Patent ID: 9639635
Date: 2017-05-02
CPC Classifications: A41H,G06F,G06T

Claim:
1. A method for digitizing footwear and other cut-and-stitched goods, comprising: obtaining, a digital, three-dimensional (3D) reference model dimensionally representing a selected cut-and-stitched item; panelizing a physical sample of the selected cut-and-stitched item by separating the physical sample into one or more separate, flattened physical panels; capturing digitized images of each of the one or more flattened panels; producing, via a contour outline mechanism embodied as coded, machine-readable image-processing, instructions executing on data processing circuitry of a computing device, a two-dimensional (2D) contour map of each of the one or more digitized panel images; determining whether the 2D contour maps of the one or more separated panels match an available 3D template, wherein the matching between the 2D panel contour maps and the 3D template comprises determining that an overall quantity of panels in the 2D panel contour maps matches an overall quantity of panels in the 3D template, determining that a close match exists between shapes of the panels in the 2D panel contour maps and shapes of the panels in the 3D template; and determining that a close match exists between quantities and positions of original pre-panelized connection points of the panels of the 2D panel contour maps and quantities and positions of original pre-panelized connection points of the panels of the 3D template; converting contours of the 2D panel contour maps to vector-based curves by executing, via data processing circuitry of a computing device, coded, machine-readable instructions including a feature point extraction and curve-fitting algorithm; transforming sizes and shapes of panels of the matched 3D template to match the curves of the converted 2D panels; tessellating the panels of the 3D template; and wrapping the tessellated 3D panels onto the 3D reference model.