Method and apparatus for producing enhanced graphic appearances in a

Abstract

A tufting machine with front and back laterally shiftable needle bars carry needles for producing loops in a backing material the accent yarns being fed to the needles by yarn feed controls and the border yarns by standard feed. The operation of the yarn feed controls is electrically operated by a computer which operates according to a pattern in memory, the lateral shifting of the needle bars being synchronized with the operations of the yarn feed controls. By producing high and low loops with the accent yarns, the low loops are hidden by the overlay of level tufts so that spaced, isolated pin dots are visible. The memory for the pattern is on a floppy disc created using a mouse and a second computer which displays both the amount of lateral shift for both needle bars and the high and low loops of the accent yarns. A print out of the displays are used for both threadup and the production of cams for controlling lateral shifting.