Textiles: knitting – Pattern system – Electrical signal type
Reexamination Certificate
2002-10-02
2004-03-02
Worrell, Danny (Department: 3765)
Textiles: knitting
Pattern system
Electrical signal type
C700S131000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06698253
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a method of and an arrangement for designing of tubular round knitted articles produced on a flat knitting machine.
Due to constantly increasing personal costs, a trend for producing knitted articles for which after the production of the knitting machine no additional fabrication works are needed has been observed. These knitted articles are usually tubular round final products which are produced with the use of the possibilities of modern electronically controlled, fully automatic flat knitting machines. The sleeve and body trunk parts of such a tubular round final article are first formed as separate tubular round knitted articles, before the sleeves must be connected to the body trunk part. Starting from this position, three individual tubular round knitted articles are knitted further as a single tubular round knitted article. Then shoulder shapes, neck portions and in some cases collars are knitted to them. The knitted article is therefore completely formed by the flat knitting machine. After this no seams must be closed any longer, and as a rule only the initial and the end thread portions are cleaned manually.
In the tubular round final articles which are formed of several parts, in order to produce very complex knitted articles correspondingly large numbers of knitting data for controlling the flat knitting machine must be provided. This no longer can be done manually. The European patent document EP 0 763 615 B1 discloses a device and a method for designing a round knitted article for a flat knitting machine, in which first a pattern for the knitted article is placed. Subsequently, a contour of the knitted article is selected by selection of contour shapes stored on the device and dimensional data for the front and rear parts as well as the sleeves are provided. After this manually for each individual contour region a knitting process description is produced, which depends on the pattern structures available in the corresponding contour region. Then, based on the knitting process description, the device automatically generates the control data for the flat knitting machine.
This known method makes possible a high automation degree during designing of tubular round final knitted articles. However, it has some disadvantages. The knitted articles can not have any arbitrary contours, but they can have only those contours which are contained in the selection stored in the device. Since the knitting process descriptions depend on the contour and the pattern in the corresponding contour region, it is necessary for each pattern structure occurring inside the contour to provide its own knitting process description, which is very expensive. Manual changes which are performed after the manufacture of the design are not transferred automatically to the original pattern representation, so that no visual control of the performed changes is possible. Furthermore, with the known method after the manufacture of the total design a close to reality representation of the knitting device can be visualized, but not the intermediate stages of designing, for example during the pattern association to a sleeve or the like.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide method of and device for designing tubular round knitted articles produced on a flat knitting machine, which avoid the disadvantages of the prior art.
More particularly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a method of and device for designing a tubular round knitted articles, which are user-friendlier than the known solutions and allow a higher automation degree.
In keeping with these objects and with others which will become apparent hereinafter, one feature of the present invention resides, briefly stated, in a method of designing of tubular round knitted articles on a flat knitting machine with at least one front part and at least one rear part, which comprises the following steps:
preparation of a knitting pattern for each front part and each rear part as well as in some cases further knitted parts such as pockets, independently from the shape of the knitted piece by means of an inputting and indicating device and storing the pattern data,
describing the contour of each front part and each rear part by means of the inputting and indicating device and storing the contour data,
fixing the contour portion of the knitted parts on which a connection with another knitted part must be produced, and storing the data of this contour portion,
assembling the contours of the knitted parts to a total knitted piece and determining a sequence of knitting rows, with which the total knitted piece is producible,
for each knitted part indicating the knitting pattern and the contour on the indicating device, by means of the inputting device displacing the contour onto the knitting pattern until the knitting pattern fills the contour in a desired manner,
indicating the total knitted piece with the selected and stored knitting pattern-and contour data for the individual knitted part,
determining the knitting information for each knitting row for providing the total knitting piece in accordance with the pattern and contour data of the knitting parts.
The knitting information for each knitting row can be converted into knitting data for a flat knitting machine and thereby one or several flat knitting machines can be controlled for producing the tubular round knitting article.
With the inventive method only a few steps can be performed manually. They are limited to the perforation of a knitting pattern for each knitted part, the fixing of the contours of the knitted part as well as the connection portion of the individual knitted parts, and the introduction of the knitting pattern into the contour of the corresponding knitted part. When these data are provided, then automatically the required sequence of knitting rows is generated for production of the total knitting piece as well as the knitting information for each individual knitting row. Correction possibilities both of the pattern and the contour are possible in each designing stage. During a correction of the pattern or the contour of the total knitted piece, moreover the made changes can be provided automatically in the stored pattern and the contour data of the corresponding individual knitted part. Also, after a correction, the individual representations of the knitted parts and the representation of the total knitted piece coincide with one another.
The knitted patterns can be designed preferably in the loop formation representation or in the thread running representation. From the data for one individual representation type the data for another representation type can be calculated, so that the knitted pattern in each design stage of the knitted article is indicatable in both representation types. Further advantages are provided when in the case of the loop formation representation a reality-close approximately three-dimensional representation of all elements of the knitted piece, such as loops, tucks and floating is provided.
A tubular round knitted article is composed of at least three knitting plates, one for the front part and one for the rear part. With pocket-and/or special patterning, further knitting planes can be produced. In accordance with a preferable variant of the inventive method, the individual knitted parts are associated with one or several planes of the total knitted piece. It is advantageous when also each knitting element, such as loops, tucks, floatings of one knitted part are associated with one of the knitting planes. Thereby for the user it is clear, in which plane the corresponding knitting elements are formed.
For facilitating the designing of the knitting pattern for the knitted parts, portions from a knitting pattern can be stored as individual modules, which at different locations of the pattern or during designing of the knitting patterns of another knitted parts can be again utilized. A significant facilitation of this modular technique i
Ertl Gerhard
Fries Horst
Haug Michael
Hermann Juergen
Stoll Thomas
H. Stoll GmbH & Co.
Worrell Danny
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