A concept for identifying and describing apparel structure

A genuine concept for graphic description of clothing products is presented. This concept is characterised by the dividing an object into so-called functional groups constituting the customary parts of a product which perform its defined partial functions of usability character Criteria for identifying these functional groups have been established; at the same time, the latter have been divided into three kinds. These are as follows: the hull and its segments (functional groups of the 1(st) kind), functional groups situated on the edges of the hull segments (functional groups of the 2(nd) kind), and functional groups situated on the hull surface or other elements of the product structure (functional groups of the 3(rd) kind). It has been determined that a structural schematic diagram which constitutes a conventional image of the product and identifies the structural groups that contain seams should be the basic tool for describing the structure of a textile product. It has been demonstrated that catalogues of functional groups of clothing play an important role as databases in the design process. Making use of the catalogue creates possibilities for the effective creation of new wholes on the basis of the existing functional parts. In addition, possibilities have been shown for applying the principles of dividing a textile product into functional groups in creating new tools of describing the clothing based on the graph theory. A form of graph expressing how the elements of the product structure belong to functional groups has been proposed, and the possibility of making a graph of the aggregation of these elements has been indicated. The usefulness of graphs for the assessment of a product structure with respect to its usability qualities and the feasibility to produce it has been elaborated.