Patent Grant
9702071
The system relates to a system and method for generating customized embroidery on a product.
Producing an embroidered image on fabric from a custom design is still an art, rather than a science. The main reason for this is that the semantics and intent of the supplied custom design may be difficult to detect in an automated fashion. In addition, the task of translating an image into stitches of colored threads requires interpretation and artistic judgment during key parts of the process. The best quality embroidered designs are made by skilled artists. These designs retain the intent of the original source art and flow cleanly through the manufacturing process, with reduced thread breaks, color changes, and machine wear.
There are many commercial systems that provide a partial solution for automated production of embroidery from a digital image. Typically these systems start with a raster image and perform these steps:
Typically, editing is required to fix or optimize the automatically generated design. Thus, it is desirable to provide a system and method that allows a consumer to provide user content to generate customized embroidery on a product and it is to this end that the system and method are directed.
The system and method are particularly applicable to web-based client/server architecture system for generating a product with customized embroidery system and method implemented in software on a computer as described below and it is in this context that the system and method will be described. It will be appreciated, however, that the system and method can be used to customize any product on which it would be desirable to allow a consumer/user to place customized embroidery. In addition, the system and method can be implemented in software (shown in the illustrated implementation), hardware or a combination of hardware and software and may also be implemented on client/server system (shown in the illustrated implementation), a web server, a terminal, a peer to peer system and the like so that the system and method are not limited to the particular implementation of the system or method.
In one illustrative embodiment, the embroidery unit 106 may further comprise at least one web server 107 (implemented in hardware or software or a combination of the two) that establishes a connection with each consumer computer device, receives requests from each consumer computer device and communicates data and information (such as by using one or more web pages) and requests for consumer computer device information to each consumer computer device wherein the consumer computer device interacts with the web server using a known secure or unsecure protocol and a typical browser application. The at least one web server, for example, may serve a web page that allows the consumer to browse the available designs and then, using a digitized design (described below in more detail), place embroidery onto a particular product wherein the embroidery may be user content. The embroidery unit may further include a store 108, such as for example a database, that contains and stores the relevant information for the embroidery unit including the product information and images for the web pages, stitch files for a user, proxy bitmaps for the user supplied designs, user information for each user of the system, e-commerce related information for each user, etc. The embroidery unit may further comprise a embroidery customizer 109 (that may be implemented as a plurality of lines of computer code wherein the plurality of lines of computer code are executed by the processing unit(s) of the server computers to implement the embroidery unit that allows a consumer to submit a design, request digitization of the design (described below in more detail), review a proxy of the design before digitization, access a personalized library of stitch files, submit a design to a embroidery marketplace and request products with the embroidery as described below in more detail. The embroidery unit 106 may further comprise a well known ecommerce engine 110 that, once the consumer has finalized an embroidery design or selected an embroidery design, allows the consumer to customize a product with particular embroidery design and then purchase the customized product. In one implementation, the embroidery system may also be part of a larger web site/system such as, for example, as ww.zazzle.com. The system (referred to as the Embroidery System) takes a different approach to automation which is based on representing the entire set of social transactions (referred to as the Embroiderable Product Creation Flow) that need to occur for a customer to submit a design and purchase a high quality embroidered product.
The embroidery design unit 130 may further comprise a unit 130a to allow the user to upload, size and select color for an embroidery design, a rough embroidery preview generator 130b which is described below in more detail, a rough embroidery quote component 130c that is described below in more detail, an approved rough embroidery preview unit 130d that allows the user to preview the rough embroidery design and an embroidery simulation unit (interactive stitch player) 130c that is described below in more detail.
The persistent embroidery design library 132 may further comprise a user embroidery designs library 132a, a rough embroidery preview design proxy library 132b and an embroidery design library 132c, each of which is described below in more detail. Using the information in the persistent embroidery design library 132 and the embroidery design unit 130, the embroidery product design tool 131 generates the product with the embroidery design as described below in more detail. The persistent product store 133 may include user embroidery designs and embroidery product descriptions that can be used to generate the product as described below in more detail.
The embroidery design translation component 134 may further comprise the digitron component 134a (described below in more detail), an embedded embroidery design translation vendor 134b and a embroidery product service 134c, each of which is described in more detail below.
The embroidery manufacturing unit 136 may further comprise an embroidery queue 136a, an embroidery workorder unit 136b, an embroidery production unit 136c and an embroidery shipping unit 136d.
Rough Embroidery Preview (130b)
The rough embroidery preview depicts the colors that will be in the translated embroidery design and also indicates the amount of detail that the customer may expect in a finished embroiderable product design. The rough embroidery preview is a visual preview that is generated from the source image by the rough embroidery preview generator, and that acts as a rough guide as to how the source image may be translated to an embroidery design, and that does not engage the full embroidery design translation process. The rough embroidery preview acts as a proxy for an embroidery design in the user interface of the embroiderable product design tool, and other places in the user interface of the broader embroidery system where an embroidery design may need to be represented. In addition to acting as a visual proxy for an embroidery design, the rough embroidery preview can also be used to encapsulate guidelines—such as recommended colors—that should inform the embroidery design translation process.
Within the embroiderable product design tool, one or more rough embroidery previews can be used along with embroidery designs and embroidery text in the creation of an embroiderable product design. An embroiderable product design that contains rough embroidery previews cannot be materialized on an embroiderable product by the embroidery machine until all those rough embroidery previews have been replaced by embroidery designs that have been translated from the source images from which the rough embroidery previews were derived, through the embroidery design translation process. An embroiderable product design in this pending state may be purchased by the creator and may be published to an embroidery product design library or the embroidery product design marketplace, but may be unavailable to general users until the embroidery design translation process is complete.
The rough embroidery preview generator is software that produces a rough embroidery preview from a source image. The rough embroidery preview generator analyzes the source image and may employ algorithms to reduce the colors to the maximum allowed for an embroidery design, and to detect and remove a background that is not to be reflected in the translated embroidery design, thereby easing the creation of the embroidery design and minimizing costs during the embroidery design translation process.
The rough embroidery preview generator may also estimate the stitch count of the embroidery design—using a formula based on the area covered by the foreground, or other heuristics—in order to calculate a rough embroidery preview quote and an embroiderable product design price. It can be anticipated that steady innovations in the rough embroidery preview generator software will result in the rough embroidery previews it generates becoming increasingly effective—over time—as a proxy for a translated embroidery design, as well as the calculated rough embroidery preview quote and embroiderable product design price becoming increasingly accurate over time.
In one implementation, the rough embroidery preview component may use the following constraints in the embroidery manufacturing process to create the rough embroidery preview:
In one implementation, the rough embroidery preview component performs the following processes to create a preview image:
In one implementation, the rough embroidery preview component performs Color-Preserving Downsampling by the following processes:
Rough Embroidery Quote Component (130c)
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The rough embroidery preview quote component determines the price of the embroidery design translation process using the above-mentioned stitch count metric. The actual conversion from a Stitch Count to a price is determined by business factors, and can either be a linear relationship (e.g., $10 per 1000 stitches in the embroidery design), a tiered relationship (e.g., $10 up to 1000 stitches, $20 for 1001 to 2000 stitches, $40 for 2001 to 3000, and so forth), or some other formula.
The stitch count in this component is an estimate, since the rough embroidery preview quote is generated before the source image has been translated to an embroidery design. The rough embroidery preview quote component may compute the stitch count estimate using an estimate of the embroidery design area since the source image will be translated to an embroidery design at specific physical dimensions. The specific physical dimensions are communicated to the embroidery design translator (described below) and the resulting embroidery design must occupy those exact physical dimensions (e.g., 3 inches by 4 inches).
The source image may have background and foreground components. The background is the part of the source image that typically surrounds the part of the source image that will actually be translated into the embroidery design. The embroidery design translator will apply judgment to decide which part of the source image is intended to be part of the embroidery design (the foreground), and which part is not (the background). Often, this is obvious, such as a cartoon character appearing on a solid white background field. The rough embroidery preview quote component may uses image processing techniques to determine automatically which part of the source image is the foreground. These techniques are typically performed on the rough embroidery preview rather than the source image itself because the rough embroidery preview is more limited in its color set and is a simpler image to analyze for foreground and background separation. An example of a technique for determining the foreground and background components is to sample pixels around the border of the source image and then use the color of the majority of those pixels to determine a background color and any pixels in the rough embroidery preview that are not the same color as the background color are then determined to be foreground. However, it is also possible to use more sophisticated techniques, such as seed fill algorithms, that take into account areas that are inside the foreground part of the image, but happen to have the same color as the background color. Therefore, the rough embroidery preview Quote Component is not limited to using this method of separating foreground pixels from background pixels.
Once the rough embroidery preview quote component has determined the foreground pixels in the rough embroidery preview and has the exact expected physical dimensions of the desired embroidery design, the rough embroidery preview quote component can compute the area covered by the foreground pixels of the rough embroidery preview at the resolution defined by the desired physical dimensions for the entire rough embroidery preview and this area will be the embroidery design area assuming that the foreground pixels were accurately determined.
The rough embroidery preview quote component then computes a stitch count estimate with an input that is the estimated embroidery design area and whose output is a stitch count estimate. The stitch count estimate may be a simple linear equation s=a*factor+base, where “s” is the stitch count estimate, “a” is the estimated embroidery design area in square inches, “factor” is a multiplicative factor to relate area to stitch count, and “base” is a minimum stitch count estimate value. In practice, this estimate has proven to be quite well correlated with the actual stitch count of the resulting embroidery designs, to the degree that a profitable embroidery translation process can be based on the prices quoted by this process.
Furthermore, there can be other factors besides pure foreground area to estimate stitch count. For example, stitches may overlap, and an estimate of local image complexity which could estimate the amount of area covered more than once by stitches would improve this estimate for complex images. We allow that the rough embroidery preview quote component might use these other factors to provide more accurate estimated stitch counts and hence produce rough embroidery preview quotes (an example of which is shown in
Proxy (132b)
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The embroidery design library is a collection of embroidery designs, which may have been uploaded, or which may have been generated from source images uploaded and then translated to embroidery designs through the embroidery design translation process. Multiple embroidery designs contained inside an embroidery design library may have been translated from the same source image, in accordance with different manufacturing parameters for each, such as physical size, stitch count, orientation, fabric substrate, and others. In the event that multiple embroidery designs are translated from the same source image, this relationship may be indicated in the user interface. The embroidery design library may also contain accepted rough embroidery previews that are pending translation to embroidery designs through the embroidery design translation process.
The embroidery system can support multiple embroidery design library instances, each instance of which is managed by an embroidery design library owner. Embroidery designs contained in the embroidery design library can be accessed and utilized from within the embroiderable product design tool during the process of creating embroiderable product designs. Additionally, embroidery designs from the embroidery design library may be made available for use by those other than the embroidery design library owner, by being listed in an embroidery design marketplace.
The embroidery design library owner is one or more persons provided management access to an embroidery design library. Management of embroidery designs within the embroidery design library may involve the assignment and modification of titles, tags, descriptions, and other meta data describing embroidery designs or governing aspects of their use within other components of the embroidery system. The embroidery design library owner can control the contents of an embroidery design library and the terms under which individual embroidery designs contained within it may be utilized in the embroidery design marketplace described below.
Embroidery Design Translation Component and Process (125 and 134)
The embroidery system embeds an agreement with skilled artisans (an embroidery design translation vendor) and will engage them to translate the source image, using instructions contained in the accepted rough embroidery preview, into an embroidery design. This process is referred to as the embroidery design translation process and includes the Digitron process as shown in
The embroidery design translation vendor is an external vendor of embroidery design translation services that may employ skilled artisans and proprietary technologies in the translation of accepted rough embroidery previews to embroidery designs, utilizing color choice cues and other guidelines captured within those accepted rough embroidery previews.
A centerpiece of the embroidery design translation process component is the embroidery design translation job manager which facilitates management and coordination of multiple embroidery design translation jobs and serves as an interchange between the embroidery system host and multiple embroidery design translation vendors. As such, users of the embroidery design translation job manager will include the embroidery system host and embroidery design translation vendors.
The embroidery design translation job manager will have access to a data store, in which data describing multiple embroidery design translation jobs and multiple embroidery design translation vendors will reside. The embroidery design translation job manager may implement administration tools to allow the embroidery system host to set up and manage accounts held by embroidery design translation vendors and may also allow such vendors to configure preferences for their participation within the process.
The embroidery design translation job manager may implement job management tools to allow the embroidery system host to review and assign embroidery design translation jobs to embroidery design translation vendors, to allow such vendors to accept and check out assets for jobs assigned to them, to allow vendors to check in assets for completed jobs, and to allow the embroidery system host to review assets for and approve completed jobs.
The embroidery design translation job manager may implement a system for producing reports, such as general health reports assessing the status of jobs in the system, as well as performance reports to assist in diagnosing inefficiencies within the system and to aid in evaluating embroidery design translation vendors. The reporting system may also utilize data contained within the data store to corroborate charges contained within invoices supplied by embroidery design translation vendors, testing for such things as discrepancies between estimated stitch count for embroidery designs and stitch counts used by embroidery design translation vendors in formulating charges for embroidery design translation jobs.
The embroidery design translation job manager may implement a triage system to facilitate resolving problems that require corrective action by the embroidery system host, such problems including jobs that have been rejected by embroidery design translation vendors, and jobs that have failed to be assigned to embroidery design translation vendors, amongst others.
A typical flow within the embroidery design translation process component is described, involving the following steps:
1. An embroiderable product design containing one or more rough embroidery previews is ordered or is published to the embroiderable product design marketplace.
2. The embroidery system enters embroidery design translation jobs, in a pending status, into the embroidery design translation job manager for each of the rough embroidery previews contained inside the embroiderable product design.
3. The pending embroidery design translation jobs are reviewed by a content review team to ensure that the content complies with limitations imposed by the embroidery system host's appropriate use guidelines and relevant terms of service agreements governing the service. Reviewing a job before assigning it to an embroidery design translation vendor avoids a loss that would be incurred if the job were to be rejected later, after the vendor had already provided their services.
4. Upon passing content review, the pending embroidery design translation jobs are assigned to appropriate embroidery design translation vendors, at the discretion of an operator of the embroidery design translation job manager, and possibly guided by heuristics that take into account vendor availability, vendor load management, specific vendor expertise and specializations, and cost competitiveness factors, amongst others.
5. Embroidery design translation vendors may be notified by the embroidery design translation job manager that the new jobs have been assigned to them.
6. Through a user interface of the embroidery design translation job manager, an embroidery design translation vendor may accept the jobs that have been assigned to them and may check out the rough embroidery previews necessary for them to complete the jobs, or they may decline jobs, which jobs will then be entered into the triage system for possible re-assignment or other corrective action.
7. Upon completion of jobs accepted by an embroidery design translation vendor, the vendor will check in the translated embroidery designs and update status for the jobs through a user interface of the embroidery design translation job manager.
8. An operator of the embroidery design translation job manager may be notified of the completed jobs in order to generally monitor the process, or may be required to explicitly approve jobs before continuation of the flow, with rejected completed jobs being entered into the triage system.
9. The embroidery system may notify the creator of the embroiderable product design and provide them the opportunity to approve or reject the results of the embroidery design translation process, with rejected jobs being entered into the triage system.
10. Upon acceptance of embroidery designs generated by embroidery design translation vendors, such embroidery designs are entered into an embroidery design library for future use, and any source image references in the embroiderable product design are replaced with references to the embroidery designs translated from those source images.
11. Upon updating of the embroiderable product design to reference the translated embroidery designs, the embroiderable product design may be entered into an embroiderable product design library or may be submitted to the manufacturing flow, dependent upon how the embroidery design translation flow was initiated.
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Embroidery Simulation/Interactive Stitch Player (130e)
The simulation is referred to as the embroidery simulation and it shows the translated embroidery design using the embroidered textures and colors placed by the artisan. The simulation also emulates the tolerances of the embroidery machine. The embroidery simulation is an animated presentation—much like a movie—that demonstrates to the user how the embroidery machine might execute the stitch instructions implicit in an embroidery design, embroidery text, or different embroidery area designs contained inside an embroiderable product design.
The embroidery simulation may simulate traits of a materialized embroiderable product design, including variations in placement of stitches, thread response (such as twisting), and the way that light may interact with the stitches under various configurable lighting conditions. The embroidery simulation may also realistically depict the fabric substrate upon which embroidery is being stitched, including qualities such as the wale or napping of coarsely textured fabrics.
In one implementation, the embroidery simulation component simulates the way the design will be stitched onto fabric, using the following metrics:
In one implementation, the component performs the following processes to provide a simulation of how the Embroidery Design will be stitched on a Product Substrate:
Embroidery Product Design Tool/Component (131)
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The embroiderable product design tool is an interactive interface that permits the user to create custom embroiderable product designs for multiple types of embroiderable products. The tool provides a mechanism for adding various supported types of content to the embroiderable product design being edited. For example, users may add a source image or embroidery design, either uploaded to the embroidery system from their computing device, or accessed by means of a media browser from an asset library that is hosted by the embroidery system. Rough embroidery previews or accepted rough embroidery previews that are awaiting translation to embroidery designs by the embroidery design translation process may also be added in this manner.
Upon adding new source images to an embroiderable product design, facilities within the user interface may prompt and inform the user of translation that will need to occur in order for such source images to be producable as embroidery on an embroiderable product as shown in
The embroiderable product design tool also has a user interface to allow the user to add embroidery text to an embroiderable product design as shown in
The embroiderable product design tool also provides a variety of user interfaces to allow the user to edit placement, orientation, colors, and other properties—supported by the embroidery system—for embroidery design objects and embroidery text objects contained in an embroiderable product design. The editing functions may be provided that permit the user to perform operations upon a selection of one or more objects, such operations including basic editing actions—such as copy, cut, paste, delete, and others—along with more advanced layout functions—such as positioning, aligning, scaling, and others.
The embroiderable product design tool (shown for example in
In more detail, the embroidery area color palette (that may be implemented as a color palette module in software) is a collection of colors that may be used within the context of a single embroidery area design and the embroidery designs and embroidery text within an embroidery area design are limited to using colors that are contained within the embroidery area color palette. The embroidery area color palette may be divided into fixed colors that are derived from embroidery designs contained within an embroidery area design and that the user may not be able to change in the user interface of the embroiderable product design tool, along with custom colors that the user may be able to change and which may be applied to embroidery text within the embroidery area design. The embroidery area color palette may provide a mechanism by which the user can remap colors utilized by an embroidery design to colors that may be more appealing to the user or that may better match or complement the colors of other embroidery designs or embroidery text within the embroidery area design.
The embroiderable product design tool also includes an embroiderable product options configurator that permits the user to configure product options for the type of embroiderable product for which their embroiderable product design is intended, such options including style, color, and size, amongst others. The product options so chosen may impact the price that is reflected in the user interface as well as the visualization of the embroiderable product design. The user's configured product options will govern how an instance of the embroiderable product design is manufactured, and may also govern how a published embroiderable product design is represented in the embroiderable product design marketplace as described below in more detail.
The embroiderable product design tool also provides a tool for visualizing an embroiderable product design. At any stage during the editing of an embroiderable product design, the user may inspect the design as it is visualized upon a life-like representation of an embroiderable product (which view is termed a modelshot view), or the user may inspect a flat representation of one of the embroiderable area designs contained inside their embroiderable product design (which view is termed a design view). For modelshot views, selecting the desired view of an embroiderable product is accomplished through the modelshot view selector. For embroiderable area design views, selecting the desired embroiderable area design is accomplished through the embroiderable area design view selector.
At any stage during the editing of an embroiderable product design, the price for the purchase of a manufactured instance of the embroiderable product design may be reflected in the user interface, which price may consist of components such as the cost of manufacture, the cost of any translations that may be necessary by the embroidery design translation process, and the cost of product options configured for the embroiderable product—such as style and color, amongst others.
The embroiderable product design tool also may include an embroiderable product design validator employed within the embroiderable product design tool to prevent publishing or ordering of an embroiderable product design if such design violates certain constraints that are imposed by the embroidery system. Examples of such constraints include overlapping embroidery text or embroidery designs, and embroidery text or embroidery designs lying outside of the embroiderable area, amongst others. At any such time as an embroiderable product design tool enters a state where it violates constraints and thereby fails validation, elements of the user interface may warn and inform the user of the nature of the violation(s), and actions consequently impermissible may become disabled within the user interface. Furthermore, an interactive component of the embroiderable product design validator may preemptively limit actions within the user interface to prevent conditions in which the embroiderable product design will fail validation, an example of which is a constraint imposed upon the movement of objects within an embroiderable area to prevent the objects from falling outside of the embroiderable area.
The embroiderable product design tool also may include a management system that manages the exclusivity relationships that may exist between proximate embroiderable areas. This system is termed the embroiderable area exclusivity manager. The system is responsible for managing the appropriate enabling and disabling of user interface elements in response to limitations on available embroiderable areas, as determined by existing use of certain embroiderable areas that may be exclusive with other embroiderable areas in the superset of possible embroiderable areas. This system is also responsible for potentially removing embroiderable area designs from an embroiderable product design, if changes occur within the configurable options for the embroiderable product that would render the embroiderable areas for which those embroiderable area designs were intended no longer available in the superset of possible embroiderable areas.
An embroiderable product design created in the embroiderable product design tool can be saved to an embroiderable product design library, from where it can be later accessed for completion, publishing, or ordering. A system of permissions may allow the user to make embroiderable product designs within an embroiderable product design library visible to the public at large, visible only to a chosen group for whom permission has been granted to view those embroiderable product designs, or visible only to the embroiderable product design library owner.
An embroiderable product design created in the embroiderable product design tool can be published to the embroiderable product design marketplace, provided that the user has the appropriate publishing rights for content contained within the embroiderable product design. In such an event as publishing cannot be permitted, appropriate elements of the user interface may be disabled, or the user may be prompted upon attempting to publish.
An embroiderable product design created in the embroiderable product design tool can be ordered. Upon ordering, the customized and configured instance of the embroiderable product design is entered into a flow, which includes steps for procuring payment, and which ultimately results in it being manufactured by the embroidery machine and transported to the intended recipient.
Upon publishing or ordering of an embroiderable product design that contains rough embroidery previews, such rough embroidery previews become accepted rough embroidery previews and are entered into the embroidery design translation process for translation to embroidery designs. While payment may be collected prior to invoking the embroidery design translation process, a review step may be provided to allow the user to accept or decline embroidery designs resulting from the embroidery design translation process before completing publishing or ordering.
Manufacturing Component (136)
A design for an embroiderable product (referred to as an embroiderable product design) that uses the embroidery design so produced by the preceding steps (or any prior existing and approved embroidery designs), may then be manufactured (128). The manufactured embroiderable products are then shipped to the customer.
An embroidery production sheet is automatically printed for every new embroidery order that is successfully digitized. The embroidery production sheet is the signal to start the manufacturing process and contains information to guide the workers along in an efficient manner. An order can contain multiple embroidery products (i.e. one hat, one bag and three shirts). Furthermore, each product can contain multiple print areas where each area is a combination of embroidery designs and embroidery text as created by the user. An embroidery production sheet is printed for every product in the order and contains a section for each print area and each print area section also contains a barcode. The barcode is read by the embroidery command file generation software, which translates the compound design of that print area into a single command file for the embroidery machine.
Batches of production sheets, grouped by product type and order, get printed periodically. The period is defined by the shift manager. The production sheets are further grouped by print areas and thread colors and then given to workers and each worker is responsible for a set of embroidery machines optimized to print certain product types, areas, and thread color combinations. Each production sheet contains the following sections:
The embroidery command file generation software reads a barcode that uniquely identifies a print area, generates a command file to stitch that area, and spools that file to the embroidery machine. The software can be configured to send command files for specific print area and sew sequence combinations to specific embroidery machines that reduces the overall setup time for each stitch job.
Using an attached barcode scanner, the software reads a barcode that uniquely identifies a print area. Multiple areas can be scanned at once.
The software compiles multiple embroidery designs and embroidery text into a single command file representing the print area and the command file is sent to the embroidery machine as defined by the configuration.
A preview of the print area is shown to the worker to minimize operator error.
Upon completion of the job, an update is sent to the backend servers, allowing customers to get real-time status of their order.
Reflection Process/Component (138)
Then, a reflection process (129) collects metrics from the embroiderable product creation flow and used to refine the embroidery system. In more detail, the embroidery reflection component provides a feedback loop from manufacturing and design translation to the embroidery design unit. The embroidery reflection component collects manufacturing and translation information, packages it, and provides it in a usable form to other components of the embroidery system.
In one implementation, the list of the types of information provided to each component may include:
The embroidery system (that implements the method shown in
Embroidery Product Design Marketplace and Embroidery Design Marketplace
The embroidery system may also include an embroidery design marketplace that is a collection of embroidery designs that is made available to general users within the embroiderable product design tool during the process of creating embroiderable product designs. The marketplace may be one or more units that permit the display of the embroidery designs (a display unit that displays the embroidery designs in web pages in a known manner), that allow users to purchase an embroidery design (the e-commerce engine) and allows the owner of the purchased embroidery design to receive a royalty (also part of the e-commerce engine). In one implementation, the marketplace may be one or more server computers executing software code to implement the marketplace.
The embroidery system may also include an embroidery product design marketplace that is a collection of embroidery product designs that is made available to general users for purchase and optional customizing within the embroiderable product design tool. The embroidery product design marketplace is distinct from the embroidery design marketplace in that the embroidery product design marketplace consists of embroidery product designs that are ready for manufacture by the embroidery machine, whereas the embroidery design marketplace consists of embroidery designs that can be used in the creation of embroidery product designs within the embroiderable product design tool. The seller of a embroidery product design may receive a royalty such as a percentage of the purchase price or a flat fee.
The contents of the embroidery product design marketplace may be comprised of embroidery product designs from multiple embroidery product design libraries and listed at the discretion of embroidery product design library owners, as well as embroidery product designs pre-populated into the embroidery product design marketplace by the concern hosting the embroidery system. The purchase, by a general user, of an embroidery product design listed in the embroidery product design marketplace by an embroidery product design library owner may result in a royalty or other remuneration accruing to that embroidery product design library owner.
In the embroidery product design marketplace, a seller can publish products that are templates that contain the embroidery design of the seller and one or more placeholders for a buyer to insert their own custom text or images using the embroidery product design marketplace. The buyer can add his/her custom text/images and then buy the product with the seller again receiving a royalty such as a percentage of the purchase price or a flat fee.
While the foregoing has been with reference to a particular embodiment of the invention, it will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that changes in this embodiment may be made without departing from the principles and spirit of the invention, the scope of which is defined by the appended claims.
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