stitch patterns and shapes which can be interactively knitted on their E6000 machine. https://sewknit.ca/30.900.00
Win_Crea is a wonderful Windows freeware program for the Passap E6000 knitting machine. It is very similar to Stitch Painter and the Stitch Designer module in Designaknit. With some limitations, this software gem can be used by all machine knitters and hand knitters.
If you browse the Web, you will find other manufacturers putting out similar programs many of which are offered free with limited or no support.