DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 15, and 17-22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bonner et al., US 2017/0109926 A1 (Bonner) in view of Woo et al., US 2018/0025539 Al (Woo).
Claim 1.
Bonner teaches A method of modelling a cloth article, the method comprising: creating a 3D surface, the 3D surface is formed from a plurality of first points by a 3D design operations module; (Bonner 0048-0049) “the inventive method begins (step a, sub-step al on the flow-chart of FIG. 2) by providing to a CAD system a digitally modeled 3D shape FSG representing a garment. The shape is "free", i.e. it needs not being constrained by any specific manufacturability requirement. The shape can be sketched by the user on a suitable avatar, or digitally-modeled 3D manikin MK, . . . Alternatively it may be imported together with a manikin "wearing" it-from a database or any other source. The free 3D shape FSG may be already segmented, or not. In the latter case, there are two possibilities: the user may be prompted to perform the segmentation manually, by using suitable interactive graphic tools; or the CAD system may perform the segmentation automatically (sub-step a2), preferably offering to the user the possibility of modifying the automatically produced segmentation. {Examiners note: The modeled 3d shape/panels necessarily include geometric points.}
solving a flat pattern of the 3D surface based on virtual textile properties by a flat pattern solver; (Bonner 0054)” The subsequent step (step b, sub-step bl), implemented by a software module executed by the CAD system which is usually called a "parameterization solver", consists in flattening the 3D panels, to obtain corresponding manufacturable cloth patterns; they can be considered bi-dimensional (2D), even if they are immersed in a 3D virtual space, because they are planar. More precisely this step includes computing, for each of said three-dimensional panels, a corresponding two-dimensional flattened pattern, and defining a bijection between points of each 3D panel and of the corresponding two-dimensional flattened pattern. The flattened patterns do not replace the corresponding 3D panels and they do not need having any defined spatial relationship with each other or the manikin.”
updating a 2D mesh and a 3D mesh with the grid topology; (Bonner 066) “a mesh is defined on each flat pattern and, through the bijective relationship determined at step b, on each corresponding 3D panel . . . while triangular meshes are often preferred for carrying out step b, or at least sub-step b2, the meshes defined at step c are preferably quadrangular.”
simulating the cloth model; (Bonner 0016) “cloth patterns and by performing a draping simulation on a support such as a manikin.”
and updating the 3D surface, flat pattern and/or cloth model based on user interactions. (Bonner 0076) “by modifying the free shape FSG and executing the whole method again. Alternatively, he/she can directly modify the flattened patterns and directly see the effect on the final garment-possibly using a different, more conventional design tool.”
Bonner does not expressly teach, but Woo teaches providing a virtual textile comprising properties of a piece of cloth by a cloth module; (Woo 0036-37) “The 2D pattern is generated by setting an outer shape and physical properties of a clothing material. . . An outline and vertices of a pattern may be generated using a CAD tool or various graphic program tools or may be selected from a database including 2D pattern models in accordance with clothing types and used. An inside of a 2D pattern whose outer shape is determined by an outline may be formed of triangular or rectangular meshes. A mesh may be formed of lattice points having mass and a spring configured to connect the lattice points. Properties of a 2D pattern material, and shapes of a clothing material such as folding and sagging thereof may be shown using the lattice points and the spring.”
generating a cloth model with grid topology comprising cloth points connected by springs, based on the virtual textile properties and the flat pattern; (Woo 0037) “An inside of a 2D pattern whose outer shape is determined by an outline may be formed of triangular or rectangular meshes. A mesh may be formed of lattice points having mass and a spring configured to connect the lattice points. Properties of a 2D pattern material, and shapes of a clothing material such as folding and sagging thereof may be shown using the lattice points and the spring.”
are analogous to the claimed invention because they are from the same field of endeavor of
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, having the teachings of Bonner and Woo before him or her, to modify the cloth simulation modeling of Bonner with the grid topology and springs of Woo to minimize tangling as Woo suggests in 0007.
Claim 2.
Bonner teaches The method of claim 1, further comprising updating the 3D surface based on simulated behavior of the cloth model. (Bonner abstract) “simulates a draping of the segmented three-dimensional shape over a three-dimensional manikin (MK) by progressively imposing a constraint that each mesh element (ME3) of said three-dimensional panels adopts dimensions (EEL) of a corresponding mesh element (MEF) of the corresponding flattened pattern while it conforms to the manikin shape.”
Claim 3.
Modified Bonner with Woo teaches The method of claim 1, wherein the properties of a piece of cloth comprise a plurality of second points, each of the plurality of second points having defined relationships with one or more of the plurality of second points. (Woo 0036-0037) “The 2D pattern is generated by setting an outer shape and physical properties of a clothing material. . . An inside of a 2D pattern whose outer shape is determined by an outline may be formed of triangular or rectangular meshes. A mesh may be formed of lattice points having mass and a spring configured to connect the lattice points. Properties of a 2D pattern material, and shapes of a clothing material such as folding and sagging thereof may be shown using the lattice points and the spring.”
Claim 6.
Modified Bonner teaches The method of claim 4, wherein a group of curves comprises an outermost curve and one or more curves contained within the outermost curve. (Bonner 0053) “"Segmentation" means decomposing the 3D shape into a set of regions, or panels, which are homeomorphic to a plane or more generally to a planar figure possibly including holes.” (0057) “As indicated above, adjacent 3D panels have contacting sides, which represent seams of the manufactured garment (the panels do not necessarily have a polygonal border, so a "side" is broadly defined as a portion of the panel border which is adjacent a same different panel, or which is part of a border of the garment).” {Examiners note: A planar panel (possibly including holes) necessarily has an outer boundary and one or more inner boundary curves defining the holes. Under BRI the outer boundary corresponds to the claimed one or more curves within the outermost curve.}
Claim 7.
Modified Bonner teaches The method of claim 6, wherein the boundary curve comprises the outermost curve. (Bonner 0053) “"Segmentation" means decomposing the 3D shape into a set of regions, or panels, which are homeomorphic to a plane or more generally to a planar figure possibly including holes.” (0057) “As indicated above, adjacent 3D panels have contacting sides, which represent seams of the manufactured garment (the panels do not necessarily have a polygonal border, so a "side" is broadly defined as a portion of the panel border which is adjacent a same different panel, or which is part of a border of the garment).” {Examiners note: A planar panel (possibly including holes) necessarily has an outer boundary and one or more inner boundary curves defining the holes. Bonner treats panel sides as portions of the panel boarder. The outermost curve reasonable reads on the claimed boundary curve.}
Claim 15.
Modified Bonner with Woo teaches The method of claim 4, further comprising: calculating a rest length between pairs of second points having a defined relationship; (Woo 0037) “A mesh may be formed of lattice points having mass and a spring configured to connect the lattice points. Properties of a 2D pattern material, and shapes of a clothing material such as folding and sagging thereof may be shown using the lattice points and the spring.” (0056) “the lattice points 11 of the first line 10 and the lattice points 11 of the second line 12 may correspond to each other. Consequently, the lattice points 11 of the meshes extracted on the basis of the first line 10 and the lattice points 11 of the meshes extracted on the basis of the second line 12 which correspond to each other are connected by the spring.”
and writing a mesh for the 3D surface while in 2D space. (Bonner 0021) “a corresponding two-dimensional flattened pattern, and defining a bijection between points of each three-dimensional panel and of the corresponding two-dimensional flattened pattern;”
Claim 17.
Modified Bonner teaches An apparatus for modelling a cloth article, the apparatus comprising: a memory and a processor, the processor operably coupled to the memory; (Bonner 0002) “of fabric or another suitable flexible material, e.g. leather. It also concerns a Computer- Aided Design (CAD) system, computer program product and a non-volatile computer-readable data-storage medium containing computer-executable instructions to cause a computer system to carry out such a method, as well as a method of manufacturing a garment.”
and a display coupled to the processor, (Bonner 0078) “A computer-more precisely a computer aided design station-suitable for carrying out a method according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention is described with reference to FIG. 3.”
the processor operating one or more modules selected from the group comprising a design operations module providing a 3D surface, (Bonner 0049) “by providing to a CAD system a digitally modeled 3D shape FSG representing a garment”
a cloth module providing a cloth model, (Bonner 0016) “cloth patterns and by performing a draping simulation on a support such as a manikin.”
and a flat pattern module comprising a flat pattern solver providing a flat pattern; (Bonner 0054) “The subsequent step (step b, sub-step bl), implemented by a software module executed by the CAD system which is usually called a "parameterization solver", consists in flattening the 3D panels, to obtain corresponding manufacturable cloth patterns;”
and wherein the memory stores instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to control the design operations module, cloth simulation module and flat pattern solver to perform the method of claim 1. (Bonner 0090) “The client program stored in a memory device of the end user computer and executed by a CPU of the latter accesses the manikin and garment databases on the server via the network NW.”
Claim 18.
Modified Bonner teaches A computer readable medium having instructions stored thereon that when executed by a processor of a computer system, causing the computer system to perform the method of claim 1. (Bonner Abstract) “A computer program product, a non-volatile computer-readable data-storage medium and a Computer Aided Design system.”
Claim 19.
Modified Bonner with Woo teaches The method of claim 1, wherein user interactions comprise rotation or translation of constrained points in the cloth model, adding cloth to the 3D surface, cutting cloth away, adding, deleting, or rewriting of points and springs, or any combination thereof. (Of the above listed options, examiner is choosing “translation of constrained points in the cloth model”) (Woo 0041) “According to an embodiment, the first line 10 and the second line 20 may be designated by a user clicking a sewing line marked on a 3D screen by an input device such as a mouse and a touch pen using a cursor output on the screen. According to an embodiment, every time the first line 10 and the second line 20 are designated, a marking state of a sewing line may be changed to show that the first line 10 and the second line 20 have been designated. For example, color of the sewing line is changed, or the sewing line is highlighted.”
Claim 20.
Modified Bonner teaches The method of claim 1, further comprising constraining cloth points in 3D space or with respect to a location in 3D space defined by a coordinate on a curve or surface. (Of the above listed options, examiner is choosing “constraining cloth points in 3D space”) (Bonner 0033) “imposing constraints on the lengths of the edges of the mesh elements of said three-dimensional panels”
Claim 21.
Modified Bonner teaches The method of claim 1, further comprising constraining two or more cloth points with respect to one another. (Woo 0037) “A mesh may be formed of lattice points having mass and a spring configured to connect the lattice points. Properties of a 2D pattern material, and shapes of a clothing material such as folding and sagging thereof may be shown using the lattice points and the spring. A sewing line is a line marked after a sewing process in which 2D patterns are connected is performed, and refers to an outline that is common to both 2D patterns.”
Claim 22.
Modified Bonner with Woo teaches The method of claim 1, further comprising determining a path and duration for each selected cloth point to traverse during a user interaction, (Woo 0043) “the user may designate the first line 10 and the second line 20 by selecting the output sewing lines.”
wherein positions of non-selected cloth points are determined during simulating the cloth model, (Bonner 0016) “by automatically generating a set of manufacturable (and therefore 2D) cloth patterns and by performing a draping simulation on a support such as a manikin, referring directly to the 3D modeled garment and without recourse to positioning of flat patterns around the support to initialize the draping by imposing dimensional constraints on the length of the edges of the mesh elements of the cloth model.” ng process.” (0073) “Such a method simulates an inextensible cloth by imposing dimensional constraints on the length of the edges of the mesh elements of the cloth model.”
around transformation of the selected cloth points over a course of the user interaction runtime to thereby create a desired cloth behavior and cloth surface deformation. (Woo 0054) “includes fixing a pattern region including the second line 12 as a line segment, and moving a pattern region including the first line 10 as a line segment to overlay the pattern region including the first line 10 as a line segment on the pattern region including the second line 12 as a line segment.”
Claims 4, 8, and 9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bonner et al., US 2017/0109926 A1 (Bonner) in view of Woo et al., US 2018/0025539 Al (Woo) in further view of Persson et al., A Simple Mesh Generator In Matlab (Persson).
Claim 4.
Bonner teaches The method of claim 1, further comprising generating a surface topology, the surface topology comprises: identifying one or more pieces of cloth; tessellating each of the one or more pieces of cloth with a grid topology, the grid topology comprising a plurality of grid points; (Bonner 0066) “a mesh is defined on each flat pattern and, through the bijective relationship determined at step b, on each corresponding 3D panel.” {Examiners note: Defining a mesh on each flat panel under BRI corresponds to tessellating.}
Bonner does not expressly teach, but Persson teaches identifying grid points that are outside a boundary curve and adjacent to a grid point within the boundary curve; and shifting the identified grid points onto the boundary curve. (Persson Pg. 5 “% Find points outside (d>0)” (Pg. 8 Paragraph 1) : If a point ends up outside the geometry after the update of p, it is moved back to the closest point on the boundary.” {Examiners note: Using positive signed distance, identifies mesh points outside geometry, and shifts it on to boundary curve.}
are analogous to the claimed invention because they are from the same field of endeavor of
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, having the teachings of Bonner, Woo, and Persson before him or her, to modify the cloth simulation modeling of Bonner with the grid topology and springs of Woo with the shifting of Persson in order to simplifying the soft and more it more integrable with other code as Persson Pg. 1 Section 1 suggests.
Claim 8.
Modified Bonner with Woo and Persson teaches The method of claim 4, wherein tessellating each of the one or more pieces of cloth with a grid topology comprises: creating a minimum enclosing grid; (Persson Pg. Section 3) “The bounding box for the region is an array bbox=[xmin, ymin; xmax, ymax].” (Pg. 6 section 1) “The meshgrid function generates a rectangular grid, given as two vectors x and y of node coordinates”
instantiating all grid points; (Persson Pg. 4 Section 3) “The node positions p. This N-by-2 array contains the x, y coordinates for each of the N nodes.” {Examiners note: The generated node list corresponds to instantiated grid points. Each row p is a grid/mesh point coordinate, and N is the number of points.}
and instantiating springs from a grid-space vector format. (Persson Pg. 7 part 6) “Each bar is a two-component vector in barvec; its length is in L. barvec=p(bars(:,1),:)-p(bars(:,2),:); % List of bar vectors
L=sqrt(sum(barvec.^2,2)); % L = Bar lengths.”
{Examiners note: The bars array identifies node pair connections and barvac gives the vector between connected nodes. Those bar/vector connections are analogous to spring instantiation between grid points.}
Claim 9.
Modified Bonner with Woo and Persson teaches The method of claim 8, wherein the minimum enclosing grid is a grid of N rows and M columns, (Persson Pg. Section 3) “The bounding box for the region is an array bbox=[xmin, ymin; xmax, ymax].” (Pg. 6 section 1) “The meshgrid function generates a rectangular grid, given as two vectors x and y of node coordinates”
where N is a height of a bounding box of a group of curves divided by a cloth resolution and rounded up to the nearest integer+ 1, and M is a width of the bounding box divided by the cloth resolution and rounded up to the nearest integer+ 1. (Persson Pg. 6 Paragraph 1) “The first step creates a uniform distribution of nodes within the bounding box of the geometry, corresponding to equilateral triangles. . . The coordinates are stored in the N-by-2 array p.”
[x,y]=meshgrid(bbox(1,1):h0:bbox(2,1),bbox(1,2):h0*sqrt(3)/2:bbox(2,2))
{Examiners note: This is the same general grid sizing principal, create rows by stepping through boundary box height at a selected mesh size. Under BRI the meshgrid colon expression is the conventional implantation of generating grid coordinate samples.}
Claim 5 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bonner et al., US 2017/0109926 A1 (Bonner) in view of Woo et al., US 2018/0025539 Al (Woo) in further view of Persson et al., A Simple Mesh Generator In Matlab (Persson) in further view of Zhou et al., CN1044639288 (Zhou)
Claim 5.
Bonner does not expressly teach, but Zhou teaches The method of claim 4, wherein identifying one or more pieces of (Zhou Pg. 2 Paragraph 4-5) “AutoCAD region is a two-dimensional closed area created by using objects forming a closed ring. . . The objects that make up the ring must be closed or passed with Other objects share endpoints to form a closed area, and a region can be created by multiple loops or open curves whose endpoints are connected to form a loop.”
identifying and correcting curves that intersect with each other; (Zhou Pg. 2 paragraph 7) “S1 . Obtain an AutoCAD line graphic object, resample the line graphic object, and express the line graphic object in the form of a coordinate point set P; S2, set up a region constructor, input the point set P obtained by resampling in step S1 into the region constructor, and complete the construction of the Region class region;”
identifying and correcting curves that self-intersect; (Zhao Pg. 2 paragraph 4) “self-intersecting lines, and turning back lines, it does not directly provide the function of judging the positional relationship between points and areas.”
and identifying one or more groups of curves, each group of curves forming a piece of cloth. (Bonner 0053) “"Segmentation" means decomposing the 3D shape into a set of regions, or panels, which are homeomorphic to a plane or more generally to a planar figure possibly including holes.”
are analogous to the claimed invention because they are from the same field of endeavor of
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, having the teachings of Bonner, Woo, Persson, Zhou before him or her, to modify the cloth simulation modeling of Bonner with the grid topology and springs of Woo with the shifting of Persson and the identification of curves and their correction of Zhou to increase smoothness and efficiency as suggest in Zhou Pg. 2 Paragraph 3.
Claims 10-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bonner et al., US 2017/0109926 A1 (Bonner) in view of Woo et al., US 2018/0025539 Al (Woo) in further view of Persson et al., A Simple Mesh Generator In Matlab (Persson) in further view of Heggelund et al., US 9,607,390 B2 (Heggelund).
Claim 10.
Modified Bonner with Woo and Persson does not explicitly teach, by Heggelund teaches The method of claim 4, wherein shifting the identified grid points onto the boundary curve comprises identifying one or more grid patches that comprise one or more identified grid points and one or more adjacent grid points within the boundary curve, (Heggelund Abstract) “and performing a multi-level patch analysis, each patch having an array of grid points defining boundaries of a set of sub-patches within that patch.” (col 2 Lines 39-43) “performing as a default operation testing of the grid points of the selected patch against the at least one edge equation of the primitive to determine whether the primitive at least partially covers any of the sub-patches of that selected patch;” (col 3 Lines 33-38) “performing a bounding box evaluation step to determine if a special grid point coverage condition exists, and, in the presence of said 35 special grid point coverage condition, adopting an alternative operation for that selected patch instead of said default operation.” {Examiners note: Under BRI grid points in the same local patch are adjacent grid points, Point testing as covered by the primitive correspond to points within the boundary curve.}
wherein each grid patch comprises four grid points arranged in a 2 x 2 configuration. (Heggelund col 9 lines 53-60) “the grid point coverage information for the four corner grid points of a selected patch currently being considered can be inherited in such a situation from the matching grid points of the patch at the previous level of the patch analysis.” {Examiners note: A local raster cell bounded by four corner grid points corresponds to a 2x2 configuration of grid points.}
are analogous to the claimed invention because they are from the same field of endeavor of
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, having the teachings of Bonner, Woo, Persson, and Heggelund before him or her, to modify the cloth simulation modeling of Bonner with the grid topology and springs of Woo with the shifting of Persson and the grid patches of Heggelund to “provide a more efficient mechanism for performing a multi-level patch analysis in such situations.” (Heggelund col 2 Lines 15-17)
Claim 11.
Modified Bonner with Woo, Persson and Heggelund teaches The method of claim 10, wherein shifting the identified grid points onto the boundary curves further comprises: identifying one or more kink points on the boundary curves; (Heggelund col 1 Lines 21-24) “Each primitive is typically defined by the vertices that make up the primitive, and each vertex will have associated with it particular data values representing the primitive at the vertex position” (col 2 Lines 26-28) “each input primitive specifying vertex data, and having at least one edge equation associated therewith,” {Examiners note: Under BRI a kink point is not limited to a sharp corner point, and could be any point on a boundary. Heggelunds primitive vertexes are points on the primitive boundary.}
identifying grid patches that contain one or more kink points; (Heggelund col 2 Lines 35-37) “each patch having an array of grid points defining boundaries of a set of sub-patches within that patch.” {Examiners note: Under BRI a kink point is not limited to a sharp corner point, and could be any point on a boundary.}
and shifting an identified grid point to the one or more kink points, (Persson Pg. 8 Section 7) “If a point ends up outside the geometry after the update of p, it is moved back to the closest point on the boundary (using the distance function). This corresponds to a reaction force normal to the boundary. Points are allowed to move tangentially along the boundary.”
wherein the shifted identified grid point is the identified grid point within the grid patch that is closest to the kink point. (Heggelund col 8 lines 14- 23) “the bounding box evaluation step can be 15 configured to determine existence of the special condition if the bounding box does not cover any of the grid points in the array of grid points . . . the grid points form an array of grid points extending in the X (horizontal) direction and the Y (vertical) direction.” {Examiners note: Heggelund identifies the grid patch closet to kink, the shift would be done through Perssons method.}
Claim 12.
Modified Bonner with Woo, Persson and Heggelund teaches The method of claim 10, wherein shifting the identified grid points onto the boundary curve further comprises: identifying grid patches comprising two identified grid points and two grid points inside the boundary curve: identifying the grid point inside the boundary curve that each identified grid point should be shifted to; (Heggelund Col 7 Lines 43-51) “In one embodiment, the default operation uses data generated by the testing of the grid points of the selected patch against each edge equation of the primitive in order to determine grid point coverage information for each grid point in the array and grid edge coverage information for each grid edge between adjacent grid points in the array in order to identify grid points and grid edges covered by the input primitive.”
finding an intersection between the boundary curve and a line between each identified grid point and the grid point inside the boundary curve; (Heggelund col 22 Lines 39-43) “As a result of the testing performed at step 600, grid point and grid edge coverage data is produced at step 605 identifying which grid points fall within the primitive, and which grid edges (i.e. the edges between adjacent grid points) cross an edge of the primitive.”
and shifting each of the grid points within the boundary curves to their respective intersection. (Persson Pg. 8 Section 7) “If a point ends up outside the geometry after the update of p, it is moved back to the closest point on the boundary (using the distance function). This corresponds to a reaction force normal to the boundary. Points are allowed to move tangentially along the boundary.”
Claim 13.
Modified Bonner with Woo, Persson and Heggelund teaches The method of claim 10, wherein shifting the identified grid points onto the boundary curve further comprises: identifying grid patches comprising three identified grid points and one grid point inside the boundary curve; (Heggelund Abstract) “and performing a multi-level patch analysis, each patch having an array of grid points defining boundaries of a set of sub-patches within that patch.” (col 2 Lines 1-2) “the edges of the primitive are tested against the grid points to detect whether the grid points are inside or outside of the primitive,”
discarding the identified grid point that is diagonal to the grid point inside the boundary curve; (Heggelund col 7 Lines 48-50) “and grid edge coverage information for each grid edge between adjacent grid points in the array in order to identify grid points and grid edges covered by the input primitive.” (col 8 Lines 17-20) “and the bounding box crosses only one of grid edges extending in a first direction between the grid points and grid edges extending in a second direction 20 between the grid points.” {Examiners note: In a 2x2 patch having one inside grid point and three outside grid points, the two outside points sharing an orthogonal grid edge with the inside point are relevant to the boundary crossing. Discarding is an obvious implementation from Heggelunds focus on grid edge coverage.}
finding an intersection between the boundary curve and each line between the grid point inside the boundary curve and each identified grid point that is orthogonal to the grid point within the boundary curve; (Heggelund Col 7 Lines 43-51) “In one embodiment, the default operation uses data generated by the testing of the grid points of the selected patch against each edge equation of the primitive in order to determine grid point coverage information for each grid point in the array and grid edge coverage information for each grid edge between adjacent grid points in the array in order to identify grid points and grid edges covered by the input primitive.” (col 8 Lines 13-21) “Alternatively, or in addition as another variant of the special condition, the bounding box evaluation step can be 15 configured to determine existence of the special condition if the bounding box does not cover any of the grid points in the array of grid points, and the bounding box crosses only one of grid edges extending in a first direction between the grid points and grid edges extending in a second direction 20 between the grid points, the second direction being orthogonal to the first direction.”
and shifting each identified grid point that is orthogonal to the grid point within the boundary curve to their respective intersection. (Persson Pg. 8 Section 7) “If a point ends up outside the geometry after the update of p, it is moved back to the closest point on the boundary (using the distance function). This corresponds to a reaction force normal to the boundary. Points are allowed to move tangentially along the boundary.”
Claim 14.
Modified Bonner with Woo, Persson and Heggelund teaches The method of claim 10, wherein shifting the identified grid points onto the boundary curve further comprises: identifying grid patches comprising one identified grid point and three grid points within the boundary curve; (Heggelund Abstract) “and performing a multi-level patch analysis, each patch having an array of grid points defining boundaries of a set of sub-patches within that patch.”
finding an intersection between the boundary curve and each line between each of the grid points inside the boundary curve; (Heggelund Col 7 Lines 43-51) “In one embodiment, the default operation uses data generated by the testing of the grid points of the selected patch against each edge equation of the primitive in order to determine grid point coverage information for each grid point in the array and grid edge coverage information for each grid edge between adjacent grid points in the array in order to identify grid points and grid edges covered by the input primitive.” (col 8 Lines 13-21) “Alternatively, or in addition as another variant of the special condition, the bounding box evaluation step can be 15 configured to determine existence of the special condition if the bounding box does not cover any of the grid points in the array of grid points, and the bounding box crosses only one of grid edges extending in a first direction between the grid points and grid edges extending in a second direction 20 between the grid points, the second direction being orthogonal to the first direction.”
determining a distance between each of the grid points inside the boundary curve and its respective intersection; selecting the grid point inside the boundary curve with the smallest distance to its respective intersection; (Persson Pg. 5 “% Find points outside (d>0)” (Pg. 8 Paragraph 1) : If a point ends up outside the geometry after the update of p, it is moved back to the closest point on the boundary.” {Examiners note: The distance would inherently have to be known in order to move the point properly. It would also be straightforward to choose the nearest boundary conforming candidate.}
and shifting the identified grid point to the intersection of the selected grid point inside the boundary curve. (Persson Pg. 8 Section 7) “If a point ends up outside the geometry after the update of p, it is moved back to the closest point on the boundary (using the distance function). This corresponds to a reaction force normal to the boundary. Points are allowed to move tangentially along the boundary.”
Claim 16 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bonner et al., US 2017/0109926 A1 (Bonner) in view of Woo et al., US 2018/0025539 Al (Woo) in further view of Immel et al., US 6,462,740 B1 (Immel)
Claim 16.
Modified Bonner and Woo does not exility teach, but Immel teaches The method of claim 15, further comprising: identifying one or more new grid points generated; (Immel col 2 Lines 25-26) “Cloth garments are modeled as sets of curves forming panels which are seamed together.” (col 4 Lines 54-56) “This operation 40/46 regenerates a garment after the user has made modifications to it,”
identifying a face and coordinate for each of the one or more new grid points; (Immel col 4 Lines 64-66) “The triangles 65 and barycentric coordinates for each of the UV points is determined 170.” (col 9 Lines 11-14) “The results of the triangle intersection test provide both whether a given UV point is inside or outside a triangle and the relative position inside the triangle of the UV point.”
identifying a position on the 3D surface for each of the one or more new grid points; (Immel col 4 Lines 66-67) “The XYZ position for each new vertex is determined 172 and the vertices are rounded 174 as needed.” (col 9 Lines 33-35) “the barycentric coordinate is being used to interpolate between the XYZ positions of the triangle vertices inside the FindXYZ( ) method.”
and attaching any new coincident boundary curve pairs. (Immel col 2 Lines 25-26) “Cloth garments are modeled as sets of curves forming panels which are seamed together.” (col 3 Lines 13-14) “Seams are defined as a curve or pair of curves from the same or different panels whose geometry will be merged.”
are analogous to the claimed invention because they are from the same field of endeavor of
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, having the teachings of Bonner, Woo, and Immel before him or her, to modify the cloth simulation modeling of Bonner with the grid topology and springs of Woo with the face and coordinates of Immel to allow garment modification without restarting the simulation. (Immel col 1 Lines 29-30)
Conclusion
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/JOHN DAVID HAGLER/ Examiner, Art Unit 2189
/REHANA PERVEEN/ Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2189
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