The present invention relates to a method for obtaining and storing information suitable for production of artificial (also referred to as “fake”) nails for an individual. In particular, the invention discloses a method to obtain and record information characterising the shape of a trimmed artificial nail which information is sufficient to allow reproduction of the trimmed artificial nail and storing the information as well as identifying details of the individual.
It is, of course, possible for an individual to buy artificial nails and fit these. In general these nails are relatively poor fitting. “Conventional” fitting of high-quality artificial nails involves a time-consuming fitting of artificial nails onto an individual by a nail technician, usually in a salon.
One of the most common forms is called “nail sculpturing.” In this method, a pre-made artificial fingernail tip is trimmed down to the desired length and attached to the tip of a customer's real fingernail. Acrylic material is then patched little by little onto the surface of both the artificial nail and natural fingernail from the cuticle to the finish of the artificial nail. This process is repeated for each finger and also repeated every time a new set is done. The materials can be allowed to dry. A shaving/sanding process is performed to create the desired shape with a smooth finish for each fingernail. The final step of this process is to paint the top surface of the acrylic coat with the desired colour or decorative pattern.
Another method is called “nail Covering or Wrapping.” A technician cuts and glues plastic pieces onto a natural fingernail. This is repeated for a few layers and a filler compound is pasted onto it to create a continuous uniform surface. This process is repeated for each finger and also repeated every time a new set is done. After intensive shaving/sanding of each nail to the desired shape, the nail can be polished. All fingernails are processed in the same way.
Another method which is similar to “nail sculpturing” is called “Finger Dipping.” In this method, a natural fingernail is cleaned up and brushed by an adhesive primer. A pre-made artificial fingernail tip is trimmed down to the desired length and attached to the tip of a customer's real fingernail by an adhesive. The natural fingernail plus artificial nail is dipped into an acrylic material and then pulled out for drying. The process is repeated and each time, the top layer of the-fingernail becomes thicker. After two repetitions, an abrasive process is intensively applied to the surface to create the desired shape. This process is repeated for each finger and also repeated every time a new set is done. The final step is to paint the top surface of the acrylic coat with the desired colour or decorative pattern.
All of the above-mentioned methods disadvantageously expose customers and nail technicians to acrylic dust, filing dust, chemical liquids, and aerosol fumes, which can result in health and respiratory problems. Because these methods require a great deal of time and skill by a nail technician they are also costly. Moreover, when the growth of the natural nail after a few weeks creates a gap between the finger cuticle and the applied artificial top layer, customers will need to visit the technician for the gap to be filled, hence exacerbating the expense. Importantly, these methods require an abrasive process to occur on the natural nails to prepare a suitable surface for attaching acrylic. After 3-5 times of removal and re-service, the natural nails are severely damaged.
There are many methods which have been developed to try and improve the artificial/fake nail field. Many of these focus on 3D printing or peripheral machines to cut or create a 3D artificial nail which fits onto a natural fingernail plate. Others disclose a digitized artificial nail library which aims to match the digitized contours of a natural nail surface, However, the contours of natural fingernail plates are unique for each person. Two natural fingernail plates of the same fingers from two hands of a person are dissymmetric. Even the contour shape (boundary line) of a natural fingernail plate is different from those of other fingernail plates in the same hand. The above methods therefore still consume large amounts of time and effort for the creation of a unique artificial nail set for each customer. This issue has kept such methods away from the market and many traditional artificial nail methods are still performed in standard services.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,309,365, for example, describes to use a number of machines and equipment to cut a piece of material into the shape of an artificial nail. To do a set of artificial nails, the majority of customers do not want to spend more than 45 minutes for the service including time for decorating and cleaning up. The art of U.S. Pat. No. 5,309,365 did not mention the time consumption for cutting an artificial nail and how many devices are required to be used to produce 10 fitted artificial nails on time.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,123,983 exploits three-dimensional (3D) images of the nail surfaces to direct devices to cut/create custom fit artificial nails from raw materials. This art may produce better fitting nails for its customers than U.S. Pat. No. 5,309,365 but once again has not mentioned a time period that a customer would be required to spend.
US20060034507 is a method, process and computer program to automatically create a customized three-dimensional artificial nail object by library reference based upon an actual/existing digitized nail surface. US20060034507 does not disclose how the data for the digitized nail surface is obtained in the first place, and in particular does not outline how to find all the variations of boundary lines in their artificial nail library. If they do not trim the edges of an artificial nail, it cannot be perfectly matched to all diverse variations of boundary lines.
US20090092310 discloses a system and method for creating precision fit artificial fingernails. This document utilizes a scanned and digitized nail surface to form a precision fit, three dimensional, digitized artificial nail object that can be used to direct a machining device. This device either creates an artificial fingernail from blank stock or machines a custom mold that can be used to make multiple artificial fingernails with the same shape. One shortcoming of this art is its practicability. If 10 custom molds need to be created for each customer as proposed, a reservoir for a huge number of customers would be problematic. Especially if a customer chooses different lengths and types of artificial nail tips in different appointments. Hence, pre-made custom molds would be impractical for the production of nails with varying fashion. A further issue with the method of US 2009/0092310 is that many nails are slightly lopsided or skewed. Further, in some nails, the lateral folds cover up the nail plate lateral edges. If this is not picked up in the imaging the artificial nail produced will be a poor fit, but this will not be noticed until the fitting. At this stage it may not be possible to readjust the created artificial nail to fit accurately, or it may not be possible to adjust the artificial nail to compensate for the skewed direction of the natural nail. Further, imaging and similar methods do not take into account that natural nails change shape when artificial nails are fitted. We have found that improved fitting is obtained where the information characterising the shape of nail or which is used to create artificial nails is itself obtained from an artificial nail which has been actually trimmed and fitted to an individual's nail, as discussed further below.
Other patents which have developed different types of their artificial nail library include, for example EP1604584A1, U.S. Pat. No. 6,892,736B2, US2005450864A, U.S. Pat. No. 7,997,283B2 and WO 2015126533.
Because the high cost for these artificial nail sets, customers usually go to refill when the growth of a natural nail will create a gap between the finger cuticle and applied artificial fingernail since the artificial fingernail is bonded onto the natural nail. The refill process requires skill by a nail technician.
By the process of the present invention the costs and time for fitting of artificial nails can be reduced, the refill process can be avoided and the nails can be simply replaced by a new set regularly. Whilst almost all customers want to save time for their artificial nails service they also still expect a perfect outcome for their artificial nail set.
As well as the fitting itself, many complicated and delicate decoration options are often unattractive to the customer because of the limitation of time. Customers also require that their artificial nail set is long-lasting relative to the cost. The present invention addresses these issues.
In a first aspect there is provided a method for obtaining and storing information suitable for production of artificial nails for an individual, the method comprising the steps of:
We have found that the cuticle boundary of ten fingernails can be seen as personal “fingerprinting” for an artificial nail set. There is no cuticle and lateral nail fold boundary (the “boundary line” of a natural fingernail plate) that is absolutely identical between two natural fingernails in one hand. Even two boundary lines of two similar fingernails from two hands of one person are dissymmetrical. Therefore, the cuticle boundary of the same natural fingernail (thumb, index, ring finger etc.) are rarely similar between two people.
In addition, it has also been found that natural fingernail plates are quite flexible and they are slightly deformed when pressed. Therefore, when an artificial nail is applied to a natural nail some deformation and change in shape of the boundary line can occur. Although the deformation may seem relatively minor, this can nevertheless cause significant differences in the fit of an artificial nail. In particular, a consequence of this deformation is that the shape of a boundary line which is determined by non-contact methods of imaging the nail, such as in US 2009/092310, and the shape of a boundary line determined by the method of the present invention, which is based on an actual trimmed and fitted artificial nail, can differ significantly. The present invention, in particular, provides information which characterises an artificial nail which already takes into account this deformation, and hence provides a better fit.
Thus, in the first aspect of the present invention an artificial nail is selected to fit and then trimmed to provide an exact fit to an individual's nail. Then, the information characterising the shape of the trimmed artificial nail is recorded. The information recorded includes at least the information defining the boundary line of the trimmed artificial nail, and is sufficient to allow reproduction of the trimmed artificial nail from an untrimmed artificial nail. This information is then stored as well as identifying details of the individual. The information may be stored, for example, on a computer or server.
Prior to the individual's next appointment, this information can be retrieved. This enables untrimmed artificial nails of the correct dimensions (L, W, D) to be ready prior to the individual's appointment. The untrimmed artificial nails can be “pre-trimmed” prior to the appointment using the information stored. This can be to reproduce exactly the previous trimmed artificial nail or can be an initial trim to reproduce the previous trimmed artificial nail its lateral sides and cuticle bottom but its tip length will be at customer's desire with a final trim for fitting by the technician. The decoration step can also be completed prior to the appointment if the customer has selected or proposed a style in advance. In either case significant fitting time is saved. Time can be reduced to that required for removing old artificial nails, if present, and fitting the new.
The present invention reproduces the artificial nails based on the previously fitted artificial nails. This provides a highly accurate fitting, in particular including the deformation of the natural nail induced by the fitting of the artificial nail itself. This is considered to provide a more accurate fitting than methods, for example imaging, based on the natural nail surface.
The information characterising the shape of the trimmed artificial nail must include at least information defining the boundary line of the trimmed artificial nail, but otherwise can include any other information which allows reproduction of the trimmed artificial nail from an untrimmed artificial nail.
Recording the information characterising the shape of the trimmed artificial nail may include taking one or more images or copies of the trimmed artificial nail.
In one embodiment, this can include:
c1) Placing the trimmed artificial nail on a second untrimmed artificial nail of the same length, width and depth of curvature as the first untrimmed artificial nail,
c2) Marking the boundary line of the trimmed artificial nail on to the second untrimmed artificial nail, and
c3) Taking an image of the marked second untrimmed artificial nail.
In general, the information characterising the shape of the trimmed artificial nail preferably includes the values of L, W and D of the first untrimmed artificial nail of step (a). However, in some embodiments the untrimmed artificial nail can be defined by a reference number or similar that defines the untrimmed artificial nail rather than storing the explicit values of L, W and D.
In a preferred embodiment there is provided a library of untrimmed artificial nails from which the untrimmed artificial nail of step (a) is selected. In particular, there may be provided a library of untrimmed artificial nails which differ from each other in one or more of L, D and W. An advantage of having such a library is that the “starting” untrimmed artificial nail can be kept consistent for the initial fitting of step (b) and also for subsequent fittings by selecting an artificial nail of the same L, D and W. A further advantage of a library having a maximum number of different artificial nails as starting points is that a salon or supplier may be able to keep a suitable stock of all options available for its customers. The library preferably has at least 20 but no more than 1000 different untrimmed artificial nails, and usually less than 250 different untrimmed nails. More preferably the library has at least 50 but no more than 150 different untrimmed artificial nails.
A further advantage of the present invention can be obtained where the lateral edges of a nail plate are covered by lateral folds. In particular, for some nails the lateral folds cover up the natural nail plate lateral edges. The shape of the boundary line at the edges may then not be accurately captured by, for example, an image of the natural nail plate. The present invention can avoid this issue because the artificial nail used to characterise the natural nail plate is fitted to the natural nail plate directly. This advantage can be increased further by use of artificial nails which have relatively thin lateral sides (relative to the backbone or rest of the artificial nail). The relatively thin lateral sides provide additional flexibility in the artificial nail on the sides to allow fitting to leave no void between the artificial nail and lateral folds even in the case where the lateral folds cover up the nail plate lateral edges. The flexibility of both the natural and artificial nail create a unique boundary line which can then be captured by the method of the present invention.
In a preferred embodiment of the present invention the fingernail of the individual is measured prior to step (a) and the measurements used to select a subset of untrimmed artificial nails for the initial fitting.
In one embodiment, the subset may consist of a single untrimmed artificial nail which is provided as the first untrimmed artificial nail of length, L, width, W, and depth of curvature, D, of step (a).
Alternatively, the subset may comprise more than one untrimmed artificial nail and the subset is reviewed manually by the technician to select a single untrimmed artificial nail which is provided as the first untrimmed artificial nail of length, L, width, W, and depth of curvature, D, of step (a).
As an example, and in a preferred embodiment, the measurement may comprise marking the boundary line of the individual's nail and/or marking points or lines representing the maximum length and width of the individual's nail, and taking one or more images of these. The selection of the subset may then be performed from the image or images(s) using a computer program which analyses the images and outputs the subset.
Step (b) of the present invention can generally be performed in any conventional manner.
It will be understood that the process for obtaining and storing information suitable for production of artificial nails for an individual will usually be repeated for all fingernails of the individual.
In this case steps (a) and (b) are usually repeated individually for multiple, and usually all, fingernails of the individual. Steps (c) and (d) may be performed individually for each fingernail, or may be performed for more than one fingernail at a time. For example, it may be possible to record information on several trimmed artificial nails, such as the boundary lines of several trimmed artificial nails at the same time e.g. via an image or images which each include several of the trimmed artificial nails.
Once the above process has been performed there is provided in a stored form, usually on a server or computer, information for the individual which includes at least information defining the boundary line of a trimmed artificial nail which fits the individual, and which information is sufficient to allow reproduction of a trimmed artificial nail from an untrimmed artificial nail.
As noted above, prior to an individual's subsequent appointment, this information can be accessed. This can be used to select and trim one or more further untrimmed artificial nails for fitting to the individual in the subsequent appointment. This enables untrimmed artificial nails of the correct dimensions (L, W, D) to be ready prior to the individual's appointment. The untrimmed artificial nails are usually “pre-trimmed” prior to the appointment using the information stored. This can be to reproduce exactly the previous trimmed artificial nail or can be an initial trim to reproduce exactly the previous trimmed artificial nail at its lateral sides and cuticle bottom but its tip length will be at customer's desire with a final trim for fitting by the technician. The decoration step can also be completed prior to the appointment if the customer has selected or proposed a favour style in advance. In either case significant fitting time is saved. Time can be reduced to that required for removing old artificial nails, if present, and fitting the new.
Thus, in a second aspect the present invention provides a method for fitting one or more artificial nails to an individual, the method comprising:
i) accessing information which has been obtained and stored for the individual and which includes at least information defining the boundary line of a trimmed artificial nail which fits the individual, and which information is sufficient to allow reproduction of a trimmed artificial nail from an untrimmed artificial nail,
ii) using the information to select and trim one or more untrimmed artificial nails prior to the individual attending a nail fitting appointment,
iii) optionally decorating the one or more trimmed artificial nails prior to the nail fitting appointment, and
iv) fitting the trimmed artificial nail or nails at a nail fitting appointment.
The information which has been obtained and stored for this aspect may be obtained and stored using any of the embodiments described for the first aspect, such as the use of libraries of artificial nails and the marking and imaging of untrimmed nails as described. In relation to the provision of a library of untrimmed artificial nails, the untrimmed artificial nails of step (ii) of this aspect are also preferably selected from a library, and in particular the same library used for step (a) of the first aspect. This ensures consistency between the initial obtaining and storing of information and the subsequent fitting.
A particularly preferred feature of the first and second aspects of the present invention is the use of such libraries. As already noted, it has also been found that natural fingernail plates are quite flexible. Further, as also already noted, for some nails lateral folds can overlap the natural nail surface. For this reason, in a preferred embodiment an artificial nail library is provided which includes at least some, and preferably a majority, of untrimmed artificial nails formed from plastic/acrylic and designed such that the left and right curving lateral sides of the artificial nail are relatively thin, for example with the thinnest part being at the edge and being 0.1 mm.
This allows the artificial nail to become flexibly aligned to the slightly different size or shape of a real natural fingernail plate. A perfect match between a three-dimensional natural fingernails upper surface and the bottom surface of the artificial nail is not necessary. Moreover, many natural fingernail plates are lopsided, unsymmetrical or even skewed to some degree. Therefore a unique fit for each natural fingernail plate would increase designing costs and would not be acceptable for many customers.
In preferred embodiments, involving the library of untrimmed artificial nails, the present invention doesn't aim to produce each artificial nail to fit a unique topology of a natural fingernail plate. We create a real artificial nail library in which the range of sizes (W, D, L) cover almost all size variations of natural fingernail plates.
In a yet further aspect, the present invention provides a library of untrimmed artificial nails which artificial nails each have a bottom, B, tip, T, and left and right sides, LF and R respectively, and which are each characterised by their length, L, width, W, depth of curvature, D, and the thickness of their lateral sides, LF and R, wherein the untrimmed artificial nails in the library comprise at least 20 nails which differ in one or more of length, L, width, W, and depth of curvature, D from each other, and wherein at least some of the untrimmed artificial nails have a thickness of the left and right lateral sides less than the thickness at the tip, T.
Typically, the thickness of the artificial nails at the tip is 0.5 mm or more, preferably 0.6 mm or more, such as 0.6 to 2 mm, and with about 1 mm being most typical. The main part of the nail may be of similar thickness as the tip which then reduces closer to the bottom and lateral sides. For example, typically the thickness reduces towards or close to the left and right curving lateral sides, and is thinnest at the edge. The typical thickness at the edge may be 0.3 mm or less, preferably 0.2 mm or less, such as about 0.1 mm. The thickness may also reduce towards the bottom margin (where the artificial nail joins the groove/eponychium cuticle of a natural nail). Again the typical thickness at the edge may be 0.3 mm or less, preferably 0.2 mm or less, such as about 0.1 mm. The thinner edges provide flexible artificial nails which work with the flexibility of the natural nail to provide a high quality fit.
The library of artificial nails of this aspect is the preferred library for use in the preferred embodiments of the first and second aspects. Further description of the library of artificial nails is provided below and, for avoidance of doubt, applies equally to all aspects and embodiments of the present invention which relate to or use a library.
The features and advantages of the aspects and embodiments of the present invention will become apparent from a consideration of the drawings and the subsequent description. The adjective fake and artificial are synonymous in this disclosure. An “artificial nail class” includes identical artificial nails having the same W, D and L value. An “untrimmed artificial nail” indicates a fake/artificial nail that has not been trimmed (which may also be considered as a “raw” artificial nail). In this invention, we consider two zo artificial nails which have the same values of W/D/L as being in the same artificial nail class (or “identically classed”). However, identically classed artificial nails can be different in their tip section due to their tip styles. Different tips form different sub-classes of an artificial nail class. We use the words longitudinal and transverse cross section synonymously to cross section of the length and width, respectively. A natural fingernail plate boundary line, or simply “boundary line” is a contour line which delimitates between the natural nail plate and the surrounding tissue of cuticle, nail wall (lateral sides) and hyponychium. The words “to best fit” indicate a status where an artificial nail covers accurately a natural fingernail plate up to the boundary line between a natural fingernail plate with its surrounding tissue.
The present invention will become more fully understood from the following description and the accompanying drawings, wherein:
The following descriptions of the preferred embodiments are merely exemplary in nature and is in no way intended to limit the invention, its application, or uses.
To serve customers for an artificial nail set, we have two options for a primary material:
An artificial nail structure has two distinctive surfaces, upper and lower surface. The lower or under (bottom) surface has two clear sections. The first section (length L) where the artificial nail is glued onto an upper surface of a corresponding natural fingernail plate (after the artificial nail is selected and trimmed). The second section is the extension forming a tip part which is usually manufactured at constant length. All of the painting, designing and other decorative structures are performed on the upper surface. The curvature of the lower and upper surface is preferably different, and the thickness of an artificial nail is different in different regions of the artificial nail.
An untrimmed artificial nail can be any natural or mixed colour. We do not rule out a certain colour of an artificial nail, but we prefer light white or transparent/translucent ones to opaque white.
W, L and D may be shown numerically printed or engraved on the surface of an artificial nail in its mass production (
The length (L) corresponds to the size of the natural nail the artificial nail is designed to fit. Generally, the thickness of an artificial nail along the centre of its longitudinal cross section increases from the bottom part (B) and is thickest at the point be joined to the tip of the natural nail i.e. corresponding to the natural nail length. Thereafter an artificial nail is typically fairly constant in thickness along the centre of its cross-section. Thus, L is defined, and can be measured, in such nails as the distance from the bottom part (B) to the point where the centre of its longitudinal cross section stops increasing in thickness.
As noted above, the L value indicates the length from the starting edges (B/bottom) to the dotted line 4 in an artificial nail (
In a preferred embodiment at the bottom margin of an artificial nail (B) where an artificial nail joints the groove/eponychium cuticle of a fingernail 10, the thickness is similar in the entirety of its spline shape and is 0.1 mm. In the edges of the two lateral sides (LF, R), the thickness is also 0.1 mm (
From observing thousands of customers, we found that the width (W) of a natural fingernail plate varies between 7-19 mm (
A third value is the depth (D) of an artificial nail curvature which is shown in the transverse cross section (
Due to variations in W and D, C can also differ (
tan C/2=W/2D=Y; C=Y converted value×2
These equations can be used to calculate a C angle from W and D, and it provides an alternative for constructing a lower surface of an artificial nail.
Altogether, a library of untrimmed artificial nails includes different classes differing in the W, D and L values. The combinations of L, W and D values that differ by 2 mm noted above forms 105 different classes (5×7×3). These 105 classes have made a library which covers almost all variations of our thousands of customer's natural fingernails.
In most of the cases, the longitudinal cross section in a natural fingernail plate (
In the present invention we do not aim to produce an artificial nail with a lower surface precisely fitting a three-dimensional natural fingernail upper surface. The strategy of our innovation disclosed herein is to create an artificial nail to best fit the cuticle boundary (contour line) of a natural fingernail 36, any differences (small cavities) between the natural fingernails upper surface and artificial nails lower surface 38 (
The library of artificial nails may be formed by injection molding. Injection molding is very common method to be used for artificial nail mass production which can be found at cosmetic plastic firms.
In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, in a first appointment, the natural fingernail plates of an individual are cleaned and excess skin removed so that the nail plate boundary area are clear. A nail technician may then use a fine, usually black, pen to draw a line along the boundary line of the cuticle and lateral nail fold of each natural fingernail plate. Consequently, this correctly develops 10 contour lines on the customer's 10 natural fingernail plates. In situations with limited time, a technician can simply choose four sites on a nail plate wherein two opposite sites mark the widest dimension of the nail plate and two other opposite sites mark the longest dimension of the nail plate. Even in some nails where the lateral folds cover up the nail plate lateral edges, the widest dimension of the nail plate can be manually marked onto lateral edges which would measure a real width of the nail. (
The sequence is repeated for all ten natural fingernail plates of a customer. The drawn line can be of any contrasting colour to the natural fingernail plate colour. A two-dimensional, digital colour image of the upper side of two hands of the customer is captured from above, preferably with a ruler/measuring apparatus in frame.
There are a number of software programs which can be used for measuring the boundary outline 42. In an example section at the end of this application, we will show a DEMO program that we will use to measure in real-time, the natural fingernail plate of a customer which been precisely surrounded by a black boundary outline. We use image analysis methods such as: Inverting (Black-White), Thresholding to focus on the shape, Blob analysis to detect a black boundary outline location and Distance Measuring. All these methods are based within VisPro Software. Using this software (a VisPro Basic image analysis tool; a VisPro Blob Analysis Tool; a VisPro Measurement Tool) allows us to measure the image of fingernails in the same plane. Eight fingernails as shown in
The main method to determine the best D value is to allow a technician to manually align each customers' fingernail plate to each of the three selected artificial nails. However, we do not rule out in the scope of this invention that three-dimensional topology images of each natural fingernail can be obtained, for example using a 3D scanner, and the depth of each natural fingernail plate (Dn) can be measured from its 3D images.
Following the artificial nail size selection step, a technician trims the edges of each selected artificial nail 2 to exactly fit to the cuticle and lateral nail fold boundary (the contour line of a natural fingernail plate) of its corresponding natural fingernail (
Initially, the tip part (T) of the artificial nail 56 is not trimmed but can be trimmed later to the customers desire. Eventually, a trimmed artificial nail 58 is aligned perfectly to the boundary line of the corresponding natural fingernail plate 60. This process is repeated for all ten fingers. Finally, the ten uniquely shaped artificial nails fabricated by the technician are available to be fitted for the customer on the first appointment. However, we prefer to collect shaping information from the trimmed set for cloning it for any future appointment.
In our preferred embodiment the trimmed artificial nail may be laid over an identical untrimmed nail, and the boundary line drawn on the untrimmed nail. This is described below although it will be apparent that other methods may be used to record the boundary line information.
A trimmed artificial nail is precisely laid, overlapping its identically untrimmed artificial nail 2 (
The unique boundary line from each trimmed artificial nail needs to be recorded. Typically, this information is digitized. To do so, a two-dimensional digital image of an artificial nail's upper surface which has been marked with a unique boundary line 62 is taken by using a digital camera or analog 66 (
In our preferred embodiment a marked artificial nail is laid on a corresponding rack 68 shown in
An advantage of laying an artificial nail marked 2 with a unique boundary line 62 on a top of the corresponding negative mold 70, 68 is to calibrate the processes of obtaining two-dimensional digital images which contains the unique boundary line. The fixed/measurable distance from a focal position or laser beam 74 to an immobilized artificial nail object needs be calibrated so that the size of the unique boundary line which is cut out is identical to its digital image dimensions.
After the digital images of ten untrimmed artificial nails marked 2 with the corresponding unique boundary lines 62 have been taken. The file may be converted, for example to CorelDraw input files, and uploaded into the customer account. From now on, a customized artificial nail set can be created and decorated without limitation in time and location. The input files can be used for a laser cutting machine in the workshop of a beauty salon or can be used for a distant cutting machine. The laser cutting machine with the input files can precisely cut out the unique boundary line on each corresponding artificial nail. A new copy of a customized trimmed artificial nail set can be created in a few minutes. If a laser cutting machine is in a distant location, the input files need to be downloaded from the customer's account to the machine. The ten untrimmed artificial nails which have been selected in the “artificial nail size selection” step 48 need to be picked up from the local artificial nail library and loaded onto their corresponding racks and adjusted in the same way in which the images in the input files were taken. The laser cutting machine would then do the rest of the job.
An artificial nail which has a marked boundary line 62 can also be used as a marker for a technician to manually and externally produce a similar artificial nail without the attendance of the customer. We prefer to use a laser cutter, but we do not rule out the possibility of using nail technicians to clone a new artificial nail set from the first standard set marked with unique boundary lines when there are fewer customer orders.
From the second appointment onwards the stored information may be used. As an example, the information can be stored in a customer accessible account. A customer can use a customer ID to log into their account, and then view and choose any nail sub-classed fashion style, colour, decoration, surface design and nail material to order. The two-dimensional digital images of the customer's fingernails, which had been taken in the first appointment are uploaded into the customer's account. From these, the customer can use their computer or smart phone to pick different artificial nail styles or decorations/designs to paste on their fingernail images. These help customers to preview a suitable design or style based on their skin colour or other preferences. Customers are able to perform orders from any location saving time and money. A customer account may also allow the customer to upload a nail style which may not be available in the system to request for an order.
After receiving an order from a customer, a new, decorated, made-to-measure artificial nail set is produced accordingly. The requested nail set may be created and delivered to a nail fitting salon and quickly glued on for the customer on the appointment day. In some embodiments the customer may select the salon for the fitting from a list of available salons. This advantage greatly improves nail service for up 20-30% of customers who are travelling or working in different places and can provide service to any customer whose nail references are in the system. Hence, they can visit different salon locations and still be served.
At the current traditional artificial nail service, a customer needs to spend between 45 to 60 minutes for an artificial nail set. Using our method, it may only take 10 to 20 minutes for a returning customer to finish an artificial nail set in the second appointment. Moreover, a complicated or specially designed artificial nail set would need more than 60 minutes to produce. Our method has resolved this contradiction, allowing a customer to order any decoration or artificial nail drawing style from the second appointment. A pre-ordered artificial nail set can be created and unconventionally decorated with unlimited time by talented artists from any location, even from different countries. Using this invention, an artificial nail set can be unique in beauty, design and style.
This example shows the algorithms and the process which can be used to design an artificial nail and its corresponding negative mold rack for the 105 artificial nail classes library. With reference to
We use the polynomial function below to reconstruct the ABCDE curvature (
For the lower surface of an artificial nail, if a number of similar curves in
The upper surface is more complicated to reconstruct because three (x, y, z) coordination's are varied in each location.
The above polynomial function use one data set of 5 points to reconstruct the ABCDE curvature (
This example shows a DEMO which has been developed by Advanced Vision Automation. A VisPro Software allows to measure the widest and largest region of an artificial nail whatever they show in a state of a black boundary outline of a natural nail plate or a tetragon shape which has two pairs of opposite vertices indicating the widest or largest dimension of a natural nail plate (
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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GB1913301.6 | Sep 2019 | GB | national |
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind |
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PCT/VN2020/000007 | 8/14/2020 | WO |