Patent Application
20190150543
The present invention is related to pattern making. More specifically, this invention relates to creation of CAD patterns for apparel, accessory and footwear. In particular, this invention outlines a novel way to significantly reduce the time and effort required to create or modify CAD patterns for apparel, accessory and footwear.
Pattern Making for apparel, accessories and footwear has been in existence for a very long time. Computer Aided Design (CAD) and pattern making software have also been in use for decades.
Traditionally, the pattern maker would create the patterns on a piece of cardboard and use that to shape and cut the fabric for making apparel, accessories or footwear. With the advent of computers, this process has largely become digitized.
Most of the present tools for Pattern Making require the user to think and operate using basic geometric building blocks such as lines, curves, rectangles, etc. Even where a higher level of abstraction such as an entire Front or Sleeve is provided, information mapping a geometry to physical attributes and to each other are missing, consequently requiring a user to manually edit the paths at every point. It is also time consuming to manually grade each size or manually change a pattern for different genders, geography, ethnicity or age.
The above-mentioned shortcomings, disadvantages, and problems are addressed herein and which will be understood by reading and studying the following specification.
The various embodiments herein provide a method for rapidly creating CAD patterns for apparel, accessory and footwear using a novel method comprising the steps: Encapsulation, Intersection, Abstraction and Coupling.
Encapsulation provides preset pattern elements (Encapsulated Components) as basic building blocks. The complexity and number of such Components required for completeness is vast. However, the overwhelming number of variations can be significantly reduced by grouping them according to anatomical similarities or usage variations.
For example, in apparel CAD, the Encapsulated Components required can be simplified by considering just the extensions of the human anatomy from the torso, namely neck, arm and leg. In one embodiment of this invention for apparel, patterns elements for neck, arm hole and leg alone are sufficient as Encapsulated Components. In another embodiment herein, the Encapsulated Components are augmented with additional pattern elements for Chest, Waist, Hip, Thigh, Bicep, Elbow, Wrist, Knee, Ankle and Head.
Encapsulated Components can further include specialized sub-components. Since the human arm is attached a little more to the front than to the back of the torso, the armhole for the front is deeper than the armhole for the back. Thus, providing specialized variants for Encapsulated Components further simplifies the pattern creation process.
The operation of Intersection enables two different paths to be intersected and a new path created. In one embodiment of this invention, basic geometries such as line, arc, circle, rectangle, path or an Encapsulated Components can be intersected with each other to create Composite Components. Composite Components themselves can be further intersected with other Components to create more complex Composite Components.
The operation of Intersection is further comprised of geometric Union, Addition, Subtraction and can be further augmented with a plurality of operations such as: Cut, Join, Offset, Mirror, Mirror with duplicate paths removed, Flip, Rotate, Seam—Outer, Seam—Inner and Seam with variable offset.
When intersecting two paths, there will be up to four different combination of intersected paths that can be derived. In one embodiment of this art, the shortest, closed path is automatically chosen. In another embodiment, the user is prompted to select one from a list of options.
All CAD tools capture points and path as a geometry. The novel concept of Abstraction outlined in this invention, adds “intelligence” by assigning a Defining Attribute to one or more points and paths. For example, by augmenting two points (x,y) and (x′, y′), with additional information that they represent shoulder points on a Male, Chest 36 inches, height 72 inches, the pattern elements can then be automatically adjusted or graded, not only at that point, but also at all other connected points. As can be seen, Defining Attributes not only provide information about a particular point or path, but can be used to derive additional information about nearby points and connected paths.
Coupling allows for certain geometries to be linked to each other. For example, in an apparel, the front armhole (601) and back armhole (603) correspond to the sleeve cap (602) and the path lengths must be in proportion: 602=601+603. The novel concept of Coupling outlined in this invention, allows for capturing and automatically adjusting one when the other changes.
The Defining Attributes and Encapsulation can be augmented and extended for each domain (Apparel, Footwear, Furnishing, Metal Casting, etc). For example, the Encapsulated Components is augmented with pattern elements for Strap, Pouch and Liner for accessories; and Tongue, Vamp, Heel and Toecap for footwear; and Abstraction is augmented with a plurality of Defining Attributes chosen from that domain such as Toe point, Heel point, Width and Feet length for footwear and Buckle point, Strap point and Base width for accessory.
In one embodiment of this invention, the chest point and height are captured as Defining Attributes for an apparel, thereby enabling grading of the pattern for an entire set of sizes from a size chart automatically. In another embodiment, the heel point and toe point are captured to enable grading of footwear patterns.
Abstraction is a powerful tool by itself However, in one embodiment of this invention, the step of Abstraction is preceded by the step of user selection of a body size, which is then used along with a standard body measurement chart to guide the user during the creation of the patterns, thereby speeding up the process and avoiding measurement errors.
The various embodiments above, provide a system and method for rapidly creating CAD patterns for apparel, accessory and footwear. The same techniques are used to automatically grade the patterns for different sizes and to assist or automatically modify the patterns to different specifications. These same techniques can be easily extended to other domains such as accessories, footwear, furnishings, metal castings, gear cutting and any other domain that requires creation of CAD patterns for subsequent use in manufacturing, both manual and CAM.
This and other aspects of the embodiments herein will be better appreciated and understood when considered in conjunction with the following description and the accompanying drawings. Although the embodiments herein refer mostly to apparel, they are given by way of an illustration and not of a limitation. Similarly, it should be understood, that the descriptions and drawings, while indicating the preferred embodiments and numerous specific details thereof, are given by way of an illustration and not of a limitation. Many changes and modifications may be made within the scope of the embodiments herein without departing from the spirit thereof, and the embodiments herein include all such modifications.
The objects, features, and advantages will be apparent to those skilled in the art from the following description of the preferred embodiment and the accompanying drawings in which:
Although the specific features of the embodiments herein are shown in some drawings and not in others, this is done for convenience only as each feature may be combined with any or all of the other features in accordance with the embodiments herein.
In the following detailed description, a reference is made to the accompanying drawings that form a part hereof, and in which the specific embodiments that may be practiced is shown by way of illustration. These embodiments are described in sufficient detail to enable those skilled in the art to practice the embodiments and it is to be understood that the logical, mechanical and other changes may be made without departing from the scope of the embodiments. The following detailed description is therefore not to be taken in a limiting sense.
The various embodiments herein provide a method for rapidly creating CAD patterns for apparel, accessory and footwear using a novel method comprising the steps: Encapsulation, Intersection, Abstraction and Coupling.
Encapsulation provides preset pattern elements (Encapsulated Components) as basic building blocks. The complexity and number of such Components required for completeness is vast. However, the overwhelming number of variations can be significantly reduced by grouping them according to anatomical similarities or usage variations.
For example, in apparel CAD, the number of Encapsulated Components required can be significantly reduced by considering just the extensions to the human anatomy from the torso, namely neck, arm and leg. In one embodiment of this invention for apparel, patterns elements for neck, arm hole (Scye) and leg hole (Stride) are sufficient as Encapsulated Components. In another embodiment herein, the Encapsulated Components are augmented with additional pattern elements for Wrist line, Ankle line, Chest, Waist, Hip, Thigh, Bicep, Elbow, Knee and Head. Encapsulated Components can further include specialized sub-components.
The operation of Intersection enables two different paths to be intersected and a new path created. In one embodiment of this invention, basic geometries such as line, arc, circle, rectangle, path or an Encapsulated Components can be intersected with each other to create Composite Components. Composite Components themselves can be further intersected with other Components to create more complex Composite Components. The operation of Intersection is further comprised of geometric Union, Addition and Subtraction.
All CAD tools capture points and path as a geometry. The novel concept of Abstraction outlined in this invention, adds “intelligence” by assigning a Defining Attribute for one or more points and paths on a pattern element or Component. For example, by augmenting two points (x,y) and (x′, y′), with additional information that they represent shoulder points on a Male, Chest 36 inches, height 72 inches, the pattern elements can then be automatically adjusted or graded, not only at that point, but also at all other connected points. As can be seen, Defining Attributes not only provide information about a particular point or path, but can be used to derive additional information about nearby points and connected paths.
Coupling allows for certain geometries to be linked to each other. For example, in an apparel, the front armhole (
This and other aspects of the embodiments herein will be better appreciated and understood when considered in conjunction with the following description and the accompanying drawings. It should be understood, however, that the following descriptions, while indicating the preferred embodiments and numerous specific details thereof, are given by way of an illustration and not of a limitation. Many changes and modifications may be made within the scope of the embodiments herein without departing from the spirit thereof, and the embodiments herein include all such modifications.
As can be seen in
When intersecting two paths, there can be up to four different combination of intersected paths that can be derived (Inner-Inner, Inner-Outer, Outer-Inner, Outer-Outer). In one embodiment of this art, the shortest, closed path is automatically chosen. In another embodiment, the user is prompted to select one from a list of options.
The operation of Intersection is further comprised of geometric Union, Addition and Subtraction and is typically augmented with a plurality of operations such as: Cut, Join, Offset, Mirror, Mirror with duplicate paths removed, Flip, Rotate, Seam—Outer, Seam—Inner and Seam with variable offset.
There are a multitude of ways to represent Defining Attributes. According to one embodiment of this invention, an exemplary path geometry with Defining Attributes is illustrated below. The Defining Attribute for body “M,36,72” (Gender,Chest,Height) is common to all elements, while path level attributes such as “DA=1,4:SP” (Defining Attribute=points 1 & 4 are Shoulder Point) are element specific.
In one embodiment of this invention for apparel, the Defining Attributes are chosen from a list consisting of Neck point, Shoulder point, Chest point, Waist point, Hip point, Thigh point, Bicep point, Elbow point, Wrist point, Knee point, Ankle point, Head Point and Body Height.
The Defining Attributes and Encapsulation should be replaced and extended for each domain (Apparel, Footwear, Furnishing, Metal Casting, etc). For example, replacing the Encapsulated Components with pattern elements for Strap, Pouch and Liner for accessories and Tongue, Vamp, Heel and Toecap for footwear; and replacing the Abstraction with a plurality of Defining Attributes chosen from that domain such as Toe point, Heel point, Width and Feet length for footwear and Buckle point, Strap point and Base width for accessory.
Abstraction is a powerful tool by itself. However, in one embodiment of this invention, the step of Abstraction is preceded by the step of user selection of a body size, which is then used along with a standard body measurement chart to “guide” the user during the creation of the patterns, thereby enabling faster creation of Components and avoiding measurement errors. The process of guiding uses well known methods of user interface such as snap-to-point, auto-align, click-to-join, etc.
The novel concept of Coupling outlined in this invention, enables the capturing of this information and automatically adjusting the length and shape of one (e.g: 602) when the length or shape of the other changes (e.g: 601 or 603).
As can be seen clearly, using Defining Attributes for grading is fast and intuitive (applying (dx, dy) to each point manually versus using size chart for all points automatically), significantly reducing time, effort and measurement errors. In yet another embodiment of this invention, a similar technique using the heel point and toe point are used to enable grading of footwear patterns.
Defining Attributes also serve another useful purpose, in automatically modifying a pattern for a different size, gender, age, body type or geography. In one embodiment of this invention, a pattern made for Size M for US (40″ bust) is automatically converted to Size M for Asia (36″ Bust) using Defining Attributes for Chest, Height and a size chart. Similarly, if the user made an error and created patterns for size 40″, instead of 36″, all the pattern elements for all components could be automatically fixed by simply changing one measurement.
In yet another embodiment of this invention, the Defining Attributes of Abstraction are used to automatically adjust the pattern elements of each Component based on a plurality of user selection chosen from a list of gender, size, ethnicity, age, body type and geography.
The techniques of Encapsulation, Intersection, Abstraction and Coupling not only apply to creation of CAD patterns, but apply equally effectively to editing an existing CAD patterns. In fact, CAD patterns created using a traditional Pattern Maker can be imported using standard file format like DXF into a Pattern Maker incorporating the teachings of this invention, adding Defining Attributes during import and subsequently taking advantage of the speed, ease, automation and error correction capabilities bestowed by this invention.
The various embodiments above, provide a system and method for rapidly creating and modifying CAD patterns for apparel, accessory and footwear. The same techniques are used to automatically grade the patterns for different sizes and to assist or automatically modify the patterns to different specifications. These techniques apply equally to all domains that requires creation of CAD patterns for designing or manufacturing (manual and CAM).
Although the embodiments herein refer mostly to apparel, they are given by way of an illustration and not of a limitation. Many changes and modifications may be made within the scope of the embodiments for accessories, footwear, metal casting, furnishings, gear cutting and other domains, without departing from the spirit hereof. Although the specific features of the embodiments herein are shown in some and not in others, this is done for convenience only as each feature may be combined with any or all of the other features in accordance with the embodiments herein.
The foregoing description of the specific embodiments will so fully reveal the general nature of the embodiments herein that others can, by applying current knowledge, readily modify and/or adapt for various other applications, as specific embodiments without departing from the generic concept, and, therefore, such adaptations and modifications should and are intended to be comprehended within the meaning and range of equivalents of the disclosed embodiments. It is to be understood that the phraseology or terminology employed herein is for the purpose of description and not of limitation. Therefore, while the embodiments herein have been described in terms of preferred embodiments, those skilled in the art will recognize that the embodiments herein can be practiced with modifications. However, all such modifications are deemed to be within the scope of the claims.
