Wire mesh design

We present a computational approach for designing wire meshes, i.e., freeform surfaces composed of woven wires arranged in a regular grid. To facilitate shape exploration, we map material properties of wire meshes to the geometric model of Chebyshev nets. This abstraction is exploited to build an efficient optimization scheme. While the theory of Chebyshev nets suggests a highly constrained design space, we show that allowing controlled deviations from the underlying surface provides a rich shape space for design exploration. Our algorithm balances globally coupled material constraints with aesthetic and geometric design objectives that can be specified by the user in an interactive design session. In addition to sculptural art, wire meshes represent an innovative medium for industrial applications including composite materials and architectural façades. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach using a variety of digital and physical prototypes with a level of shape complexity unobtainable using previous methods

Laser cutting and etching textiles and apparel design: an experimental study on the implementation and documentation of laser cutting and etching in the apparel design creative process

Textile cutting is a standard pre-production stage in the apparel manufacturing process that has developed from a manual to a fully automated procedure in recent decades. Laser cutting technology has improved the efficiency and sustainability of cutting pattern markers on a large cutting scale, as well as the ability to cut intricate internal patterns and shapes on a smaller cutting scale. CO2 laser technology has been adopted by industry and academia professionals at an exponential rate, but standard material testing for cutting and etching different textiles has been minimally documented. There were three primary objectives that comprise the purpose of this research which were to: (a) perform material testing to document and create a user manual that explains the parameters needed to laser cut and etch various textiles; (b) use Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovation theory to examine “perceived attributes of an innovation” (2003, pp. 15-16), which are characteristics that help determine the rate of adoption, to survey apparel design students in order to determine the possible diffusion of laser cutting and the user manual in apparel design educational settings; and (c) apply knowledge from material testing to create a fashion ensemble that portrays the capabilities of laser cutting and etching textiles in apparel design. To meet the objectives, the researcher first tested how 127 textiles from the Basic Swatch Kit provided by Textile Fabric Consultants, Inc. responded to the laser cutter to develop a user manual for students, educators and industry professionals. Second, the researcher used Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovation theory to analyze laser cutting and etching in the apparel industry. A sample of 26 undergraduate apparel design students participated in a survey in which the results demonstrated that laser cutting is viewed as a means to enhance their design projects and increase efficiency and precision. Third, the researcher created an experimental garment that incorporated both laser cutting and etching. Although the material testing of the various textiles had been completed, the creation of the experimental garment allowed the researcher to reveal a significant finding related to the impact of overall percentage of area that the raster textile design covers on the job time or efficiency in etching. Also, as a result of this research, a formula is proposed that will allow students, educators, and industry professionals the ability to use the information from the user manual and adjust the parametric percentages to that of their machine specifications

Sets in Order: the official magazine of square dancing.

Published monthly for and by Square Dancers and for the general enjoyment of all

Visual Prototyping of Cloth

Realistic visualization of cloth has many applications in computer graphics. An ongoing research problem is how to best represent and capture appearance models of cloth, especially when considering computer aided design of cloth. Previous methods can be used to produce highly realistic images, however, possibilities for cloth-editing are either restricted or require the measurement of large material databases to capture all variations of cloth samples. We propose a pipeline for designing the appearance of cloth directly based on those elements that can be changed within the production process. These are optical properties of fibers, geometrical properties of yarns and compositional elements such as weave patterns. We introduce a geometric yarn model, integrating state-of-the-art textile research. We further present an approach to reverse engineer cloth and estimate parameters for a procedural cloth model from single images. This includes the automatic estimation of yarn paths, yarn widths, their variation and a weave pattern. We demonstrate that we are able to match the appearance of original cloth samples in an input photograph for several examples. Parameters of our model are fully editable, enabling intuitive appearance design. Unfortunately, such explicit fiber-based models can only be used to render small cloth samples, due to large storage requirements. Recently, bidirectional texture functions (BTFs) have become popular for efficient photo-realistic rendering of materials. We present a rendering approach combining the strength of a procedural model of micro-geometry with the efficiency of BTFs. We propose a method for the computation of synthetic BTFs using Monte Carlo path tracing of micro-geometry. We observe that BTFs usually consist of many similar apparent bidirectional reflectance distribution functions (ABRDFs). By exploiting structural self-similarity, we can reduce rendering times by one order of magnitude. This is done in a process we call non-local image reconstruction, which has been inspired by non-local means filtering. Our results indicate that synthesizing BTFs is highly practical and may currently only take a few minutes for small BTFs. We finally propose a novel and general approach to physically accurate rendering of large cloth samples. By using a statistical volumetric model, approximating the distribution of yarn fibers, a prohibitively costly, explicit geometric representation is avoided. As a result, accurate rendering of even large pieces of fabrics becomes practical without sacrificing much generality compared to fiber-based techniques

American Square Dance Vol. 32, No. 3 (Mar. 1977)

Monthly square dance magazine that began publication in 1945

Newcastle upon Tyne, the Eye of the North

Newcastle upon Tyne is one of England’s great cities. Many think of it mainly as a product of the Industrial Revolution when abundant resources of coal, iron ore and water came together to create a Victorian industrial powerhouse. In fact, Newcastle’s long and proud history began in Roman times when Hadrian’s Wall marked the northernmost point of the Roman Empire.Newcastle became a thriving medieval port, with trading connections around the North Sea, the Atlantic, the Baltic countries and the Mediterranean. By the mid-17th century, Newcastle was not only a major European port, but was also becoming the pre-eminent exporter of coal fuelling the incipient industrial revolution. This volume brings together the archaeological evidence for occupation in the historic core of Newcastle between the prehistoric period and 1650. It places the evidence in the context of the evolving historical communities who made and occupied the site, and in the wider context of medieval and early modern European urban life.The volume synthesizes archaeological and historical evidence, highlighting material only known through excavation – like the early medieval use of the decaying Roman fort for a cemetery and probable church – as well as throwing new light on documented activities – like the way in which the waterfront was physically extended and consolidated to support trade from the 12th century onwards. Taking its name from a castle of national significance, planted after the Norman Conquest as a bulwark against Northern rebels and Scottish aggression, Newcastle was established as the king’s ‘Eye of the North’

Textile Society of America- Seventh Biennial Symposium 2000 WHOLE ISSUE

Approaching Textiles, Varying Viewpoints Proceedings of the Seventh Biennial Symposium of the Textile Society of America Santa Fe, New Mexico 2000 The papers are unedited and reproduced as submitted. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without written permission from the author. Students and researchers wishing to cite specific authors are encouraged to contact those individuals, as many of these papers represent work in progress, or work which has been committed for publication elsewhere. Contents Prefac

Middle Byzantine silk in context: integrating the textual and material evidence

This work represents the most comprehensive investigation of silk in the middle Byzantine period to date. The current interpretation of silk as an imperial prerogative confined to elite use is poorly integrated with the body of evidence and lacks explanatory value. The difficult terminology and scattered mentions in written sources limits application of conventional research methods. Although a number of silk fragments survive in institutional collections, the lack of find and contextual information represents a formidable obstacle. This dissertation redefines silk in Byzantium by demonstrating its social importance, contribution to technology development, and integration in the regional economy. Findings are based on intensive analysis of production and consumption data from parallel investigation of texts and textile fragments according to a common framework. To aid data collection and analysis, information technology tools involving relational database methods and digital imaging were devised for this purpose. The evidence suggests that the historical process involving silk was shaped by a continuing cycle of elite differentiation and imitative reproduction, which contributed to the transmission of the material and production in the region. From a broader perspective, this work demonstrates the relevance of textile studies to the interpretation of economic and social history

Newcastle upon Tyne, the Eye of the North

Newcastle upon Tyne is one of England’s great cities. Many think of it mainly as a product of the Industrial Revolution when abundant resources of coal, iron ore and water came together to create a Victorian industrial powerhouse. In fact, Newcastle’s long and proud history began in Roman times when Hadrian’s Wall marked the northernmost point of the Roman Empire.Newcastle became a thriving medieval port, with trading connections around the North Sea, the Atlantic, the Baltic countries and the Mediterranean. By the mid-17th century, Newcastle was not only a major European port, but was also becoming the pre-eminent exporter of coal fuelling the incipient industrial revolution. This volume brings together the archaeological evidence for occupation in the historic core of Newcastle between the prehistoric period and 1650. It places the evidence in the context of the evolving historical communities who made and occupied the site, and in the wider context of medieval and early modern European urban life.The volume synthesizes archaeological and historical evidence, highlighting material only known through excavation – like the early medieval use of the decaying Roman fort for a cemetery and probable church – as well as throwing new light on documented activities – like the way in which the waterfront was physically extended and consolidated to support trade from the 12th century onwards. Taking its name from a castle of national significance, planted after the Norman Conquest as a bulwark against Northern rebels and Scottish aggression, Newcastle was established as the king’s ‘Eye of the North’