Integrated method and apparatus for selecting, ordering and manufacturing art glass panels

What is claimed is:

1. An integrated system for selecting, ordering and manufacturing art glass panels, comprising:

(a) first computer means suitable for receiving user input selections in the form of a rough opening dimension selection and an art glass panel design selection, for reconfiguring a selected rule-based art glass design to accommodate a selected rough opening dimension, said first computer means comprising:

(i) a plurality of rule-based art glass panel files, each representative of a different artistic art glass panel design;

(ii) user interface means for enabling a user to enter a rough opening dimension selection and an art glass panel design selection to said first computer means;

(iii) means for operatively applying said entered rough opening dimension selection and said entered art glass panel design selection to a resizing program means;

(iv) resizing program means for reconfiguring data from that one of said rule-based art glass panel files corresponding to a received art glass panel design selection, in rule-based manner, to resize the artistic art glass panel design represented thereby to conform to a rough opening dimension corresponding to a received rough opening dimension selection and for providing a reconfigured art glass database file signal in response thereto; and

(v) means for providing an order output signal; and

(b) means operatively connected to receive said reconfigured art glass data file signal and said order output signal, for manufacturing an art glass panel in response to said reconfigured art glass data file signal and said order output signal.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein said means for manufacturing said art glass panel comprises: second computer means operatively connected to receive said reconfigured art glass data file signal and said order output signal, for automating in part said manufacturing of said art glass panel.

3. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein said second computer means is remotely located from said first computer means, and further including communication link means interconnecting said first and said second computer means for transmitting said reconfigured art glass data file signal and said order output signal from said first computer means to said second computer means.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein said means for manufacturing said art glass panel includes means for automatically cutting glass pieces comprising at least in part the artistic design of said art glass panel, in response to said reconfigured art glass data file signal.

5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein said first computer means further is suitable for receiving a user input selection in the form of a window combination selection, and further comprises:

(a) a product identification data file containing representations of a plurality of window products available for filling rough openings;

(b) program means operatively connected to receive said entered rough opening dimension selection and operatively connected with said product identification data file for selecting those combinations of window products from said product identification data file that are available to fill a rough opening, corresponding to said entered rough opening dimension selection, and for providing a plurality of available window combination output signals representative thereof;

(c) means for enabling a user to select one of said available window combination output signals; and

(d) wherein said resizing program means is further operable to receive said user one selected window combination signal and is further operable for performing its reconfiguration operations in response to said one selected window combination and for producing said reconfigured art glass data file in response thereto; wherein the reconfigured database file signal represents the user selected art glass panel design as reconfigured to accommodate both the rough opening size and window combination selections of the user.

6. The apparatus as recited in claim 1, wherein said means for manufacturing said art glass panel includes means for automatically cutting caming pieces used in the assembly of the artistic design of said art glass panel, in response to said reconfigured art glass data file signal.

7. The apparatus as recited in claim 1, further including means for providing an assembly template used in the assembly of the art glass panel, in response to said reconfigured art glass data file signal.

8. The apparatus as recited in claim 1, further including means for automatically soldering caming pieces used in assembly of the art glass panel, in response to said reconfigured art glass data file signal.

9. A method of producing art glass panels with the assistance of computer processing means, comprising the steps of:

(a) creating a rule-based art glass panel design comprising the steps of:

(i) creating an artistic representation of an art glass panel design;

(ii) entering said artistic representation into an automated CAD processing system;

(iii) entering a set of rules uniquely identifiable with the creation of said artistic representation, into said CAD processing system; and

(iv) processing said entered artistic representation in response to said entered rules within said CAD processing system, to create said rule-based art glass panel design;

(b) formatting said rule-based art glass panel design in an art glass data file signal;

(c) entering said art glass data file signal into a computer processing means; and

(d) manufacturing an art glass panel in response to said art glass data file signal.

10. The process of claim 9, wherein said manufacturing step includes the step of automatically manufacturing in part said art glass panel with said computer processing means and in response to said art glass data file signal.

11. The process of claim 10, wherein said step of automatically manufacturing in part said art glass panel comprises the step of automatically cutting component glass piece portions of said art glass panel in response to said art glass data file signal.

12. The process of claim 9, wherein the step of manufacturing the art glass panel is performed remotely from the steps of creating and formatting the art glass panel design.

13. The process as recited in claim 9, including the step of reconfiguring said art glass file signal to resize the art glass panel design, to provide a reconfigured art glass file signal in response to said resizing; and wherein said manufacturing step is performed in response to said reconfigured art glass file signal.

14. A method of automating design selection for manufacture of art glass panels comprising the steps of:

(a) creating and storing in a computer a plurality of rule-based designs for art glass panels, each rule-based design being represented by an identifiable rule-based art glass design file;

(b) selecting from said stored rule-based designs one of said identifiable rule-based art glass design files;

(c) entering a desired art glass panel size representation into said computer; and

(d) reconfiguring said selected art glass design file in said computer according to rule-based design principles to resize the selected rule-based design in response to said entered desired art glass panel size representation, providing a reconfigured rule-based art glass data file.

15. The method as recited in claim 14, further including the step of ordering the manufacture of an art glass panel defined by said reconfigured rule based art glass data file.

16. The method as recited in claim 14, further including the step of manufacturing an art glass panel in response to said reconfigured rule-based art glass data file.

17. The method as recited in claim 16, wherein said manufacturing step includes the step of automatically controlling at least one phase of the manufacturing step in response to said reconfigured rule-based art glass data file.

18. The method as recited in claim 17, wherein the automated step includes automatically cutting glass pieces forming at least in part the art glass design of the art glass panel being manufactured in response to said reconfigured rule-based art glass data file.

19. The method as recited in claim 18, wherein said automatic cutting process includes the step of automatically controlling a jet glass cutting machine.

20. The method as recited in claim 14, further including the step of entering a desired subpanel configuration representation for the art glass panel to be manufactured, into the computer; and wherein the step of reconfiguring said selected art glass design file includes resizing the selected rule-based design in response in part to said entered desired subpanel configuration representation; whereby the reconfigured art glass panel design extends in rule-based manner over the desired subpanel configuration.

21. The method as recited in claim 14 including the steps of

(a) entering representations of a plurality of window products of varied sizes and shapes into the computer memory file;

(b) determining from said plurality of window product representations in the computer memory file, a plurality of different combinations of such window product representations which identifiably correspond with said entered desired art glass panel size representation;

(c) selecting a desired one of said plurality of different combinations of such window product representations; and

(d) wherein said reconfiguration step further resizes and reconfigures the selected rule-based design and produces said reconfigured rule-based art glass data file in response to said selected one of said window product representation combination; whereby the reconfigured art glass panel design extends in rule-based manner over the selected window product combination.

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FIELD OF THE INVENTION

This invention relates generally to art glass panels, and more specifically to a method for integrating and automating the design and selection, ordering and manufacturing processes for such art glass panels.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED PATENTS AND APPLICATIONS

The following U.S. patents and U.S. patent applications are herein incorporated by reference to the extent that their respective disclosures and teachings are needed or desired to form a more complete understanding of the present invention or to describe functional portions of this disclosure: U.S. Pat. No. 4,972,318 issued on Nov. 20, 1990, to Brown et al., entitled Order Entry and Inventory Control Method; U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/016,902 filed on Feb. 12, 1993, now abandoned, by Hanson et al., entitled Divided Light Insert and Kit for Mounting; U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/716,651 filed on Jun. 14, 1991, now abandoned, by Barnes et al., entitled Graphical Display Driven Database Method and Apparatus; U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/194,922 filed on Feb. 11, 1994, by Randall W. Smith, Jason Bright and Thomas Varghese, entitled Rule-Based Parametric Design Apparatus and Method; and U.S. patent application Ser. No. filed on Feb. 11, 1994, by Thomas Varghese, Jason Bright and Randall W. Smith, entitled Waterjet Cutting Tool Interface Software. All of the above patents and applications are owned by the common assignee, of the present invention, Andersen Corporation.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Art glass panels have allured and captured the hearts and minds of artists, artisans, owners and viewers for centuries. The "art glass" terminology includes not only stained glass panels but also divided light panels of beveled and etched glass creations, as well as such panels which include objects having more three-dimensional properties, such as jewels or the like. Historically, art glass panels have typically been in the form of windows and have been the subject of tedious, time-intensive creations, generally relegated to unique single item designs for cathedrals, churches and religious structures, or for the very wealthy who could afford to commission such expensive artistic creations for their mansions or commercial enterprises. More recently, art glass panels have found acceptance as stand-alone interior panels, or as wall or ceiling lighted panel structures illuminated by background electrical lighting. While there have been attempts to produce art glass panels on a commercial basis for windows that could be used for residential purposes, such attempts have generally been thwarted by excessive costs and/or limited availability in sizes, designs and styles of such products. Accordingly, art glass panels have generally remained as high-priced, uniquely designed novelty or art items.

Historically, art glass panels have been configured in true divided light configuration wherein individual pieces of glass or objects forming the panel are held together by strips of caming which are soldered together to form an integral unitary panel structure. Such caming has a generally U-shaped cross-section that retainably holds the individual glass pieces or objects by their edges and was historically made of lead or leaded material for its ease of bending and shaping to accommodate curved or irregularly shaped pieces of glass or objects. Today's environmental proscription against the use of lead in consumer and building products has resulted in replacement or virtual replacement of the traditionally used lead caming with more environmentally acceptable and safe products such as zinc alloys. For a more complete understanding of the general construction of an art glass panel and use therein of modern alloy caming materials, the reader is referred to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/016,902 filed on Feb. 12, 1993, by Hanson et al., entitled Divided Light Inserts and Kit for Mounting, owned by the common assignee of this invention--the contents of which are herein incorporated by reference.

A number of factors have contributed to the excessive costs of art glass panels. Typically, an art glass artisan, having not only artistic ability but also skilled in the knowledge of material strengths, acceptable pattern configurations and structural considerations for creating art glass panels has been required to create an acceptable art glass design. Such gifted artisans that can accommodate the customer's unique needs are difficult to find and are generally quite expensive to retain. As stated above, historic art glass designs are constructed in true divided light configuration, requiring many, often thousands, of individual pieces of glass and objects to be cut in cooperative mating relationship to one another (e.g., in puzzle manner). The cost of the glass pieces and objects alone can be quite expensive, particularly when unique pieces of glass are purchased in small quantities or if particular pieces or objects require special grinding, beveling or shaping. The individual glass pieces and objects must be configured to match the artist's pattern. This requires the labor-intensive process of individually cutting or shaping each piece of glass or object so as to perfectly cooperatively mate with its adjacent pieces of the panel. Typically glass pieces have been cut by a scoring and breaking method, often resulting in high breakage and waste, particularly where the glass pieces include angles or curves. Further, pieces so created often have inherently irregular edge configurations that provide stress points for later breakage of the glass if mounted in a stressed manner. In order to reduce such stress conditions, the artisan will often grind individual glass pieces along their edges and will chamfer their corners by means of labor-intensive hand grinding processes. Forming the art glass panel also requires individual cutting and bending or forming of caming pieces to interconnect and mount each of the glass pieces or objects in precise cooperative mating relationship. Finally, the individual pieces of glass and objects must be assembled, one at a time, with intermediate caming, into a unified single panel, after which the individual caming pieces are soldered together at their junctions to form a unified completed panel. The entire process is very labor intensive, time consuming and expensive and has heretofore not particularly lended itself to commercial practicality.

In an effort to reduce the above labor-intensive processing costs associated with true divided light art glass construction, attempts have been made to produce look-alike products and to substitute other types of decorative glass products in place of a true divided light glass panel. Several such configurations have attempted to simulate the divided light look by gluing or otherwise bonding the individual glass and object pieces together along their edges and by overlaying a single piece of grid or grille structure shaped to look like caming, but made to overlie the bonded glass structure, on one side thereof. Others have used plastic films or the like to simulate the glass pieces, thereby eliminating cutting and bonding individual pieces together. While such attempts have reduced costs involved in constructing true divided light art glass panels, the products produced by such methods generally are not equal in appearance or performance to the traditional divided light glass products in which metal cames are used to divide the individual lights in each panel.

Even after an art glass panel has been designed, its availability for use as a commercially produced item has historically been severely limited, and not generally susceptible to economical mass production. As long as the size and shape of the design remains exactly the same, multiple copies of a particular art glass panel could be produced, gaining some advantage in amortizing the initial design costs over the multiple copies and possibly in the ability to purchase larger quantities of the different types of glass or objects used in the panel design. However, the remaining costly steps of cutting and preparing the individual pieces of glass and objects, and the labor-intensive assembly procedures remain. Further, if one wanted to change the size or shape of the panel, redesign would be required. Even a "proportional" change in overall size of the panel, while maintaining the general design configuration, would require each piece of the panel to be resized, in a costly time-consuming process.

Accordingly, while the need exists for commercially available art glass panels, there are generally no commercially available sources for a consumer that provide the flexibility of enabling a consumer to select a design, to have that design applied to the panel or window size and configuration that suits the customer's unique needs, and to have the panel economically manufactured in a relatively short time frame. Further, there are no known commercial sources available which enable a customer to select an art glass design, and to have that design reconfigured and displayed to him in real time in the manner in which it would appear when reconfigured to accommodate the customer's desired panel size and shape requirements, so that the customer can view the unique product he will be ordering. Further, the prior art is deficient in providing any degree of automation which will accommodate manufacture of an art glass panel that accommodates the customer's selected design and unique panel size and shape requirements.

The present invention provides a commercial, practical solution to the above shortcomings of art glass panels. The present invention, through computerized assistance, allows a customer to select an art glass design from a plurality of such designs and to have that design reconfigured while he waits, according to unique rule-based design parameters, to conform to the unique size and shape of the customer's desired art glass panel. Further, when applied to windows, the present invention enables the customer to provide the size and shape of the "rough opening" he wishes the art glass design to fill, to select from a plurality of window styles and shapes that will in combination properly fit such rough opening and to have the art glass design automatically reconfigured to accommodate such window combination selection. The present invention also provides for an automated art glass manufacturing process that takes the information generated by those computers that uniquely design the customer's art glass panel and uses such computer generated information to automatically cut the glass pieces which collectively comprise the larger composite art glass panel.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention provides an integrated system for selection, ordering and manufacturing art glass panels which enables the manufacturer to produce high quality art glass panels customized to the customer's own specifications through the use of highly flexible computer driven design and manufacturing systems. The art glass panels are customized in the sense that from a basic art panel design, the system of this invention will automatically alter or reconfigure the design pattern to accommodate the aperture dimensions specified by a customer. The system of this invention incorporates two-dimensional "rules" designed to retain the artistic appeal of the original art glass pattern design, even if it involves nonlinear expansion or contraction. In some cases there may even be a change in the pattern when progressing through certain aperture boundary dimensions. Through use of a rule-based design technique, an artist's design for an art glass panel is entered into a computer along with a set of appropriate rules applicable to that design, which are combined to produce an output data file representative of that art glass design. Such output data file for that design represents a "parent" file for that design which can then be reconfigured by use of a resizing program unique to this invention, to accommodate varying sizes and shapes of desired customer panels. A number of designs can be entered into a computer, each such design having its uniquely identifiable output data file that represents a parent data file for that particular design.

A customer can readily select one of the plurality of parent art glass designs, provide the computer with the unique size and configuration data for his desired panel, and ask the computer to reconfigure the parent design to accommodate his particular panel size and shape constraints. The customer can then view the reconfigured panel on the CRT display of the computer, and if satisfied with such design, readily order the reconfigured panel from the manufacturer. The input computers used by the customer can be remotely located from the manufacturer, providing for on-line real-time ordering by the customer. Further, the remote computers can instantly price the reconfigured panel prior to purchase, since all of the component part and assembly data information for such reconfigured panel is readily available to the computer computational programs, in digital form. Since such data is available in digital form, it can be readily transmitted with the order to the manufacturer and directly used for automating all or portions of the manufacturing process for the reconfigured/ordered panel. In particular, such digital output data file information is particularly useful for automatically contr