Gerber Garment Technology, Inc.

Gerber Technology, Inc.

Kevin M Williams

Claude W LeBlond

Alex Zusmanovich

H Joseph Gerber

Darryl Colburn Stein

Phillip L Henderson

Thomas N Clarino

David J Porter

Joseph Rovito

Allan Buckle

Jeffrey S Monroe

A Bruce Plumley

An apparatus and method for cutting pieces of material from a workpiece, such as a web of patterned fabric, which includes irregularities or which is misaligned with respect to a coordinate system of the cutting apparatus. The workpiece is spread on a cutting table where it is cut by a numerically controlled cutter in accord with an electronic marker stored in the cutter controller. The marker is matched to the workpiece and appropriate adjustments are made to the marker before the workpiece is cut. A laser, operatively connected to the controller, projects a match target onto the workpiece at a point corresponding to a selected point on the marker. The marker is then adjusted such that the selected point coincides with a desired location on the workpiece. Adjustment is achieved by electronically displacing the match target from a non preferred location to a preferred one. Software in the controller translates this displacement into appropriate adjustments to the marker. The displacement is effected with an electromagnetic pointing device which coacts with a digitizing grid embedded in the cutting table work surface and operatively connected to the controller.

Method and apparatus for pattern matching with active visual feedback

A method for making fabric pattern pieces for assembly into garments, upholstery or the like, with the fabric of each pattern piece having a fabric design with design features arranged in a predetermined manner with respect to the lines defining the boundary of the piece. The fabric design, which is printed on the fabric web by a computer-controlled dye-jet process, is printed only within the outlines of the desired pattern pieces. This avoids the problems previously associated with alignment of the pattern pieces relative to a repeating fabric design preprinted over the entire surface of the fabric web used as the work material and allows a more compact nesting of the pattern pieces on the web. An electronic pattern piece database is generated, including a template each of the desired pattern pieces. A graphical image representative of the desired fabric print design is also generated and combined with the pattern piece templates, care being taken to adjust the fabric print design in each individual pattern piece such that the match criteria are satisfied and the design appears as desired in the corresponding finished fabric piece. The patterned templates are then arranged in nested relation to produce a cutting and printing marker. This marker is utilized to control the printer which prints the desired pattern pieces on a sheet of plain unprinted fabric. The pattern pieces, printed with the appropriately aligned fabric design, are then cut from the fabric web.

Apparatus and method for fabric printing of nested

A system for automatically making sample garments comprises a controller having a central process for preparing a marker based on data representing individual pattern pieces of an overall garment design and data representing selected portions of the sheet material from which the garment is to be constructed. The system further comprises an apparatus for cutting and performing other work operations on the sheet material. The apparatus includes a table having a core defining a vacuum plenum and a sheet material support surface.

Sample garment making system

A two-dimensional digitizing system comprises a plurality of overlaid digitizer tablets. Each tablet includes two wire grid circuits oriented at right angles to each other for the X and Y directions, with each circuit having conductive grid structures. In those circumstances where two panels generate position signals, a controller verifies which of the competing position signals is correct. The digitizer is also characterized by a capability to operate at large stylus-tablet separations, allowing for a multi-layered laminate tablet of substantial thickness. The present system is readily adapted for applications such as a cloth cutting in which large surface areas are required and in which the digitizer tablet circuitry must be located remote from a cutting surface.

Multipaneled digitizer

The invention resides in winder for automatically winding sections of sheet material to form separate tubes. The winder comprises a base, a supply of sheet material and a material drive means on the base for advancing sheet material from the supply towards a station on the base located remotely thereof. A winding means is located at the station for winding a section of the sheet material about itself and about a rotational axis such that the involved section of sheet material is substantially wound in a tubular condition. A cutting means is provided and is located between the drive means and the second rotational axis for cutting the sheet material transversely of its length at points therealong corresponding to the end one section and the beginning of the next successive section to be advanced to the station. The winder further employs fastening means for applying a means to the tube created on the winding means to hold the sheet material in tubular form after the involved tube is released from its holding engagement with the winding means.

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Cromwell, CT, United States of America

Kevin M Williams