Customized 3D and 4D Design for Machine Knitting

Abstract

Garments, one of the human basic needs, were customized and handmade before the Industrial Revolution. After the realization of mass production, the cost of a piece of clothing became lower, but some disadvantages arose. Garments were no longer made to measure and overproduction caused environmental problems. The new developments in digital garment design and digital customization target addressing these limitations.
The computational design of knitting attracted increased attention in recent years. In this dissertation, we consider the customized design and fabrication of 3D and 4D garments as knitwears. The 3D knitwear fits the target human body, and the 4D knitwear also considers comfort during body movement. The main research question (RQ) is: How to design customized 3D and 4D knitwear and generate instructions for a digital knitting machine?
In this dissertation, we researched computational knitwear design methods. We considered not only 3D fitting but also comfort during motion (4D). Our research can be applied in garment production (especially mass customization) or other knitting applications. Garment designers and other industrial designers can use the proposed methods to generate knitting instructions for free-form 3D surfaces. Our 4D design method helps designers place elastic or other varied knitting structures while keeping the intended 3D shape. This dissertation presents new perspectives on computational approaches to existing manufacturing techniques. It also provides enough details to further develop such design systems to be applied in practice.