Technology

Remarkable advancements in textile technology have altered or diminished the authority of traditional construction techniques. Thermoplastic fibers used heat instead of labor-intensive hand-pleating techniques to create pleats, gathers, and tucks, and thus encouraged a radical expansion of the vocabulary of form and the design of the garment as a whole.

Some designers explored new approaches to traditional methods of construction, reinterpreting time-honored techniques such as lace making. By featuring synthetic ornamentation, by combining incongruous materials, such as velvet and plastic, or by integrating traditional materials and practices with innovative ideas, designers assaulted conventional notions of luxury and elegance. The dictates of what was “suitable” or “appropriate” were sabotaged.

New textiles for fashion and interiors include three-dimensional structures designed by computer with sculpted surfaces that replace the traditional techniques of embroidery and beading. Topographical surfaces are achieved with such processes as chemical blistering, spatters and laminates of metallic particles, heat molding and treating, and various complex novelty weaves. With rapidly evolving technology, the potential for textile development will continue to change the look and perception of fashion.

donderdag 12 juni 2008

SoundSleeves

SoundSleeves
Vincent Leclerc & Joey Berzowska

These sleeves are sensitive to physical contacts. When users flex or cross their arms, a sound is synthesized within the sleeves and output through miniature flat speakers. The idea is pretty straightforward: using very simple elements (metallic organza and conductive yarns) we created a flex and touch sensor made of hundreds of switches.



The stripes of metallic organza are sequentially disposed so that they are connected either to ground or to a pin of the micro controlling unit. When a 'pin' stripe is grounded on a 'ground' stripe, it issues a signal to the mcu and the latter reacts accordingly.

The whole circuit is stitched on fabric. We had to conduct many experiments to figure out what type of stitches were the most solid and less electrically resistive. The approach We adopted is a combination of fine and loose stitches overlapped with wide and stretched ones. The stitched circuit board connects every element to the very few 'hard' parts of the system: a PIC16F84A, a 3V watch battery and speakers. The connections to the PIC are done using conductive epoxy so there are no (fragile) solder connections anywhere. Same goes for the miniature flat speakers and the battery.



We programmed the PIC using the CCSC compiler. Here is the C source of the program. It uses a library (v_tones.c) that I modified from CCS' tones.c. It also uses CCS' stdlib.h. We cannot distribute those due to copyright issues... Basically what the code does is sweeping from one frequency to another depending on the number of contacts made on the sleeves. There is an idle state (no sound) when the number of contacts doesn't change.


Bron: uttermatter
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