Page 268 - Industrial Cutting of Textile Materials

Automated single-ply processing 16

of styles from intricate pattern

textiles

16.1 Introduction

A feature of intricate fabrics is that their patterns are an important part of the design.
Therefore, the coordination of patterns for all cut components becomes an important
task. This significantly complicates the spreading and cutting process as several addi-
tional actions that are not required for plain fabrics have to be performed.

16.2 Existing limitations and research challenges

16.2.1 Nesting of styles from intricate pattern fabrics
If the design of the style demands a coordinated pattern (see Fig. 16.1), the position of
the patterns needs to be precise for all the components. This is the reason why pattern
pieces cannot simply fill the free areas of the material to maximize material utilization
as it is working with plain fabrics. Markers have to be performed directly on a fabric,
positioning pattern pieces according to fabric pattern and the required appearance of
the garment. As a result, fabric consumption increases (some areas of fabric are left
unused), but nesting becomes time-consuming and complicated.
The fabric losses, because of necessity to coordinate patterns, are not avoidable.
The reduction of fabric consumption is very much limited and dependent mostly on
the work experience of the maker making operator. However, the marker efficiency
can be improved using tools to ease and speed up nesting process and screen-
ing different nesting variants to choose the best one with the smallest material
consumption.

16.2.2 Spreading and cutting of styles from intricate
pattern fabrics

Spreading and cutting processes of styles from intricate pattern fabrics are embar-
rassed by three main problems: requirement to start every new fabric ply in a spread
at the same place of the pattern repeat, variability of textile material structure, and
probable displacement of fabric plies in a multi-ply spread during its processing.

Industrial Cutting of Textile Materials. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-102122-4.00016-0
Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.