Correction of acquired images for cutting pattern creation

A method for correcting a source image of a graphic overlaid on a cutting mat including a plurality of registration marks to generate a cut path corresponding to an outline of the graphic and from which a sheet cutting pattern is produced, the method comprising:

• receiving a source image from an imaging device as a bitmap, the source image including one or more distortions introduced by the imaging device during acquisition;
• converting the source image to a high contrast monochrome image with a plurality of objects defined by regions of adjacent groupings of pixels on a background field;
• identifying a center of each of the objects in the high contrast monochrome image as a candidate registration mark point;
• generating a list of sets of pairs of the candidate registration mark points with each pair having a predefined number of additional candidate registration mark points interposed between a straight line spanning the candidate registration mark points of a particular one of the pair sets;
• identifying a chained grouping of candidate registration mark points from sets of the pairs in the list sharing at least one common candidate registration mark point;
• storing each of the candidate registration mark points of the identified chained groupings as designated registration mark points corresponding to corner regions of the cutting mat as represented in the source image;
• and
• transforming the source image to a corrected image defined according to physical coordinates based upon the designated registration mark points.

An article of manufacture comprising a non-transitory program storage medium readable by a data processing device, the medium tangibly embodying one or more programs of instructions executable by the device to perform a method for producing a cutting pattern on a cutting mat with a graphic placed thereon for feeding to a cutting machine, the cutting pattern being based upon a cut path corresponding to an outline of the graphic, the method comprising:

• receiving a source image of the graphic overlaid on the cutting mat from an imaging device as a bitmap, the source image including a plurality of registration marks and one or more distortions introduced by the imaging device during acquisition;
• identifying the plurality of registration marks from the source image from a matching of candidate sets of a plurality of center points of regions of adjacent groupings of pixels within the source image against predetermined positional relationships thereof corresponding to an actual arrangement of the registration marks on the cutting mat;
• deriving values for an inverse transformation of the source image from the identified plurality of registration marks on the cutting mat;
• applying the inverse transformation to the source image with the derived values to generate a corrected image as a bitmap aligned to physical coordinates of the cutting mat as tied to the cutting machine;
• deriving the cut path from generated vectors of the corrected image, the cut path being defined in alignment with the coordinate axes of the cutting machine;
• and
• transmitting the cut path to the cutting machine for execution thereon.

A method for producing a cutting pattern on a cutting mat with a graphic placed thereon for feeding to a cutting machine, the cutting pattern being based upon a cut path corresponding to an outline of the graphic, the method comprising:

• receiving a first partial source image of a first part of the graphic overlaid on the cutting mat from an imaging device as a bitmap, the first partial source image including a first set of registration marks and one or more distortions introduced by the imaging device during acquisition;
• receiving a second partial source image of a second part of the graphic overlaid on the cutting mat from the imaging device as a bitmap, the second partial source image including a second set of registration marks and one or more distortions introduced by the imaging device during acquisition;
• separately identifying the first set of registration marks from the first partial source image and the second set of registration marks from the second partial source image from matching of candidate sets of a plurality of center points of regions of adjacent groupings of pixels within the respective first partial source image and the second partial source image against predetermined positional relationships thereof corresponding to an actual arrangement of the registration marks on a respective first section and a second section of the cutting mat;
• separately deriving values for an inverse transformation of the first partial source image and the second partial source image from the respective identified plurality of registration marks on the cutting mat;
• separately applying the respective inverse transformations to the first partial source image and the second partial source image with the respective derived values to generate a corrected first partial image and a corrected second partial image as bitmaps conforming to physical coordinates of the cutting mat as tied to the cutting machine;
• combining the corrected first partial image and the corrected second partial image into a corrected complete image;
• deriving the cut path from generated vectors of the corrected complete image, the cut path being defined relative to the coordinate axes of the cutting machine;
• and
• transmitting the cut path to the cutting machine for execution thereon.