Data processing: generic control systems or specific application – Specific application – apparatus or process – Product assembly or manufacturing
Reexamination Certificate
1998-01-06
2001-05-15
Sheikh, Ayaz (Department: 2155)
Data processing: generic control systems or specific application
Specific application, apparatus or process
Product assembly or manufacturing
C700S130000, C700S131000, C700S132000, C700S134000, C700S135000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06233496
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and a system which allow a design to be evaluated appropriately and a series of processing steps from the planning to the actual production of a fashion design to be processed in linkage within one and the same office, thus allowing the time, labor and cost which have been spent for such processing steps to be reduced considerably and products sensitive to trends to be developed quickly. In addition to that, the present invention relates to a technology which allows the production cost to be reduced considerably and the apprehension for the environmental pollution to be relaxed considerably by allowing dyes used in the actual production to be saved considerably.
2. Description of Related Art
In the fashion industry, it is very important to improve the design development speed how to develop a design quickly in anticipation of the fashion, to enhance the linkage among each processing step from the design development to the actual production by quickly and efficiently connecting the developed product design to the actual production and to reduce the cost of the actual production to maintain competitive power within the industry. In addition to that, dyes discharged to the realm of nature during the actual production has been posing a problem of environmental pollution and it has become an important subject how to reduce the disused dyes in recent years.
Hitherto, the most of the processing steps from the planning of a fashion design to the actual production rely on manual works except of the actual production process. For instance, in planning a fashion design, designs such as a style and a color pattern of a dress which a designer has sketched are checked and corrected on papers to narrow down to several hopeful designs. Then, trial samples are made from the several designs thus narrowed down to be evaluated by a client and only one evaluated highly by the client is actually produced.
Such method, however, has had the following problems.
1) Because the design has been checked while applying color patterns to the sketch of the dress and thinking of the finished state on papers, no actual feeling was obtained, the design could not be evaluated precisely and the development speed was slow.
2) An actual production has been necessary to obtain a cloth for the trial sample, even if it is a small lot, so long as the cloth having the same pattern with the actual product is used. Therefore, while a template for screen printing used in the actual production is required and a certain amount of cloth for the trial sample needs to be actually produced, they all become useless when the design is not adopted, though their cost will be reflected in the production cost.
Beside these problems concerning to the planning of the fashion design, there have been the following important problems.
3) While a color pattern is dyed across the whole cloth in screen printing in the actual production as a matter of course, the remaining part of the cloth after cutting the dress pattern is disused, so that the dyes at this part become useless and the disused dyes may pollute the environment.
Thus, there have been various problems in the prior art processing steps from the design and planning of a fashion to the actual production that the design cannot be evaluated precisely and the design development speed is slow, that the raw materials, time and labor are wasteful, becoming a factor of increasing the production cost and that the disused dyes may cause the environmental pollution.
While there exists a system which allows a design edited on a display screen to be output by a color copier by connecting the color copier to a computer in the field of design development, this system allows the design to be output only on a paper or a film. Accordingly, it has been necessary to implement the actual production after making plates for screen printing as usual in order to obtain trial samples. Still more, because the color copier is extremely expensive, it costs a lot to introduce it and it has been difficult to introduce it by small companies.
Accordingly, the present invention has been devised in view of such situation and has been intended to provide a fashion design and production supporting method and a system therefor which allow designs to be evaluated precisely, the design development to be quickened, the cost of the product to be lowered by eliminating the waste of the raw materials, time and labor and the environmental pollution to be suppressed and which can be introduced at low cost.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The inventors et., al. have obtained the following ideas as a result of extensive study implemented to solve the above-mentioned problems. Because a color pattern of a cloth may be simulated on a computer while displaying them on a display screen, there is a possibility that a trial sample can be made within an office if there exists a drawing system which allows the simulated color pattern to be directly dyed on a cloth used for the actual production. Then, studyeing specifically on this point, the inventors obtained a conviction that this problem can be solved by improving an ink jet type plotter or the like. However, there remained various problems to be overcome.
A first problem was how to reproduce a color which a client desires (hereinafter referred to as a desired color) faithfully on the cloth. The inventors considered that this problem can be solved basically by selecting a color close to the desired color from a color chart to replace the desired color by the specified color (hereinafter the color specified in the color chart will be referred to as a specified color) and by converting the selected specified color into the representation of network points by the four fundamental colors of CMYB of cyan, magenta and yellow, i.e. the three primary colors, and black. A method for converting from the specified color to the four fundamental colors of CMYB has been established as a known technology, so that it can be used in this case.
A second problem was a problem that no established standard exists for evaluating a color pattern because a tint realized on a sheet member by the drawing system depend on inks and dyes to be used and types of the sheet member. For instance, while the color pattern needs to be evaluated by dyeing directly on the cloth used for the actual production in the end, it is needless to say that it is preferable to print it out on papers whose cost is low and which can be readily handled in the stage of trial-and-error before reaching to the final stage. However, the tint to be reproduced changes every time and the color pattern cannot be evaluated precisely if the quality of the papers to be used is not unified. Then, the inventors have set a standard sheet of paper to evaluate the color pattern on the sheet of paper.
By the way, a color curve per dye material is necessary basically in order to convert the selected specified color into the representation of network points by the four fundamental colors of CMYB because coloring of different dye is different. However, there have been problems to set the color curve per each dye that it requires a lot of works and that the handling of the data is cumbersome. This problem has been solved by causing the tint of each color of different dyes or of dye and ink to coincide, respectively, as much as possible. In this case, while it is preferable to cause the tint printed out on the standard sheet to coincide with the tint dyed on the cloth used for the trial sample, there is a case when the tint of ink itself before printing just needs to be caused to coincide with the tint of the dye itself before dyeing.
It allows the different dyes to be dealt just by one color curve and eliminates the need of distinguishing ink from dye. That is, it allows the whole things to be dealt just by one color curve.
A third problem was how to realize such high functional and easy-to-handle system while keeping its cost as low as possible, without complicating
Armstrong Westerman Hattori McLeland & Naughton LLP
Jean Frantz B.
Sheikh Ayaz
UPEPO, Inc.
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