SYSTEM OF VISUAL MARKERS FOR FASTENING AND DIGITISING GARMENT PATTERNS, AND METHOD FOR DIGITISING GARMENT PATTERNS USING SAID VISUAL MARKERS

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The invention relates to a system of visual markers for fastening and digitizing garment patterns and a method of digitizing garment patterns by using said visual markers. More particularly, the invention relates to a digitization surface magnetized by magnetic fasteners for arranging patterns and visual markers for identifying megadata on said patterns during digitization. The visual markers can provide information on the direction of a thread, snips or internal marks, a seam, auxiliary lines, building lines, marks for relationship in plaid and striped fabrics, indicators of segments of junction (stitching) between the patterns, among others.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Traditionally, patterns used in the garment manufacturing industry were digitized in a slow manner on a digitizing table where an operator identified various points on the outline of the paper pattern by means of a crosshead and the system converted said points into a polygon or a closed smooth curve by using such techniques as Beziers and Splines.

With the advent of scanners, it became possible to automatically digitize paper patterns as disclosed in US7031527 that describes the use of large-size scanners, which is an expensive technology and requires a large horizontal physical space.

The popularization of digital cameras allowed these high-performance devices to be used in the industry and this invention aims at making use of said technology for digitization of paper patterns. The challenge now is how to do it in a way that will save physical space used for digitization. The use of walls to which patterns are vertically fastened is a viable solution but makes the design more difficult.

The Certificate of Addition C1 0405039 discloses a magnetic pattern holder which comprises a flexible supporting board that acts as a surface for supporting patterns fastened through magnetic attraction by magnetized blocks.

The information on patterns is digitized by means of indications on the physical pattern such as, for example, the direction of a thread, snips or internal marks, stitching, auxiliary lines, building lines, marks for relationship in plaid and striped fabrics, indicators of segments of junction (a seam) between the patterns, among others. All of this information has a physical representation during pattern making and can be automatically obtained.

However, patterns may have subjective characteristics, that is, information that does not have a physical standardized representation on the pattern such as, for example, snips that may have different representations in accordance with the pattern maker. This specific and subjective characteristic makes the process of automatic digitization of pattern more difficult.

In order to overcome these difficulties, this invention proposes visual marking optionally associated with magnetized blocks, which allows additional information to be represented in the pattern digitization.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

• Figure 1 shows a circular magnetized block with visual marking, featuring the rotation mark at its periphery.
• Figure 2 shows 16 markers in a multi-bit system where the number of the supported bits is 4 and is preferably used in this invention.
• Figure 3 shows visual marking that identifies the rotation mark at the periphery and Figure 3A shows a visual pattern determined by the internal visual mark as shown in Figure 2 which is preferably used in this invention.
• Figure 4 shows a representation of two visual markers to indicate the direction of a fabric thread with relation to the pattern.
• Figure 5 shows a flowchart of the steps to identify, classify, and correlate visual markers with the patterns to be digitized.
• Figure 6 shows a flowchart to determine the position of the visual markers in the input image.
• Figure 7 shows a flowchart of execution of the process that classifies the visual markers in accordance with their type.
• Figure 8 shows a flowchart of execution of the process that correlates the visual mark of a certain type in the flowchart of Figure 6 with the digitized pattern.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The system of visual markers for fastening and digitizing garment patterns, subject matter of this invention, comprises a flexible board, magnetized blocks (20) for fastening the patterns to the magnetic surface of the board and visual markers (30) for identifying the megadata on said patterns (40) during digitization by means of a specific computer software.

For a visual annotation of the patterns (40) placed on the surface of the magnetic board such as, for example, the characteristics relative to the pattern making which may not have a well-defined physical representation such as the direction of a thread, snips, internal marks, stitching, auxiliary lines, building lines, among others, contrary to the conventional manual textual descriptions which hamper understanding, this invention describes visual markers (30) that provide a standardized manner of making the digitization of this kind of annotations possible.

The visual markers (30) preferably have the property of being quasi-isotropic to make the independent identification of the rotation easier.

In this invention, the visual markers (30) are circular with a single mark (31) at the periphery as shown in Figure 1, said mark (31) allowing identification of the , angle of rotation of the annotation with relation to any Cartesian plane.

By way of example within the scope of this invention, in order to make possible the use of different visual markers (30) per set to be digitized, each visual marker (30) has a visual standard belonging to a multi-bit alphabet (32) as shown in Figure 2. The visual standard that identifies the type of annotation is internally printed on the circular annotation and is capable of storing sixteen different types as shown in Figure 2.

The visual marker (30) can be printed on one face of the magnetized block (20), on two faces of the magnetized block (20) in order to maximize the number of usage options or form a body disassociated from said magnetized block (20).

The following steps are carried out in order to digitize the visual markers (30) arranged on the pattern (40) fastened to the surface of the magnetic board (10):

After inputting an image, the system identifies the exact position (100) of the visual markers (30) in the image. The first piece of information necessary for digitization is the exact position of the marker (30) in the input image. A cross-correlation algorithm (120) that provides possible positions of the desired visual markers (30) is used for this, said algorithm correlating an ideal computed image (110) of the visual marker (30) to be identified with the input image of the system.

The cross-correlation algorithm (120) determines the exact positions of the center of the visual markers (30) and a score associated with said position (130). In order to increase the precision, this initial position is adjusted to possible neighboring sub-pixels in the input image by using a bilinear interpolation algorithm.

Having the scores, a cutting algorithm is applied in order to remove possible positions that did not score enough (140). These possible false-positive positions are found by the cross-correlation algorithm (120).

With the central position of the precisely defined visual marker (30) and with the information on the radius of the visual marker (30) to be detected, the single mark (31) that determines the rotation (150) is found. The single mark (31) is used for determining the angle of rotation of the visual marker (30) with relation to the horizontal axis of the input image. Said single mark (31) also shows the point of interest of the visual marker (160).

Having the information on the position and rotation of the visual marker (30), the next step is to identify its type on the basis of the predetermined visual alphabet. In the preferred embodiment of this invention, a four-bit visual standard (32) represents said alphabet as shown in Figure 2. The classification step (200) determines this value.

With the precisely determined center (130) and rotation angle (150) and having the radius of the visual marker (30) that composes the binary code, the mean value of the pixels (210) which composes each quadrant of the visual standard (32) is calculated.

Knowing the value of each quadrant, a binary value of size four (220) which is the type associated with the visual standard (32) is calculated.

After determining the position and type of the visual markers (30), they are associated with the digitized patterns (310) and stored together with the information on the type of the visual markers (30).