A roughing system includes a roughing machine and an imaging apparatus. The roughing machine roughs an upper of a shoe along a path to form a rough trace thereon. The imaging apparatus includes a camera module and a processing module. The camera module is moved parallel to the path and repeatedly captures an image of a portion of the upper having a segment of the rough trace thereon each time when one of a first condition that the camera module has been moved by a predetermined length and a second condition that the camera module has been moved for a predetermined time duration is satisfied. The processing module receives the images respectively of different portions of the upper that are sequentially captured by the camera module, and is configured to generate a panoramic image based on the images.

A method for automatically pulling a shoe upper onto a last using a robot which includes a robot controller, a robot arm controlled automatically by the robot controller, and a gripper which is moved by the robot arm and which is designed to hold a shoe upper.