Footwear digitization system and method

A method for digitizing footwear and other cut-and-stitched goods, comprising:

• obtaining a digital, three-dimensional (3D) reference model dimensionally representing a selected cut-and-stitched item;
• panelizing a physical sample of the selected cut-and-stitched item by separating the physical sample into one or more separate, flattened physical panels;
• capturing digitized images of each of the one or more flattened panels;
• producing, via a contour outline mechanism embodied as coded, machine-readable image-processing instructions executing on data processing circuitry of a computing device, a two-dimensional (2D) contour map of each of the one or more digitized panel images;
• determining whether the 2D contour maps of the one or more separated panels match an available 3D template;
• converting contours of the 2D panel contour maps to vector-based curves by executing, via data processing circuitry of a computing device, coded, machine-readable instructions including a feature point extraction and curve-fitting algorithm;
• transforming sizes and shapes of panels of the matched 3D template to match the curves of the convened 2D panels;
• tessellating the panels of the 3D template;
• and
• wrapping the tessellated 3D panels onto the 3D reference model.