JPH0711562A - Apparatus for preparing embroidery data - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To prepare embroidery data free from overlap of seams and capable of forming beautiful embroidery in preparing embroidery data based on shape specifying line. CONSTITUTION:Data of plural square blocks swelled in the width direction according to seam width of zigzag seam based on shape specifying line are prepared and when adjacent blocks are overlapped among these plural blocks, constitution of blocks is changed to a block from which the overlapped part is removed and block of overlapped part. Consequently, embroidery formed by the changed block has no overlap of embroidery seam.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to embroidery data creation for creating embroidery data when embroidery is formed by zigzag stitches of a predetermined width that advance along a shape defining line formed by combining one or more line segments. It relates to the device.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art As an apparatus for creating embroidery data when forming embroidery on a work cloth by zigzag stitches of a predetermined width along a shape defining line, the applicant of the present application filed Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 3-13.
The one disclosed in 9387 is known.

In this case, as shown in FIG. 7, for example, when the shape defining line A is composed of three line segments A1, A2 and A3 which form a mountain shape as a whole, each line segment A1, A2.
First and second virtual lines B1, B2, B corresponding to the zigzag stitching width on both sides of A3 with respect to A3
3 and C1, C2, C3 (indicated by a chain double-dashed line) are drawn to obtain intersections c and e between the first virtual lines and intersections d and f between the second virtual lines. Then, as shown in FIG.
The three blocks D1, D2 and D3 of bdc, quadrangle cdfe and quadrangle efhg are formed.

By providing the coordinates of the vertices of each of the blocks D1, D2, D3 as block data,
The embroidery sewing machine includes blocks D1 and D as shown in FIG.
The embroidery operation is executed so that the needle drop points are alternately located on the main sides (corresponding to the first and second imaginary lines) facing each other of 2 and D3, and follow the shape defining line A with respect to the work cloth W. The zigzag stitches S having a predetermined width are formed.

However, such Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 1393/1991.
In the embroidery data (block data) created using the method shown in No. 87, there are cases where a beautiful embroidery stitch is not always formed. That is, as shown in FIG. 10, when the shape defining line A has a mountain shape as a whole in which the central line segment A2 is shorter than the zigzag stitching width,
As shown in FIG. 7, the work cloth W is formed with embroidery stitches S in which the stitches partially overlap each other. As shown in FIG. 12, the shape defining line A has an inverted V shape.
If the book consists of line segments A4 and A5, block D4
D5 is formed, and as shown in FIG.
The embroidery stitch S is formed such that the distance between the stitches in the outer portion at the upper end is wider than that in the inner portion.

[0006]

Therefore, the applicant of the present invention is
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 4-144589 has filed an application for an embroidery data creation device capable of eliminating the above drawbacks. In this case, when it is determined (manually or automatically) that an embroidery stitch that does not look good is formed in the block data created using the above method, for example, the line segment A4 shown in FIG. And A5, the intersection point i of the first virtual line B4 of the line segment A4 and the second virtual line C5 of the line segment A5, and the second virtual line C4 and the line segment A5 of the line segment A4.
Intersection j with the first virtual line B5 of
The block is changed so that the line segment connecting the lines becomes one side of the block.

Thus, the blocks D4 and D shown in FIG.
Instead of 5, the block shapes are changed to a block D4 ′ composed of a quadrangle abji and a block D5 ′ composed of a quadrangle jife as shown in FIG.
The work cloth W is formed with a zigzag stitch embroidery stitch S as shown in FIG.

However, even when the shape of the block is changed by using such a method, the two blocks D4
In the part where'and D5 'overlap, the seams also overlap,
After all, the appearance of the embroidery seam S is not so good, and there is room for improvement in order to make the embroidery seam S more beautiful.

The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and its object is to create embroidery data based on a shape defining line, and it is possible to form beautiful embroidery without overlapping stitches. An object is to provide an embroidery data creation device that can create embroidery data.

[0010]

In order to achieve the above object, the embroidery data creation device of the present invention is a zigzag stitch of a predetermined width which advances along a shape defining line formed by combining one or more line segments. In the case of creating embroidery data in the case of forming embroidery by means of a storage means for storing the data of the shape defining line, and the line segments forming the shape defining line based on the shape defining line data are staggered. In the case where adjacent blocks of the plurality of blocks are overlapped with each other, the overlapping portion is newly separated by a block data creating means for creating data of a rectangular block which is expanded in the width direction according to the sewing width of the sewing. Block data changing means for changing the configuration of the block so that the block becomes the block.

[0011]

According to the embroidery data creation apparatus of the present invention having the above-mentioned structure, the block data creation means makes each line segment forming the shape defining line according to the stitch width of the zigzag stitch based on the shape defining line data. Data of a rectangular block that is expanded in the width direction is created. Then, the block data changing unit changes the configuration of the blocks so that when the adjacent blocks of the plurality of blocks overlap, the overlapping part becomes a new another block. Therefore, the embroidery stitches do not overlap in the changed block data.

[0012]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIGS. First, the overall structure of the embroidery sewing machine will be briefly described with reference to FIGS. 2 and 3.

FIG. 2 shows the appearance of the embroidery sewing machine. Here, the main body 1 of the embroidery sewing machine is constructed by integrally including an arm portion 3 above a bed portion 2 and incorporated into a sewing machine table 4. There is. A sewing needle 5 is attached to the tip of the arm portion 3.
Is provided with a needle bar 6 which is detachably attached to the bed portion 2.
Is provided with a needle plate 7 corresponding to the needle bar 6.
Although not shown in detail, the needle bar 6 has a sewing machine motor 8
(See FIG. 3), the needle bar drive mechanism is used to move up and down, and the shuttle mechanism provided below the needle plate 7 is driven in synchronization with the needle bar 6. Has become.

On the other hand, an embroidery frame 9 for holding the work cloth W (see FIG. 6) is provided on the sewing machine table 4. The embroidery frame 9 is composed of an annular outer frame 9a and an annular inner frame 9b that is detachably fitted in the outer frame 9a, and the work cloth W is sandwiched between them to form the work cloth. W is kept in a stretched state.
The embroidery frame 9 has a horizontal movement mechanism 10 described below.
Thus, the sewing machine table 4 (needle plate 7) can be freely moved in the horizontal direction.

That is, the slide plate portion 9c integrally provided on the outer frame 9a is slidably mounted on slide bars 13 and 14 which are suspended between two support bases 11 and 12. . The one support 11 is provided with the motor mounts 15 and 16 mounted on the sewing machine table 4.
The space is engaged with a feed screw 17 extending in a direction orthogonal to the slide bars 13 and 14. This lead screw 17
Is rotatably driven by an X-axis feed motor 18 attached to the motor mount 15, so that when the X-axis feed motor 18 is driven, the supporting bases 11, 1 are driven.
The embroidery frame 9 is configured to move in the X-axis direction integrally with 2.

Then, between the motor mounts 15 and 16,
A rotation transmission shaft 20 is provided which is rotationally driven by a Y-axis feed motor 19 mounted on the motor mount 16.
The rotation transmission shaft 20 is adapted to drive the wires 21 and 21 suspended between the support bases 11 and 12.
The slide plate portion 9 is provided in the middle of the wires 21, 21.
c is linked. Thus, the embroidery frame 9 can be freely moved in the Y-axis direction by driving the Y-axis feed motor 19. The horizontal movement mechanism 1 configured in this way
With 0, the work cloth W set on the embroidery frame 9 is freely moved on the sewing machine table 4 to any position based on the unique XY coordinate system.

The main body 1 of the embroidery sewing machine configured as described above is, in this case, a control device 2 provided outside the main body 1.
2 is controlled. As shown in FIG. 3, the control device 22 includes a CPU 23, a ROM 24, and an R
The main component is a microcomputer including an AM 25 and a bus 26 for connecting them, and an input interface 27 and an output interface 28 are connected to the bus 26. The output interface 28 is connected to motor drive circuits 29, 30 and 31 for driving the sewing machine motor 8, the X-axis feed motor 18 and the Y-axis feed motor 19, respectively.

Then, the controller 22 controls the sewing machine motor 8, the X-axis feed motor 18 and the Y-axis feed motor 19 based on the block data as the embroidery data, and thus the horizontal movement mechanism. By moving the needle bar 6 up and down while moving the embroidery frame 9 by 10, the embroidery of a predetermined figure is formed on the work cloth W.
At this time, in order to control the embroidery frame 9, stitch data for instructing the needle drop position (movement amount of the work cloth W in the X and Y directions) for each stitch is finally required. , The control device 22 is a square (or triangle) block 4
By providing the block data indicating the coordinates of the vertices, one stitch of the block data is developed to create stitch data as embroidery data.

Further, the output interface 28 of the control device 22 has a display device 32 such as a CRT display.
A display drive circuit 33 for driving the display is connected, and a keyboard 34 and an external storage device 35 are connected to the input interface 27. Further, in the present embodiment, the control device 22 is configured to also have a function as an embroidery data creation device for creating the block data. Therefore, the control device 22 is hereinafter referred to as the creation device main body 22.

In the present embodiment, the creating device main body 22 has a shape defining line stored by the operator in the RAM 25, for example, by its software configuration (execution of the embroidery data creating program), as described later. The embroidery data (block data) for forming the embroidery by the zigzag stitch of a predetermined width that advances along the shape defining line is created on the basis of the data.

At this time, the forming apparatus main body 22 first forms the shape defining line by using the method disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 3-139387 and Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 4-144589 of the present applicant. Data of each quadrangular block in which each of the constituent line segments is expanded in the width direction according to the stitch width of the zigzag stitch is created. Then, after that, when adjacent blocks of a plurality of blocks of the created block data overlap, the block configuration is changed so that the overlapping part becomes a new different block. There is. Therefore, the RAM 25 functions as the storage means of the present invention, and the creating apparatus main body 22 functions as the block data creating means and the block data changing means.

Next, the operation of the embroidery data creation apparatus configured as described above will be described with reference to FIG. 1 and FIGS. 4 to 6. Here, a case where the embroidery data (block data) for the inverse V-shaped shape defining line A composed of the line segments A4 and A5 shown in FIG. 4 similar to the shape defining line A of FIG. 14 described in the conventional example is created. A specific example will be described.

First, based on the data of the shape defining line A stored in the RAM 25, the line segments A4 and A5 forming the shape defining line A are expanded in the width direction according to the sewing width L of the zigzag stitch to form a rectangular block. Block data to be created is created. In creating this block data, as shown in FIG. 4, for example, a first virtual line B4 and a second virtual line C4 are drawn around the line segment A4 on both sides thereof. First virtual line B
4 is drawn at a position L / 2 on the left side of the line segment A4 in the embroidery traveling direction, and the second virtual line C4 is drawn at a position L / 2 on the right side of the line segment A4 in the embroidery traveling direction. Depending on the case, the line segment A4 itself may be either one of the virtual lines, or the two left and right virtual lines may be drawn with the left and right ratios made uneven.

Similarly, with respect to the line segment A5, a first virtual line B5 and a second virtual line C5 are drawn. Then, an intersection c between the first virtual lines and an intersection d between the second virtual lines are obtained. As a result, a block of the quadrangle abdc and a block of the quadrangle cdfe continuous to the block are formed. According to this block data, the zigzag stitching embroidery operation is executed such that the point a is the start point and the point c is the end point, and the needle drop points are alternately located on the main side ac and the main side bd. An embroidery operation of zigzag stitching is performed in which the needle points are alternately arranged on the main side ce and the main side df with the start point and the end point e as the end points.

However, in such a block shape, the distance between the stitches in the outer portion at the upper end is wider than that in the inner portion, and the appearance becomes poor (see FIG. 13). Therefore, when it is manually or automatically determined that an unsatisfactory embroidery stitch is formed, the intersection point i of the first virtual line B4 of the line segment A4 and the second virtual line C5 of the line segment A5, as well as,
A second virtual line C4 of the line segment A4 and a first virtual line B5 of the line segment A5
The block is modified so that the intersection point j with and is obtained, and the line segment connecting these points i and j is taken as one side (sub-side) of the block. According to this, the shapes of the blocks are modified into the block of the quadrangle abji and the block of the quadrangle ijef. The corrected block data is stored in the RAM 25.

When the block data is created in this way, the process of changing the block configuration is executed according to the procedure shown in the flowchart of FIG. That is, first, in step S1, the data read counter K
Is reset to 0, and the number of blocks of the block data is substituted into the variable N in step S2. In the example of FIG. 5, N = 2.

In step S3, the counter K is incremented by 1, and in step S4, the block data of the Kth block is read. And step S
At 5, it is determined whether the Kth block has an overlap with the previous (K-1) th block. here,
Since the previous block does not exist in the first block (the block of the quadrangle abji in the example of FIG. 5), the determination result is No in step S5 and the counter K is determined in step S10.
Is determined to be equal to N, and when the value of the counter K has not reached N (No), the processing from step S3 is repeated.

In this way, the block data is sequentially read (step S4). If it is determined in step S5 that there is an overlap with the previous (K-1) th block (Yes), In step S6, it is determined whether the overlapping portion has a triangular shape. If the overlapping portion has a triangular shape (Yes), the block configuration is changed in steps S7 to S9. In the example of FIG. 5, the second block (block of quadrangle ijef) is the previous quadrangle abj.
Since the block of i and the part of the triangle idj are overlapped, both are Yes in steps S5 and S6, and the block is changed in step S7 and subsequent steps.

In the changing process, first, in step S7, the previous (K-1) block is changed to a trapezoidal block in which the overlapping portion is removed, and in the next step S8,
The overlapping triangular portion is set as another new block, and the K-th block is changed to a trapezoidal block excluding the triangular portion in step S9.

In the example of FIG. 5, in step S7, the first block (block of quadrangle abji) is quadrangle a.
It is changed to the block D6 of bdi, and in step S8,
The block D7 of the new triangle idj is formed, and the second block (block of the quadrangle ijef) is changed to the block D8 of the quadrangle jdfe in step S9.

By performing the above processing for all blocks (Yes in step S10), the processing for changing the block data is completed. When the embroidery operation is executed based on the block data created and changed as described above, the work cloth W is formed with embroidery stitches S as shown in FIG.

That is, first, for the block D6, the point a
Starting from point i and ending at point i, an embroidery operation of the zigzag stitch is performed such that the needle drop points alternately appear on the main side ai and the main side bd. The zigzag stitching embroidery operation is performed such that the needle drop points are alternately located on the main side ij and the point d (which is considered to be the main side dd having no length) with j as the end point, and finally, the block D8.
On the other hand, with the point j as the start point and the point e as the end point, the main side je
The zigzag stitch embroidery operation is performed so that the needle drop points are alternately located on the main side df.

As described above, according to this embodiment, when the adjacent blocks of the block data once created overlap, the block structure is changed so that the overlapping part becomes a new new block. I changed it. Therefore, in the changed block data, the blocks, that is, the embroidery stitches S do not overlap each other. Therefore,
Unlike the conventional one in which the embroidery stitches S are overlapped and the appearance is not so good, it is possible to create block data capable of forming beautiful embroidery without overlapping the embroidery stitches S.

In the above embodiment, the embroidery data creating device is configured integrally with the embroidery sewing machine, but it is also configured as an independent embroidery data creating device, and the embroidery data is stored online or on a magnetic disk, a RAM card, or the like. It can also be configured to be transferred to the embroidery sewing machine via a storage medium. Further, various methods can be used as a procedure for creating block data from the shape defining line, and further, embroidery data obtained by expanding the block data into stitch data may be transferred to the embroidery sewing machine. The present invention can be appropriately modified and implemented within a range not departing from the gist of the present invention.

[0035]

As is apparent from the above description, according to the embroidery data creation apparatus of the present invention, the adjacent blocks among the plurality of blocks of the block data created by the block data creation means are overlapped. In this case, since the block data changing means for changing the configuration of the block is provided so that the overlapping portion becomes a new different block, the embroidery data is created based on the shape defining line.
This has an excellent practical effect of being able to create embroidery data capable of forming beautiful embroidery without overlapping stitches.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 shows an embodiment of the present invention and is a flowchart showing a procedure for changing block data.

FIG. 2 is a perspective view showing an overall configuration including an embroidery sewing machine.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing an electrical configuration.

FIG. 4 is a diagram for explaining a method of forming a block from a shape defining line.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a block configuration.

FIG. 6 is a plan view of a work cloth showing a state in which embroidery is formed.

FIG. 7 is a view corresponding to FIG. 4 showing a conventional example.

FIG. 8 is a view corresponding to FIG.

FIG. 9 is a view corresponding to FIG.

FIG. 10 is a view corresponding to FIG. 5 showing another conventional example.

FIG. 11 is a view corresponding to FIG.

FIG. 12 is a view corresponding to FIG. 5 showing another different conventional example.

FIG. 13 is a view corresponding to FIG.

FIG. 14 is a view corresponding to FIG. 4 showing still another different conventional example.

FIG. 15 is a view corresponding to FIG.

FIG. 16 is a view corresponding to FIG.

[Explanation of symbols]

In the drawings, 1 is an embroidery sewing machine main body, 22 is an embroidery data creating device main body (block data creating means, block data changing means), 23 is a CPU, 24 is a ROM, and 25 is a RAM.
(Storage means), 32 is a display device, 35 is an external storage device,
A is a shape defining line, W is a work cloth, and S is an embroidery stitch.

 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (72) Inventor Yukichi Muto 15-1 Naeshiro-cho, Mizuho-ku, Nagoya City Brother Industries, Ltd.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A sewing machine for forming embroidery of a predetermined figure on a work cloth, which creates embroidery data necessary for an embroidery operation, and which follows a shape defining line formed by combining one or more line segments. In an embroidery data creation device for creating embroidery data when forming embroidery by zigzag stitches of a predetermined width, the storage means for storing the data of the shape definition line and the shape definition line data based on the shape definition line data. Block data creating means for creating data of a rectangular block in which each line segment forming a line is inflated in the width direction according to the stitch width of the zigzag stitch, and when adjacent blocks of the plurality of blocks overlap. And a block data changing means for changing the configuration of the block so that the overlapping portion becomes a new different block. .