Patent ID: 7975581

Claim:
An apparatus for cutting off glass panes ( 3 a - 3 e , 3 c ′- 3 f ′) from a continuously produced glass sheet ( 1 ), said apparatus comprising a conveying apparatus ( 111 ) for conveying said glass sheet ( 1 ) and for conveying crosscut pieces ( 2 , 2 a - 2 e ) cut off from said glass sheet ( 1 ); a thickness-measuring device ( 109 ) for measuring a thickness profile across the glass sheet to determine a good glass region from which glass panes of an acceptable thickness are to be cut; a crosscutting device ( 104 ) for cutting the crosscut pieces ( 2 ) from the glass sheet ( 1 ); a glass pane cutting device ( 108 ) for cutting off the glass panes from the crosscut pieces ( 2 , 2 a - 2 e ); a glass fault detecting device ( 103 ) for detecting glass faults in said glass sheet; a border trimming station ( 106 ) for cutting away borders ( 4 , 5 , 5 ′) from the crosscut pieces; an edge control device ( 107 ) arranged downstream of the border trimming station ( 106 ) to detect edge faults in said crosscut pieces after trimming away said borders; and a cutting optimization device ( 102 ) connected with the crosscutting device ( 104 ), the glass pane cutting device ( 108 ), the glass fault detecting device ( 103 ), the thickness-measuring device, and the edge control device ( 107 ); wherein said cutting optimization device ( 102 ) comprises means for determining at least one optimized cutting pattern for a given glass sheet section, in which cutting lines ( 7 ) are placed in each of said crosscut pieces ( 2 ) sufficiently close to glass sheet regions ( 13 - 15 ) to be discarded containing said glass faults so that widths (Bs) of said glass sheet regions ( 13 - 15 ) are minimized, while providing as large as possible a number of usable ones of said glass panes.