Computer Graphics in Textiles and Apparel Modeling

oven cloth has been part of the human experience for thousands of years. The oldest known relic of human industry is a piece of hemp fabric dating back approximately 8,000 years. Given the scope of human exposure to cloth, it’s surprising how little is known about its properties. This “old-fashioned” material, which we take for granted every day, is actually quite complex. Its complexity brings a versatility that makes it useful not only for clothing and sails, but also as an industrial material. Woven cloth is an integral component of certain composite materials used to reinforce structural elements and provide a sturdy “skin” for many advanced aircraft and vehicles. The reasons for modeling textiles and apparel are numerous. In the computer animatiodentertainment field, the demand for more realistic virtual actors increases the need for faster, better, and easier tools to clothe them. The tools are being developed. It is now time to move them out of the research labs into the entertainment studios for use with the computer-generated characters we see on television and in the movies. The need for textile modeling technologies is even greater within the CAD/CAM field. Certainly, many of the clothing modeling tools developed for the entertainment industry can also be used to design real clothing. Future apparel CAD systems should allow fashion designers to experiment easilywith a variety of fabrics and patterns on a 3D dynamic virtual mannequin before the actual garment is manufactured. Once the design is complete, it can be sent to an automated loom that weaves the fabric and then to a computer-controlled cutting table that nests and cuts the appropriate patterns. Customers might even try on a virtual garment in an augmented reality environment before having it custom sewn. The textile modeling requirements for industrial applications are quite different from the requirements for entertainment and apparel design applications. Woven cloth is often used within composite materials because it can be formed into highly complex shapes while still maintaining its outstanding mechanical and structural properties. In the composites domain, cloth is not allowed to freelydrape over another object. Instead David E. Breen California Institute of Technology