GB1337969A - Textile pattern translator - Google Patents

Abstract

1337969 Producing Jacquard control tapes SCI-TEX Ltd 15 Dec 1970 [15 Dec 1969] 59601/70 Headings DIC and DIE [Also in Division G3] A translator for converting a colour pattern design into digital signals for producing Jacquard cards or tapes for the control of a knitting or weaving machine comprises a sensor producing signals, each of which corresponds to a colour or colour component in a part of the design, and means for comparing the signals with a reference signal, which is intermediate to the levels of one of said signals when the colour to which it corresponds is respectively present and absent in the part of the design. A scanner 58 is driven by a lead screw 54 to traverse the pattern tape 11, and has two photoelectric cells with respective red and green light filters so that the apparatus can detect red, green, white, or black squares on the pattern tape 11. The presence or absence of the two colours is recorded in digital form in two corresponding shift registers (103, 111) Fig. 5 (not shown) and each time a square of the pattern tape row is scanned the result is added to the registers, which have a number of storage units equal to the number of squares in a pattern tape row. When a complete row has been scanned, the contents of the shift registers are fed through apparatus controlling a Jacquard control tape punch mechanism four times, each time being analysed for one of the four different colours, and the tape puncher punches a row of holes corresponding to one of the four colours on the pattern tape. The pattern tape is then advanced and the neat row scanned in the same manner.