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Properties and performance of textiles
Emerging textile technologies: Innovation in construction
In the Area of study: Properties and performance of textiles you will develop a critical approach towards the impact of innovations and emerging technologies. These innovations and technological advances occur in the use of textiles to enhance performance, machinery to improve construction or to save time, decorative and finishing techniques. This tutorial focuses on machinery to improve construction and save time.
Outcomes
This material addresses aspects of the following syllabus
outcome:
H3.2 The student develops knowledge and awareness of
emerging textile technologies.
Extract from Stage 6 Textiles and Design Syllabus
© Board of Studies NSW 2007.
Computer-aided tailoring
Brooks Brothers, Madison Avenue, New York offer a digital tailoring service. The client changes into a pair of grey boxer shorts and then stands in a cubicle where they are required to hold onto two handles and then squeeze the on buttons.
Very bright lights flashed for about 10 seconds ... The lights were scanners, and they plotted 200 000 topographical points on my body. A software program translated the data into 45 tailoring measurements, (collar, biceps, drop from side of neck to chest) all within a hundredth of an inch. Brooks Brothers transmits the measurements, along with the customer's choices for fit, style and fabrics, to its suit factory outside Boston or its shirt factory in North Carolina, where a made-to-order wardrobe is produced in two to three weeks (Colman, 2002: 11).
Traditional tailoring on the other hand can take months and a number of fittings.
OptiTex™ specialises in the development of innovative, easy-to-operate, CAD/CAM solutions for sewn products and other related industries. Our Microsoft Windows™ based software packages for digitizing, pattern engineering, grading, marking, and advanced automatic nesting are specifically designed to meet the needs of today's manufacturers of industrial fabrics, apparel, upholstery, transportation, composites, home furnishings, and other sewn products.
OptiTex's open architecture system comes amply equipped with a multitude of import/export formats enabling OptiTex users to interface with a wide range of software and hardware. Extract from OptiTex: About us, viewed 22/4/03 <http://www.fibre2fashion.com/product_launch/sgs/index.htm>
Activity 1
- OptiTex™ produces a number of software packages. To familiarise yourself with the range of products select the following and summarise in point form their main features. Ensure you select More details for each one to get a better idea about each product.
- A
three-dimensional draping tool
is due for release
soon. Describe its planned features. (You will need
to scroll down the page.)
- A customer wants a tailored suit featuring a plaid jacket. Using the scanning device available at Brooks Brothers to provide data and the software packages available from OptiTex, select and justify the software you would use as a pattern maker.
Polygon Software
Another company associated with sewn-goods industry is Polygon Software.
Starting in the 1970s, the founders of Polygon developed the first CAD/CAM system for apparel manufacturers, the AM-1. Today this system is the world's leading apparel CAD/CAM system marketed by Gerber Technology. In the 1980s Polygon introduced PolyNest, the first open apparel CAD/CAM software running under Microsoft Windows. PolyNest revolutionized the way apparel CAD was distributed by enabling end-users to acquire their software and hardware from multiple sources.
The introduction of PolyPM transforms the way
small to mid-sized manufacturers operate, by
providing information technology that previously was
only available to the big-guys, in a system
that lets users independently customize their system
to reflect their business practices.
Extract from Polygon's New PolyPM Handles
Business Processes for Apparel Manufacturers,
September 15, 2001, viewed 22/4/03
<http://www.polypm.com/news.htm>
PolyPM is a web-enabled Enterprise Resource Planning
(ERP )
system that integrates the entire sewn-goods
manufacturing process:
PolyNest is an apparel CAD/CAM software and hardware system. It offers:
- digitising and grading
- pattern design
- marker making
- automatic marker making
- cutting/plotting
- scanning.
Activity 2
The Shadow
pattern design system (PDS) is one product in the
PolyNest system. Another is Autoscan .
Explain the purpose of scanners in the sewn-goods
industry.
Technology update/ Tutorial extension: Visit the following site http://www.bodyscan.human.cornell.edu/scene0037.html and read how body scanning and other new related technologies have the potential to change the way clothing is made and purchased. Click on ‘fit forward’ and ‘current research’ to view a scenario for future custom production.
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