METHOD FOR NESTING CONTOURS TO BE CUT OUT OF NATURAL LEATHER

A completely automatic method for the nesting of contours to be cut from a piece of natural leather in which defects in structure and material as well as the outer contours of the leather are detected by means of a camera. The defective places, characterized by different shades of color, are transmitted to the electronic control unit. Pattern contours to be cut are stored in the electronic control unit, and regions wherein specific degrees of defect are tolerable are defined for each contour. A specific shade of color corresponds to each degree of defect, so that defects of the same degree are characterized by the same shade of color (in the case of black-and-white cameras by the same gray values; in the case of color cameras by the same color temperature). An automatic nesting simulation process is then effected via a software program. The pattern contours stored in the electronic control unit are electronically placed together with due consideration of the predetermined defect constraints and thus different cutting patterns are simulated. When an optimum cutting pattern has been found, i.e., the maximum possible degree of utilization has been obtained, the simulation image is stored and used later for controlling the automatic cutting system.