CAD APPLICATION FOR DOBBY WEAVES DESIGN BASED ON CELLULAR AUTOMATA THEORY

Dobby weaves are decorative structures, which are characterised by small design or geometric figures woven in the fabric structure. Classical methods for diversifying dobby weaves can be substituted by a series of unconventional methods that derive from mathematics. Fractal, Chaos, and Celular Automata theories applied through CAD can make the creation process easier and more efficient. The paper presents a CAD application for dobby weaves design (named TexCel) based on Cellular Automata theory, created by researchers from Faculty of Textile-Leather and Industrial Management of Iasi, Romania. A cellular automaton (CA) consists of a regular lattice of elements named "cells" which pass simultaneously through a finite number of states in discrete time steps. These changes happen according to a set of rules based on the state of the cell and a finite number of neighbouring cells. The multiple iterations of a square lattice cellular automaton model with binary (black/white) cell states can be interpreted as different weave structures. TexCel software has two distinct parts: a weave design generating module based on CA theory and an analysis module for the selected weave patterns. The weave design generating module can be activated after the initialisation of the cellular automaton parameters (neighbourhood size, boundary conditions, initial condition and transition rule). The analysis module is necessary to eliminate those patterns that do not correspond to the fabric weaves conditions concerning the yarns' binding and the maximum float size. TexCel can select automatically and display only the balanced weaves or those that contain a settled maximum size of yarn floats. The theory of Cellular Automata is immensely rich, with simple rules and structures being capable to produce a great variety of dobby weave patterns. Even after the selection process, a vast number of interesting graphical configurations that can be used as weave structures will be left. TexCel is a real "drawing engine" for dobby weave design, with very large potential in fashion fabric design.