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3D GARMENT DESIGN AND ANIMATION

–– A New Design Tool For The Garment Industry

Ying Yang, Nadia Magnenat Thalmann


MIRALab, CUI
Université de Genève
12 rue du Lac
CH 1207 Genève
Switzerland

Daniel Thalmann
Computer Graphics Lab
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
Lausanne
Switzerland

ABSTRACT

Garment design is traditionally carried out in two dimensions, and some software has been

developed and applied in the garment industry in the design of garment panels. In this paper,

a new tool for the interactive design of garments in three dimensions is introduced. Making

use of an elastic surface model, animation allows us to examine the garment design in three

dimensions dynamically. The designer can use this tool to visualize his original ideas and

changes interactively, and to see the garment vividly portrayed including texture mapping on

the final design, before the real cloth panels are cut. Application of this tool in the garment

industry could potentially reduce design time and costs substantially.

Keywords: cloth animation, garment panels, deformable models


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1. INTRODUCTION

As in many other industries, computers are being considered for use in the garment industry

for both design and manufacturing. The traditional approach to garment making is first to take

measurements of the human body, second to draw panel patterns on rectangular fabrics in two

dimensions according to the style and fashion desired, then to cut the panels out, and finally

to sew them together by hand or by sewing machines. Before the dress is sewn the tailor

cannot know for sure what the dress will look like, and what the effect will be of wearing it

on the human body. For a new fashion design, the tailor can only imagine the results,

depending on his experience and talent.

In recent years, computer technologies have begun to be used in the garment industry.

Software has been developed and applied to the interactive design of 2D garment panels and

to optimizing the layout of garment panels on the fabric. In Hinds and McCartney's work

[2], a static trunk of a mannequin's body is represented by bicubic B-spline surfaces. Garment

panels are considered to be surfaces of complex shapes in 3D. The garment panels are

designed around the static mannequin body, and then are reduced to 2D cutting patterns. This

approach is contrary to the traditional approach to garment design. The garment is modelled

by geometric methods. To visualize the folds and drapes, harmonic functions and sinusoidal

functions are superimposed on the garment panels. In Mangen and Lasudry's work [8], an

algorithm is proposed for finding the intersection polygon of any two polygons. This is

applied to the automatic optimization of the layout of polygonal garment panels in 2D

rectangular fabrics. Both of these projects concern stages of garment design and manufacturing

in real industrial contexts.

Computer techniques of graphics offer many other possibilities for the development of

high-tech tools for garment design and manufacturing. Not only can the interactive design of

2D garment panels be achieved by general computer graphics, but the sewing of garment

panels and the examination of garment movement on the human body can also be visualized

through cloth animation based on dynamic surface models. Terzopoulos et al. [9] and Aono

[1] both proposed elastically deformable surface models to simulate and animate the

movement of cloth in various physical environments. Another interesting approach by Kunii


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and Gotoda [4] incorporates both the kinetic and geometric properties for generating garment

wrinkles. Magnenat Thalmann et al. used a modified elastic model to create and animate

various articles of clothing, such as a skirt, underwear, T-shirt and trousers, on a synthesized

actor's body [6][7]. Based on the above techniques, we are developing a new design tool for

use in the garment industry. This tool interactively designs the garment panels in 2D by

computer, sews the garment panels in 3D on the computer screen, and dynamically simulates

the garment's shape on the moving body of a synthesized actor. Texture patterns of various

fabrics can be mapped onto the garment to make it look more realistic. The designer can

modify the 2D panels if the 3D garment is not satisfactory. After all the examinations and

changes, the final design is drawn by a plotter or is directly sent to a cutting machine which

cuts the garment panels out of the fabric. A pattern library of garment templates can be

connected to this tool. Adding A.I. techniques, it would be possible for the tool to

automatically design garments for the public.

In the following sections, the strategy and tactics of the tool are sketched out.

2. A SYSTEM FOR INTERACTIVE GARMENT DESIGN

The system for the interactive garment design tool consists of following five parts:

1) Interactive Graphic Interface for the 2D Design of Panels.


2) Deformable Cloth Model.
3) Pattern Library of Garment Templates.
4) Movable Human Body Model.
5) Output Interface.

The structure and the relationships of the system are as Fig.1

The interactive graphic design of the garment panels is carried out within the 2D design

interface. With cursor movements of the mouse, the designer can draw and modify the

patterns for the garment panels on the coordinate grid on the computer screen in two

dimensions. The garment templates in the library can be loaded into the 2D design interface,

so that they can be used or modified. The 3D human body model provides the movable
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mannequin bodies and the motion sequences. Different sequences of human movements, such

as walking, running, dancing, fashion modelling, and so on can be generated. The 3D

deformable cloth model is used to create the garment from the fabric panels in three

dimensions, and to simulate the changing shape of the garment on the mannequin as the body

moves. Various properties of the cloth fabric, such as its mass, stretching and bending factor

coefficients, damping density as well as characteristics of the physical environment, such as

gravity and wind forces, are used to simulate the movements of the garment. In the template

library, there are patterns of many different ruled or traditional garments. These templates can

be used directly in the design or modified for the particular individuals. After the design is

finally decided upon, the patterns for the panels in the final design are saved in the library.

The patterns can be drawn on papers by a plotter or sent to the cutting machine to produce

garment templates and the cloth panels.

3. 2D PANEL DESIGN

The functions of the 2D panel design interface include mainly interactive drawing of the panel

polygons, digitizing existing templates, and optimal placement of garment panels on

rectangular fabrics of various sizes. Button positions, seam lines, and the sizes of the panels

and garment, are also indicated on the patterns.

3.1. DIGITIZATION OF TEMPLATES

Many templates already exist for various fashion styles of different peoples, for different

body shapes, in different countries. They are the most valuable resources for the garment

designer. Putting them in the template library is helpful in that the designer can easily access

them and modify them slightly to make new garments. This requires digitalization of the

existing templates. Only the tablet and mouse need be used to digitize the templates is

polygonal sometimes with some curvilinear arc edges. The arc edges can be simplified to

several terminal lines, so that all templates can be regarded as simply polygonals. With the

tablet and mouse, starting at one vertex of the polygon, the shape of the garment can be
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digitized into the library vertex by vertex. For curvilinear edges, additional points are chosen

to be vertices.

3.2. INTERACTIVE PANEL DESIGN

Less complicated than other CAD systems in mechanics or architecture, the interactive

garment panel design is carried out in only two dimensions. Because all the panels can be

simplified to polygons, the designer can easily create and modify their shape using general 2D

interactive graphics. With the mouse and keyboard, the designer fixes vertex positions and

inputs sizes, this creating the polygon. Buttons positions and seam lines are indicated within

the panel polygons. If the designer is not satisfied with his work, he can modify his design in

the same way.

3.3. LAYOUT OF GARMENT PANELS

In the garment industry, most garment panels are not ruled polygons, the cloth fabric usually

is rectangular and it comes in certain sizes only. It is important that the panels be laid out

correctly on the rectangular fabric, otherwise much fabric will be wasted in the large-batch

manufacturing of the garment. To optimize the layout of the panels, a simulated annealing

algorithm [8] is used. First, all the panels are placed on the rectangular fabric arbitrarily, and

the intersections of panel polygons are tested. If some polygons are overlap, they are moved

apart; if the gaps between polygons are too large, they are moved closer. The testing and

moving continues until the necessary length of fabric is obtained, without any superposition

of panels is minimized.

At this point, we also decide which panel edges will be seamed together , and which edges will

be attached to the actor's body.

For example, consider the geometric design of a T-shirt (Fig.2) and pants (Fig.3). The T-shirt

and pants are very simple so each of them could be regarded as a single panel. As shown by

Fig.2, the T-shirt is designed in a 2D rectangular mesh cloth ABCD by specifying the

polygon's vertices v1,v2,v3, ...,v28. It is also specified that the edge v1v28 will be attached to

the waist of the actor, and the edge v5v6 will be seamed with the edge v24v23, the edge
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v11v12 will be seamed to v18v17, and the edge v5v6 seamed to v28v27. All the information,

such as edge numbers of the polygon, the coordinates of vertices, which edge will be seamed

and attached, etc. are stored in the data structure of the panel. The 2D polygonal cloth panel

will be transferred into 3D polygonal panel in ruled surfaces.

4. THE DEFORMABLE CLOTH MODEL AND ITS PARAMETERS

To simulate the sewing and animation of the garment, deformable cloth models must be used.

Physically-based models are preferable in the hopes of increased realism. This should take

into account such physical properties as mass, stiffness, damping factors, inhomogeneity,

anisotropy and viscoelasticity. The model should be deformable under external forces and its

own internal elastic energy, should detect collisions of the cloth with itself and with external

objects, and should be able to create constraint forces when collisions occur. With this model,

diverse kinds of clothing can be created and animated by defining and adjusting the geometric

sizes, the physical properties of cloth and the external forces applied to it. After some

comparisons [7], Terzopoulos' elastic surface model [9] was chosen for our system. In this

model, the main parameters are as follows:

• mass density of the nodal point of the fabric.


• damping density of the fabric.
• stretching coefficients of the fabric.
• bending coefficients of the fabric.
• gravity.
• external forces, including wind force, collision forces, etc.
• time step for calculating the deformation.
• number of relaxation steps.

These parameters are determined by the physical properties of the fabric. Different fabrics

have different physical properties. For example, silk is hard to stretch but easy to bend,

woolen cloth is more massive and rigid. When worn on the human body, garments with the

same polygonal panels but different fabrics will take on different shapes. The environmental

factors, such as gravity, wind forces, and collision forces also affect the shapes of the

garments, and they can be changed dynamically to examine the garment under various

environments.
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The most useful parameters for modifying the appearance of the motion are the density, the

damping factor, resistance coefficients, the wind and the time interval.

5. SEWING GARMENT PANELS IN THREE DIMENSIONS

Once the desired panels are designed, they are sewn along the indicated seam lines around the

mannequin's body in 3D making use of deformable cloth model. At this stage, the mannequin's

body is static in a standing posture, and gravity is the single environmental factor. The

garment panels are first placed around the mannequin's body, then external sewing forces are

applied to the indicated seam lines shown on the panels. These sewing forces gradually

deform relaxation step and time step. Collisions among the different parts of the garment are

detected and repulsive forces are applied between any two parts of the garment in contact.

When the panels are close enough to the mannequin's body, a collision between the garment

and the body will occur. The body creates the repulsive forces to beep the garment outside

the body [5]. Spring forces are used to simulate the repulsive force. When the seam lines are

all sewn up and the deformation of the garment is complete, the 3D garment has been created

(Fig.4). Some special features of garment, such as wrinkles (Fig.5), folds, and drapes, are

automatically calculated and formed by the deformable cloth model. Texture mapping can

also be applied to the garment, so that it will look more realistic as shown in Fig.6.

For example, as shown in Figure 7, we create a T-shirt and pants in the 2D plane and transfer

them into 3D space around Elvis' body. During the seaming and attachment procedure, the

edges of both the T-shirt and the pants near the body's waist are attached to the waist, the

four edges of the T-shirt near the shoulders are seamed together, and the two bottom edges of

the pants are seamed to each other. As the result, a suit of clothes including article 1, the T-

shirt, and article 2, the pants, has been designed and fabricated. Fig.8 and Fig.9 shows

examples.

In the same way, Fig. 10 shows a dress and Fig. 11 shows a view of Marilyn wearing this

dress.
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6. GARMENT ANIMATION WITH HUMAN BODY MOVEMENT

Garment animation during human body movement is performed by the deformable cloth

model and the human body model. First, a series of sequences of human body movement,

such as walking (Fig.12), running, dancing, jumping, fashion modelling etc. are generated by

the human body model. When the mannequin is moving, collisions between different parts of

the garment itself, and between the garment and the body are tested and repulsive forces are

automatically calculated and applied. Environmental factors, such as gravity, variable wind

forces, air viscosity, are added to deformable cloth model. The sewing forces assure that the

panels remain joined together. With the movement of the body, the shape of the garment,

including wrinkles, folds, drapes, is changed automatically. The parameters of both the fabric

and the environment, can be adjusted flexibly.

7. GARMENT EXAMINATION AND CHANGE

During the procedures of sewing and animation of the garment, the designer checks the

appearance of the garment in three dimensions. If the result is not satisfactory, he can

interactively modify the shapes of panels, or the parameters corresponding to the fabric's

properties, as well as the factors of the environment. The animation is repeated and the

whole process is iterated until the desired effect is obtained.

8. IMPLEMENTATION

8.1 Data structures

At the present stage of development of the garment design tool system, the human body

model and deformable cloth model have both been completed. The 2D interactive design

interface for the garment panel and the template library are still under development.

The clothes on the actor's body may include several articles, such as T-shirts, pants, jackets

and trousers, and each article may consist of several cloth panels, so the data structure of

clothes in the software is hierarchical, as shown in Figure 13.


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In this cloth data structure, the seaming information between panels or within the panel itself,

and the information about attaching each article to actor's body is also included.

The panel is the elementary unit treated by the elastic surface model. In a panel data structure,

there are geometric data and physical data, seaming information and attaching information, as

shown in Figure 14.

The geometric data about a panel include the polygons' edge numbers, the polygons' vertices,

the number of points in the mesh panel, the center of the panel and its rotating angle, etc.

From the geometric data on a panel, we can derive its shape, size, position, normal, and so on.

The physical data on a panel include its mass, the damping factor, speed, forces on it, the

stretch factor, the curvature factor, elastic energies (the stretch energy and curvature energy),

etc..

The seaming information for one panel concerns which edges of the panel should be seamed

together. It includes the number of nodes on the edges and the coordinates of the nodes in the

2D mesh plane, and indicates which node is seamed to which.

The attachment information indicates which edges of the panel are attached to specific points

on the actor's body. It includes the number of nodes on the edges and the coordinates of the

nodes in the 2D mesh plane, and indication of which one node is seamed with which point on

the actor's body.

An article of clothing consists of several panels seamed together, so its data structure contains

the panel data and the information about seaming the panels, together, shown in Figure 15.

The texture mapping approach is also being worked out. For the moment, WAVEFRONT

software is used to put the texture pattern on the garment.

8.2 Collision detection

When we consider collisions between the cloth and the body, we have a situation of actor-

environment interface using a physical motion control method. Collision detection adds extra
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constraints and requires a specific algorithm. For very flexible objects like clothes, it is

necessary to introduce a self-detection. In our method [5], collision avoidance consists of

creating a very thin force field around the obstacle surface to avoid collisions. This force field

acts like a shield rejecting the points. The collision detection process is almost automatic. The

animator has only to provide the list of obstacles to the system and indicate whether they are

moving or not. For a walking synthetic actor, moving legs are of course considered as a moving

obstacle. A number of parameters have been planned in order to modify the behavior of the

collision detection method: shield depth, shield force and damping factor.

As the algorithm speed depends on the number of obstacle polygons, it is prudent to take into

account only polygons which are likely to intersect the cloth. For the example of Marilyn's

skirt, only the pelvis and the legs are considered (Figure 16-17).

With this method, we created and animated flags in the wind and a skirt (Fig.18) in the

computer-generated film Flashback (Fig.19-20).

8.3 Methodology of use

To use this new tool in garment design, the procedure consists of the following steps:

1. Take the measurements of the human body.

2. Interactively draw the polygonal patterns of the garment panels or select the templates

from the garment template library.

3. Modify the shapes of the garment panels.

4. With the deformable cloth model and the human body model, create the garment on the

mannequin body in three dimensions.

5. Simulate and animate the changing shape of the garment with moving sequences of the

mannequin's body.

6. Examine the changing shape of the garment to see if it is satisfactory or not.

7. If the garment is not satisfactory, do (3) to (6) again.

8. Save the patterns in the garment template library.


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9. Draw the patterns of the garment panels on paper.

The above steps illustrate the superiority of this tool over the traditional design approach.

The designer can dynamically visualize his design before the garment is actually made. Much

time and cloth can therefore be saved.

9. CONCLUSION

Using new animation techniques, we are developing a high-tech CAD tool for garment design.

This tool not only designs garment panels in 2D, but it also allows the visual examination of

the garment in 3D on a moving human body with cloth animation, before the garment is

actually manufactured. This improves on traditional garment design which is only carried out

in two dimensions, and makes the design process more convenient and economical.

Acknowledgements

The research is partly supported by the Fonds National Suisse de la Recherche Scientifique, le

fonds FCAR du Québec and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research of Canada. The

authors would like to thank Arghyro Paouri for the design of several pictures.

References

1. Aono M (1990), A Winkle propagation Model for Cloth, Computer Graphics Interface,

springer 90, Singapore, pp.96-115

2. Hinds BK, McCartney J (1990) Interactive garment design, The Visual Computer, 6,

pp.53-61

3. Platt JC, Barr AH(1988) Constraints Methods for Flexible Models, Proc.

SIGGRAPH'88, Computer Graphics, Vol.23, No.3, pp.21-30

4. Kunii TL, Gotoda H (1990) Modeling and Animation of Garment Wrinkle Formation

Processes, Proc. Computer Animation'90, Springer, Tokyo, pp.131-147

5. Lafleur B, Magnenat Thalmann N, Thalmann D (1991) Cloth Animation with Self-

Collision Detection, in: Modeling in Computer Graphics, edited by TL Kunii, Springer-

Verlag, Tokyo, pp.179-188


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6. Magnenat Thalmann N, Yang Y (1991) Techniques for Cloth Animation, in: New Trends

in Animation and Visualization, edited by N. Thalmann and D. Thalmann, by John

Wiley & Sons Ltd., pp.243-256.

7. Magnenat Thalmann N, Yang Y, Thalmann D (1991) The Problematics of Cloth

Animation", Proc. of 2nd Conference on CAD/CG, International Academic Publishers,

Beijing, China, pp.1-7.

8. Mangen A, Lasudry N (1991) Search for the Intersection Polygon of any Two Polygons:

Application to the Garment Industry, Computer Graphics Forum 10, pp.19-208

9. Terzopoulos D, Platt J, Barr A, Fleischer K (1987) Elastically Deformation Models, Proc.

SIGGRAPH'87, Computer Graphics, Vol. 21, No.4, pp.205-214


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2D Design Interface

Garment Template
library

Output Interface
of Design

3D Examination

3D Deformable 3D Human
Cloth Model Body Model

V4

C
B V5 V6 V11 V17 V18 V23 V24
V12
20 V19
V7
V10 V21
15 V16
V8 V9 V20 V22
V13
10 V4 V25
V2
V3 V14 V15 V26 V27
5
V1 V28
A
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 D 40
14

B C
V4 V5
20 V10 V11

15 V3 V6
V9

10
V12
V2
5 V13
V7 V8
D
V1
A 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 V14

A suit of clothes

article 2
article 1 ... article m
panel 1 ... panel n2
panel 2
panel 2
panel 1 ... panel n1
panel 1 ... panel n3
panel 2

point 1 ... point k1


point 2
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panel

geometric data: polygon's edge numbers,


polygon's vertices, mesh nodes' positions,...

physical data: mass, damping factor, speeds,


forces, stretch factor, curvature factor,...

seaming information: edge x1 seamed


with edge x2, edge x3 seamed with edge x4,...

attaching information: edge y1 attached


to edge z1 on the body, edge y2
attached to points z2 on the body,....

article

panel data: number of panels,


series of panels

seaming: edge x1 of y1 seamed with edge


x2 of panel y2, edge x3 of panel y3 seamed
with edge x4 of panel y4, ...
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Figure captions

Fig.1. Structure and relationships of the system

Fig.2. Geometric Design of T-shirt

Fig.3. Geometric Design of Pants

Fig.4 An example of 3D cloth

Fig.5 Cloth with wrinkles

Fig.6 Texture mapping

Fig.7 Seaming clothes and putting them on Elvis

Fig.8 Putting a pant on Marilyn

Fig.9 Marilyn wearing a T-shirt and a pant

Fig.10 A dress for Marilyn

Fig.11 Marilyn wearing a dress

Fig.12 Clothes animation in Marilyn's walking sequence

Fig.13. The hierarchical data structure of clothes

Fig.14. The data structure of a panel

Fig.15. The data structure of an article

Fig.16 a-b Skirt animation

Fig.17. A scene from the film Flashback

Fig.18. A scene from the film Flashback

Fig.19. A scene from the film Flashback


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Ying Yang is a PhD student at MIRALab, University of Geneva. He received his MSc in
CAD/CAM from Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics. His research interests
include three-dimensional computer animation and geometric modeling.
E-mail: yang@uni2a.unige.ch

Nadia Magnenat Thalmann is currently full Professor of Computer Science at the


University of Geneva, Switzerland and Adjunct Professor at HEC Montreal, Canada. She has
served on a variety of government advisory boards and program committees in Canada. She
has received several awards, including the 1985 Communications Award from the Government
of Quebec. In May 1987, she was nominated woman of the year in sciences by the Montreal
community. Dr. Magnenat Thalmann received a BS in psychology, an MS in biochemistry,
and a Ph.D in quantum chemistry and computer graphics from the University of Geneva. She
has written and edited several books and research papers in image synthesis and computer
animation and was codirector of the computer-generated films Dream Flight, Eglantine,
Rendez-vous à Montréal, Galaxy Sweetheart, IAD and Flashback. She served as chairperson
of Graphics Interface '85, CGI '88, Computer Animation '89 and Computer Animation '90.
E-mail: thalmann@uni2a.unige.ch

Daniel Thalmann is currently full Professor and Director of the Computer Graphics
Laboratory at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland. Since
1977, he was Professor at the University of Montreal and codirector of the MIRALab
research laboratory. He received his diploma in nuclear physics and Ph.D in Computer
Science from the University of Geneva. He is coeditor-in-chief of the Journal of Visualization
and Computer Animation, member of the editorial board of the Visual Computer and cochairs
the EUROGRAPHICS Working Group on Computer Simulation and Animation. Daniel
Thalmann's research interests include 3D computer animation, image synthesis, and scientific
visualization. He has published more than 100 papers in these areas and is coauthor of several
books including: Computer Animation: Theory and Practice and Image Synthesis: Theory and
Practice. He is also codirector of several computer-generated films.
E-mail: thalmann@eldi.epfl.CH

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