JPH10328452A - Automatic sewing machine - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] [PROBLEMS] To make it easy to find a desired icon among icons stored hierarchically in an automatic sewing machine. SOLUTION: As shown in FIG. 5 (a), each function has icons 65, 6 on a menu screen of the automatic sewing machine of the present invention.
.., And icons 73 that cannot be displayed are indicated by arrows 73 in the direction in which they exist. Therefore, the user of the automatic sewing machine may select the desired icon on another menu screen.
It is possible to prevent a quick match. Once you find the desired icon, the next time you look for the same icon,
The reference is whether or not the down arrow 73 and the up arrow 75 are displayed. Therefore, a desired icon can be found more quickly.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an automatic sewing machine capable of forming a desired pattern of stitches on a workpiece according to sewing data.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, there has been known an automatic sewing machine which performs a sewing operation in accordance with sewing data in which sewing operations are sequentially set. In such an automatic sewing machine, a frame is provided that is movable in the X and Y directions along a horizontal plane under a needle, a sewing object is fixed to the frame, and a motor that moves the frame by a predetermined amount according to the sewing data is driven. Then, a stitch is formed by performing a sewing operation. Some automatic sewing machines have a function of creating sewing data. In such an automatic sewing machine, sewing data is created under conditions that the horizontality of a frame, the verticality of a needle bar (a portion supporting a needle) with respect to the frame, and an error in the amount of movement of the frame are exactly the same as those at the time of sewing. Can be.

When creating sewing data, it is common to sequentially input positional information of needle entry points. The needle drop point is a point at which the needle of the automatic sewing machine is inserted into the workpiece when the automatic sewing machine actually performs sewing.
FIG. 6A shows an example of the sewing data created by inputting the positions of the needle drop points in this manner. FIG. 6 (a)
As shown in (1), in the sewing data, the position information of the needle drop point is represented by the moving amount of the frame from the immediately preceding needle drop point. For example, the data of the third stitch is represented by the moving amount of the frame from the previous point, that is, the X coordinate of the data of the second stitch, and the Y coordinate is represented by the moving amount of the frame from the Y coordinate of the data of the second stitch. Thus, the data of all the needle drop points are stored in the memory, and further stored on a floppy disk or the like.

An automatic sewing machine usually has a function of automatically generating other stitches based on input position information. For example, when forming a stitch pattern in a straight line, the user inputs the position information of both ends of the line segment, inputs a pitch, and divides both ends at this pitch to form a stitch (here, the stitch is formed). An input method for automatically forming a stitch in this manner can be referred to as a straight line input).
In addition to this, a circular sewing pattern is formed, a plurality of points are subjected to curve interpolation (hereinafter, referred to as smoothing), and the like.
There are also high-performance automatic sewing machines with various functions.

[0005] By providing various functions as described above, sewing data of a complicated sewing pattern can be easily created, which is convenient. On the other hand, it is troublesome to activate such functions. As a countermeasure, an automatic sewing machine is provided with an image display device such as a liquid crystal display, and the various functions are displayed as icons on the automatic sewing machine, and can be easily activated by giving an instruction using a pointing device such as a mouse. It is considered to be.

FIG. 6B shows such an example. FIG.
(B) shows a state where various iconized functions are arranged in parallel. Icon 65 is the straight line input described above,
The icon 67 indicates smoothing, and the icon 69 indicates a circle input. The circle input is a convenient function that, when a center position, a radius, and a pitch are input, position information of a stitch forming the circumference is automatically generated. In addition to the input of the position information of the needle drop point, the designation of the sewing speed indicated by the icon 71 and the like are also iconified.

[0007] Although not shown, other icons such as whether to cause the automatic sewing machine to perform a sewing operation, create sewing data, or edit existing sewing data are also easily provided. Can be performed by selecting an icon. In addition,
If all of these icons are turned into icons one by one, it may be difficult to display the icons (in other words, it is difficult to know where the icons are located). Therefore, it is conceivable that similar data is grouped together, and further, these are hierarchized for each operation stage. That is,
In the above example, since the creation and editing of sewing data are both related to sewing data, a group “Sewing Data” and its icon are created, and “Create” and “Edit” are put in this group. A group and an icon of "sewing operation" are created for the "sewing data", and icons such as "start" and "interrupt" are put in this group.

This makes it easy to find a desired icon, and also reduces the number of icons to be displayed at one time.

[0009]

However, according to the above-mentioned prior art, a group "input of a needle drop point", for example, still contains many icons as shown in FIG. 6 (b). For display, an image display device having a large screen is required. Also, if you display many icons at once, it is still difficult to find, and you may overlook it. Therefore, it is conceivable that an image display device capable of displaying a part of the icons shown in FIG. 6B is provided, and the icons that cannot be displayed are displayed by scrolling the image.

However, in this case, when an icon at the same level is not displayed on the image display device, the user mistakes that the icon is not in this group and searches for another group in the previous stage. It is possible that the function cannot be activated.

The present invention has been made in view of such a problem, and an object of the present invention is to make it easier to find a desired icon among icons stored hierarchically. An automatic sewing machine according to a second aspect of the present invention aims at realizing an icon instruction unit with a simple configuration.

Still another object of the present invention is to make it easy to understand the relationship between the displayed screen and the screen displayed immediately before.

[0013]

Means for Solving the Problems and Effects of the Invention An automatic sewing machine according to a first aspect of the present invention, which has been made to achieve the above object, performs a sewing operation in accordance with sewing data created in advance. The image output unit, the operation performed by the automatic sewing machine is iconified in advance for each operation, the icon display unit outputs the icon to the image output unit, and the icon output unit outputs the icon. An icon instructing unit for pointing to an icon and activating an operation corresponding to the icon, wherein the icon is hierarchically classified according to an operation procedure of the automatic sewing machine, and the icon is stored hierarchically. And an array display for arranging icons belonging to the same hierarchy among the icons stored in the storage means and outputting the icons to the image output means. And stage, all the icons that are arranged by the sequence display means, when said not be displayed on the image output unit, by scrolling to display other icons displayed icon in the vertical and / or lateral,
Scroll indication means for receiving an instruction for the display, and arrow display means for displaying an arrow indicating in which direction the icon not displayed by the array display means is on the display screen of the image output means. It is characterized by.

In other words, according to this automatic sewing machine, when all the icons to be displayed on the image output means cannot be displayed completely, an arrow indicates which icon is not displayed on the screen. Is done. Therefore, when the desired icon is not present in the currently displayed icons and the arrow is displayed, an instruction to scroll the image in that direction may be issued through the scroll instruction means. If the arrow is not displayed, the search may be performed on another layer.

The arrow displayed by the arrow display means serves as a guide when searching for the same icon next time. For example, when the icons are arranged so as to always fit in the image output means in the left-right direction, the displayed arrows are upward and downward. There are three types of display on the screen: upward only, downward only, and both up and down. By remembering the direction in which the arrow was displayed when the icon was searched last time, the desired icon can be quickly searched.

As the icon instructing means, the above-mentioned pointing device may be used, or a touch panel may be provided in the image output means, and the instruction may be made by directly touching the icon. In addition, according to the second aspect, it can be realized with a simple configuration. That is, in the automatic sewing machine according to claim 2, the icon instructing unit includes a pointer control unit that displays a pointer for pointing the icon on the screen of the image output unit, and the pointer in a direction in which the icons are arranged. And a determination key for activating an operation corresponding to the icon on which the pointer is located.

Here, "to move along the arrangement direction" means that when the icons are arranged in the horizontal direction, the icons are moved in the horizontal direction. When the icons are arranged in a matrix as shown in FIG. In this case, it is possible to move in both the vertical and horizontal directions, and it means to move to either of them.

Therefore, according to the automatic sewing machine according to the second aspect, the icon indicating means can be realized with a very simple configuration mainly composed of the pointer control means, the movement key, and the decision key. There is no need to provide a mechanism for detecting the amount of rotation of the ball or control for detecting a pressed position when a touch panel is employed.

In particular, the movement key can be used in combination with scroll instruction means. In other words, the scrolling of the image may be performed by moving the pointer upward, for example, when the pointer is displayed at the lower end of the screen and an instruction to move the image further down is issued by the movement key. In this case, the icon indicating means can be configured more simply. If the amount of scrolling by the scroll instructing means is set so that the icon displayed immediately before it is not exactly displayed on the screen displayed by scrolling, there is a chance that both upper and lower (or left and right) arrows are displayed. Since the number is reduced, the effect of “being a guide when searching for an icon” by the above-described arrow display means is maximized.

However, this makes it difficult to grasp the relationship between the displayed screen and the previously displayed screen. If there are only a few icons that cannot be displayed on one screen, the screen displaying the icons has a large margin. Therefore, in the automatic sewing machine according to the third aspect, the amount of scrolling by the scroll instructing means is such that at least one of the icons displayed on the screen of the image output means before receiving the instruction remains on the screen. Set to the amount.

For example, when the icons are displayed on the screen of the image output means in three vertical columns, when scrolling upward, at least the bottom of the three vertical columns scrolls by an amount that remains on the screen. Therefore, according to the automatic sewing machine of the third aspect, the relation between the displayed screen and the screen displayed immediately before can be easily understood, and a desired icon can be quickly searched.

In the above-described example in which the icons are displayed on the screen in three vertical rows, if only one row is scrolled, the chances of displaying arrows in both the up and down (or left and right) directions by the arrow display means increase. In this case, since the effect of the above-mentioned “use as a guide when searching for icons” by the arrow is reduced, it is desirable to scroll the display so that the icons on the previous screen remain large.

[0023]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. First, FIG. 1 is a schematic view of an automatic sewing machine 1 to which the present invention is applied. The automatic sewing machine 1 includes a sewing machine body that moves the needle 3 up and down, and a frame 5 that is located below the needle 3 and that is moved back and forth and right and left, and sewn on a sewing object 7 such as a cloth fixed to the frame 5. Go.

This sewing operation is performed in accordance with the sewing data created by the automatic sewing machine 1 (or another sewing data creating device). Automatic sewing machine 1
The operation panel 9 (to be referred to as a programmer 9 hereinafter) is used to create the operation panel. FIG. 2 shows the appearance of the programmer 9.

As shown in FIG. 2, the programmer 9 has a key group 11 and a monochrome liquid crystal display 13 as an image output means of the present invention. The key group 11 includes an arrow key 15, a + key 17, a-key 19, a numeric key 21, a return key 23, and the like.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of the automatic sewing machine 1. Note that FIG. 3 shows the programmer 9 and other parts (hereinafter, also referred to as the sewing machine main body 1) separately. First, the sewing machine body 1 has an X for moving the frame 5.
A shaft motor 31, a Y-axis motor 33, a sewing machine motor 35 used for moving the needle 3 up and down, a switch group 37 for operating the sewing machine main body 1, and reading and writing of sewing data from / to a floppy disk. , A buzzer 41 that sounds to alert the user of the sewing machine main body 1, an LED 43 that is lit to inform the user of the operating state and the like, and the operation and sewing data of the sewing machine main body 1. A ROM 45 storing a program required for creation, a RAM 47 for temporarily storing data used for executing the program, and a CPU 49 for executing a program stored in the ROM 45 are provided. The ROM 45 stores, in addition to the program, image data for displaying icons on the liquid crystal display 13 and image data for icons to be displayed next as a menu screen when the icon is selected. Are stored, and the icons are stored in a state where the icons are hierarchically classified according to the operation procedure. That is, the ROM 45 corresponds to the storage unit of the present invention.

Actually, the CPU 49 and the sewing machine motor 35 are connected via a motor driver for generating a current according to a command signal from the CPU 49, and the floppy device 39 is connected to the CPU 49 via a disk device controller. Connected to each device, etc.
A necessary interface circuit is inserted between the PU 49 and the PU 49, but is omitted in the drawing. The sewing machine main body 1 and the programmer 9 are connected via an external communication unit 51.

On the other hand, the programmer 9 operates the key group 11 described above.
A liquid crystal display 13 (denoted as LCD in FIG. 3), an external communication unit 53 for directly transmitting / receiving a signal to / from the external communication unit 51 of the sewing machine body 1, a backlight 55 for illuminating the liquid crystal display 13 from behind, and a buzzer 41. A buzzer 57 that is appropriately sounded for substantially the same purpose and a programmer 9
ROM5 in which programs to be executed by
9, a RAM 61 for temporarily storing data used for executing the program, and a CPU 63 for executing a program built in the ROM 59. CPU63
Converts the instruction given via the key group 11 into a predetermined signal and outputs the signal to the sewing machine main body 1 side, or performs a predetermined display (described later) on the liquid crystal display 13 based on the signal received from the sewing machine main body 1 side. Or

FIG. 4 shows an icon selection process executed by the CPU 49 and the CPU 63. This process is a return process that is called when a selection screen using icons is displayed in processes such as a sewing operation and creation of sewing data performed in the automatic sewing machine 1. Here, the process that is the calling source (hereinafter referred to as the main process) is a process of creating sewing data (not shown), which is a process that calls this process at a part that requests the user to input a needle entry point. And

When the present process is started, first, in step (hereinafter simply referred to as S) 10, an initial image corresponding to the main process is displayed. At S20, a down arrow is displayed over the initial image. This state is shown in FIG. FIG.
(A) shows an example of an initial image displayed on the liquid crystal display 13 and a downward arrow 73. As shown in the figure, on the initial screen for requesting the input method of the needle drop point, icons arranged horizontally are displayed in upper and lower two rows,
A down arrow 73 is displayed at the right end of the screen. The arrangement state of the icons in the automatic sewing machine 1 is the same as that shown in FIG. That is, only a maximum of seven scrolls are arranged in the horizontal direction, and scrolling, which will be described later, can be performed only in the vertical direction. Further, the down arrow 73 is not displayed when all the icons to be displayed fit on the liquid crystal display 13.

An icon is selected by inverting a desired icon. Although not shown in FIG. 5A, the icon 65 is displayed in reverse video (black and white is reversed). To select the icon 67, the right of the arrow key 15 is pressed. Then, the icon 65 is returned to the original state of black and white, and the icon 67 is displayed in reverse. This point to be inverted is referred to as a cursor, and changing the inverted point is hereinafter referred to as "moving the cursor".

This processing is performed in the cursor movement display processing of S30. This process moves the cursor in accordance with the instruction of the arrow key 15. If the cursor cannot be moved within the screen of the liquid crystal display 13, an error indicating the moved direction is returned as an icon as a return value. Output for the selection process. In S40, this return value is evaluated. If the return value indicates a downward direction, that is, if the lower arrow key 15 is pressed even though the cursor is at the lower end of the screen, the process proceeds to S50,
Scroll the image down one step. When scrolling, the cursor and the arrow are once deleted, and the icon and the cursor to be displayed again are displayed.

When the image is scrolled up, the cursor is clearly located on the displayed screen, so that an up arrow is displayed in S60. In subsequent S70, it is determined whether or not there is still an icon below the screen, and if there is, the process proceeds to S80 to display a down arrow. The state of the gutter is shown in FIG. In this screen, the initial screen shown in FIG. 5A is scrolled up by one step, and the up arrow 7 displayed in S60 is displayed.
5, and the down arrow 73 displayed in S80 are displayed. If NO is determined in S70, FIG.
An image as shown in (c) is displayed, and only the up arrow 75 is displayed.

On the other hand, if the return value indicates that an error has occurred in the upward direction in S40, the image is scrolled down one step in S100. As in S50, the cursor and the arrow are temporarily deleted during scrolling, and the cursor to be displayed again is displayed. In S110, a down arrow is displayed. In S120, it is determined whether or not there is still an icon below the screen. If there is, the process proceeds to S130, the up arrow 75 is displayed on the liquid crystal display 13, and the process proceeds to S90.

If it is determined in S40 that the return value of the cursor movement display processing does not indicate an error,
Go straight to S90. In S90, it is determined whether or not the return key 23 has been pressed. If the return key 23 has been pressed, the input process of the next layer corresponding to the icon at the cursor position at that time is performed. I will not go into details about this content,
For example, when the icon 65 is selected, the input of the position information of the end point of the line segment and the input of the stitch generation pitch for communicating from this position information to the position information of the previous point are performed. If the return key 23 has not been pressed in S90, the process returns to S30, and the cursor movement display processing is performed again. When the processing of S30 to S140 is performed and this processing ends, the process returns to the main processing.

When all the icons to be displayed on the liquid crystal display 13 cannot be displayed when the menu is selected by using the icons, a down arrow 73 and an up arrow 75 are displayed as shown in FIG. By doing so, it is indicated that there are more icons in that direction, so that the user of the automatic sewing machine 1 can be prevented from quickly matching that the desired icon is on another menu screen.

Further, once a desired icon is found, the next time the same icon is searched for, the downward arrow 73 and the upward arrow 75 are used as a guide. For example, in the example shown in FIG. 5, there are three screens.
75 are different. When searching for the icon 71, FIG. 5B may be displayed. In FIG. 5B, both the up arrow 75 and the down arrow 73 are displayed.
Therefore, it is understood that it is necessary to further scroll and search from the initial screen in which only the down arrow 73 is displayed.

As is apparent from the above description, R
Processing of CPU 49 for transmitting image data for icons stored in OM 45 to programmer 9, and CPU
CPU for displaying the image data received from 49 on 13
The process 63 corresponds to the icon display means of the present invention.
Further, the processing of S10, S50, and S100 corresponds to the array display means, and S20, S60 to S80, S110 to S1
Step 30 corresponds to arrow display means. The arrow key 15 also serves as a movement key and scroll instruction means, the return key 23 corresponds to a decision key, the cursor corresponds to a pointer, and the cursor movement display processing corresponds to pointer control means.

As described above, the automatic sewing machine has been described as an embodiment of the present invention, but the present invention is not limited to this embodiment and can be implemented in various modes. For example, in the automatic sewing machine 1, the icon is horizontally
Although only four pieces are arranged vertically and four rows are displayed vertically and scrolled up and down, eight or more pieces may be arranged horizontally. For icons that cannot be displayed, use the left and right arrow keys.
By operating the button 5, the image may be scrolled in the horizontal direction and displayed.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is an explanatory diagram showing an overview of an automatic sewing machine 1 according to one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an external view of a programmer 9 provided in the automatic sewing machine 1.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of the automatic sewing machine 1;

FIG. 4 is a flowchart of an icon selection process executed by CPUs 49 and 63.

FIG. 5 shows a liquid crystal display 13 in an icon selection process.
FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram illustrating a menu screen displayed in FIG.

FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram showing one mode of an arrangement of sewing data and icons.

[Explanation of symbols]

1. Automatic sewing machine (sewing machine body) 3. Needle 5.
Frame 7: Sewing object 9: Programmer 11: Key group 13: Liquid crystal display 15: Arrow key 23: Return key 65, 67, 69, 71 ... Icon 73: Down arrow 75: Up arrow

Continuation of the front page (72) Inventor Yoshihiro Hara 15-1 Naeshiro-cho, Mizuho-ku, Nagoya City, Aichi Prefecture Brother Industries, Ltd.

Claims (3)

[Claims] An automatic sewing machine for performing a sewing operation in accordance with sewing data created in advance, wherein an image output means and an operation performed by the automatic sewing machine are iconized in advance for each operation, and the icon is displayed. An automatic sewing machine comprising: an icon display unit that outputs to the image output unit; and an icon instruction unit that points to the icon output by the icon display unit and starts an operation corresponding to the icon. A storage unit that hierarchically classifies and stores the icons according to the operation procedure of the automatic sewing machine, and arranges icons belonging to the same hierarchy among the icons stored in the storage unit, and outputs the icons to the image output unit. An array display unit to perform, and all icons arranged by the array display unit,
A scroll instructing unit for receiving an instruction to scroll the displayed icon up and down and / or left and right to display another icon when the image cannot be completely displayed on the image output unit; An arrow display means for displaying an arrow indicating the direction of the icon not displayed on the display screen of the image output means. 2. An image display device comprising: a pointer control unit configured to display a pointer for pointing the icon on a screen of the image output unit; and a pointer control unit configured to move the pointer along a direction in which the icons are arranged. The automatic sewing machine according to claim 1, further comprising: a movement key; and a determination key for activating an operation corresponding to an icon on which the pointer is located. 3. An amount scrolled by the scroll instruction means is set to an amount at which at least one of the icons displayed on the screen of the image output means before receiving the instruction remains on the screen. The automatic sewing machine according to claim 1 or 2, wherein: