Development of geodesic warp lines on point clouds for knitting graph calculation

Flat knit has a high potential for networked production, but is also well suited for various smart textile applications and the single-piece production of close-to-skin (CTS) textiles with a high level of technology integration. Despite this good starting point, there are still major gaps in digital engineering that is based on 3D CAD development environments. Within future production platforms for customizable flat knit products, digital design and data for manufacturing, simulation, and visualization data are indispensable prerequisites. Appropriate procedures and algorithms are the subject of current international research. This paper contributes a new point-cloud-based approach for the digital creation of knitting charts and the graphic representations of knitted fabric suitable for production on knitting machines for CTS knitwear. Knitting charts, the mesh-loop representations (e.g., bitmaps) of discrete geometric developments of knittable polygon meshes, are derived from hybrid graph-based 3D abstractions. Another focus is efficient data handling, which is a fundamental step in achieving end-to-end process digitization for personalized smart textiles and wearables, including sensor-integrated workwear or medical devices.