Nesting in the Clothing Industry Using Semi-discrete Representations

Marking is a typical 2D nesting operation, but also considers the texture direction. This differs from common metal nesting. In practice, the texture direction of clothes does not totally immobilize. A small quantity of rotational angle is permitted, and this can reduce the waste material. This study proposes a 2D geometric representation, known as a Semi-Discrete Representation. Two dimensional representation of a work piece or panel is completely different from previous continuous and discrete representations, but shares the advantages of both previously studied representations. A rectangle with constant width is used to represent both the work piece and the panel that are to be arranged. As for the rotational angle of the work piece, this study uses the isometric angle to arrange each work piece. The searching range can be set to reduce unnecessary searching time. This study employs semi-discrete information to represent the cloth, and employs genetic algorithms (GAs) to calculate marking sequence and angle, in order to complete marking.