SURFACE COVERING PRODUCTION METHOD USING DIGITAL PRINTING

Abstract

A method of producing a decorative surface covering comprises generating one or more synthetic images. The generation of these images includes arranging local prototype motifs characteristic of a material to be mimicked in a random manner and generating or preserving continuity between the local prototype motifs in such a way as to yield globally an appearance of the material to be mimicked, digitally printing one or more synthetic images on a printing substrate, and assembling the printing substrate with one or more backing layers and/or one or more transparent top layers so as to form the decorative surface covering.

Claims

1. A method of producing a decorative surface covering, comprising receiving images of natural material acquired from a plant in which the natural material is processed, buffering the images of the natural material, assembling the images of the natural material into a synthetic image to be printed, digitally printing the synthetic image on a printing substrate; and assembling the printing substrate with one or more backing layers and/or one or more transparent top layers so as to form the decorative surface covering.

2. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the method produces a decorative wall or floor covering.

3. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the images of natural material comprise at least one of photographs, roentgenograms and tomographies.

4. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the plant in which the natural material is processed is a sawmill or a quarry.

5. The method as claimed in claim 1, comprising checking the images of natural material for flaws, prior to assembling the images of the natural material into the synthetic image.

6. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein assembling the images of the natural material into the synthetic image comprises blending individual neighbouring images of the natural material into one another.

7. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein assembling the images of the natural material into the synthetic image comprises rule-based processing using rules selected in accordance with the material to be mimicked.

8. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the images of the natural material comprise lineal, areal or volume features and wherein assembling the images of the natural material into the synthetic image comprises coordinating the images of the natural material in an at least three-dimensional space, and retrieving a two-dimensional surface embedded in said space.

9. The method as claimed in claim 8, comprising mapping the two-dimensional surface into a plane.

10. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the synthetic image mimics a surface of natural material selected from the group consisting of stone, wood, bamboo, cork and metal.

11. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein assembling the images of natural material comprises at least one of: a) arranging the images of natural material as an at least two-dimensional dense mosaic devoid of gaps and wherein continuity between the images of natural material is generated, the generation of continuity comprising modifying said images of natural material so as to eliminate discontinuities between adjacent images of natural material; and b) arranging the images of natural material as an at least two-dimensional sparse mosaic with gaps between the images of natural material and wherein continuity between the images of natural material is generated, the generation of continuity comprising extrapolation of the images of natural material into the gaps and/or interpolation of the images of natural material.

12. The method as claimed in claim 1, comprising, before digitally printing the synthetic image, applying a base coat on the printing substrate.

13. A method of producing a decorative surface covering, comprising: digitally printing one or more synthetic images on a printing substrate, the one or more synthetic images comprising areal and lineal features characteristic of a material to be mimicked, the material to be mimicked; and representing a total printed-out surface of at least 10 m.sup.2 of flooring, said areal and lineal features being distributed over said surface so as to form a random pattern, wherein the areal and lineal features located within any geometrically convex subarea of at least 0.01 m.sup.2 with an aspect ratio not greater than 5 form a visual motif that is unique within a radius of at least 2 m around said subarea; and assembling said printing substrate with one or more backing layers and/or one or more transparent top layers so as to form said decorative surface covering.

14. The method as claimed in claim 13, wherein the method produces a decorative wall or floor covering.

15. The method as claimed in claim 13, wherein the material to be mimicked is selected from the group consisting of stone, wood, cork and metal.

16. The method as claimed in claim 13, wherein the one or more synthetic images represent a total printed-out surface of at least 16 m.sup.2 of flooring.

17. The method as claimed in claim 13, wherein the areal and lineal features located within any geometrically convex subarea of at least 25 cm.sup.2 with an aspect ratio not greater than 5 form a visual motif that is unique within a radius of at least 2 m around said subarea.

18. A method of producing a decorative surface covering as claimed in claim 13, comprising, before said digital printing of the one or more synthetic images, applying a base coat on said printing substrate.

19. The method as claimed in claim 13, comprising, before digitally printing the one or more synthetic images, applying a base coat on the printing substrate.

20. A multilayer decorative floor covering comprising one or more backing layers, a printing substrate and/or one or more transparent top layers, the printing substrate carrying a digital print comprising one or more synthetic images, the one or more synthetic images comprising areal and lineal features characteristic of a material to be mimicked, the material to be mimicked; and representing a total printed-out surface of at least 10 m.sup.2 of flooring, said areal and lineal features being distributed over said surface so as to form a random pattern, wherein the areal and lineal features located within any geometrically convex subarea of at least 0.01 m.sup.2 with an aspect ratio not greater than 5 form a visual motif that is unique within a radius of at least 2 m around said subarea.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0050] By way of example, preferred, non-limiting embodiments of the invention will now be described in detail, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

[0051] FIG. 1 is a partially exploded perspective schematic drawing of a floor covering with a printed decorative pattern;

[0052] FIG. 2 is a schematic view of a part of a production line for producing a floor covering in accordance with the invention;

[0053] FIG. 3 is an illustration of a synthetic image imitating natural flooring;

[0054] FIG. 4 is an illustration of a part of a synthetic image generation process;

[0055] FIG. 5 is an illustration of an intermediate result of a synthetic image generation process;

[0056] FIG. 6 is a representation of an example of a synthetic image obtained at the end of an image generation process;

[0057] FIG. 7 is a cross-sectional view connectors of adjacent floor covering elements in the coupled state;

[0058] FIG. 8 is a schematic illustration of another synthetic image generation process;

[0059] FIG. 9 is a schematic drawing illustrating acquisition of a 3D representation of a sample of a material to be mimicked.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

[0060] FIG. 1 illustrates a resilient multilayer decorative floor covering (flooring) 10 imitating a hardwood floor. The floor covering comprises a substructure 12 comprising core layers 12a, 12b and a backing layer 12c. The substructure 12 supports a print layer 14 (printing substrate 14a carrying printed décor 14b). A transparent wear layer 16 is arranged as a protection on top of the print layer 14. The backing layer 12c is configured so as to mechanically counterbalance the wear layer 16, thus eliminating or at least reducing the any curling of the floor covering 10. A glass veil 12d is arranged between the core layers 12a and 12b. The glass veil is preferably arranged in the mechanically neutral plane of the floor covering 10.

[0061] The printed décor 14b mimics a surface of natural flooring (in the illustrated example, of hardwood flooring) and is obtained by digitally printing a synthetic (computer-generated) image as schematically illustrated in FIG. 2. The décor is printed preferably using an industrial single-pass digital inkjet printer 18 with at least four colour channels (e.g. CMYK or CcMmYK colour models). Other printers, e.g. a multi-pass printer, could be used as alternatives but are less preferred. After printing, the print layer 14 is assembled with the other layers of the decorative surface covering. In the illustrated example, the assembly of the different layers 12, 14 and 16 is done by lamination but any other suitable process could in fact be used.

[0062] The printer 18 is connected with a computer 20 or a computer cluster (e.g. a server farm) that generates the synthetic images to be printed. According to a first preferred embodiment of the invention, the synthetic images are generated on the fly, i.e. in parallel with the printing. After a synthetic image is generated it is added to a queue (e.g. a first-in-first-out buffer) and dispatched to the printer 18. The printer 18 preferably stores the arriving images in a local buffer memory and prints them one after the other. Alternatively, the synthetic images are generated beforehand and stored in a memory from which they are transferred to the printer 18. Yet another option is to continuously generate one “endless” synthetic image, which is streamed or otherwise communicated to the printer 18, where it is assembled again and printed. Image parts that have been printed may thereafter be “forgotten” by the printer. In practice that means that older image parts may be dumped or simply overwritten by new image parts yet to be printed.

[0063] As best illustrated in FIGS. 1 and 3, the synthetic image comprises areal and lineal features characteristic of the material to be mimicked. After printing, the synthetic image covers a surface of at least 10 m.sup.2. (in FIG. 3, the total printed-out area amounts to about 16 m.sup.2.) The areal and lineal features are distributed over the image surface so as to form a random pattern inspired from nature. The areal and lineal features are distributed in such a way as to reduce the probability of a noticeable repetition. In particular, any geometrically convex subarea of at least 0.01 m.sup.2 having an aspect ratio not greater than 5 is unique within a radius R of at least 2 m, preferably more, e.g. 3 m, 4 m, 5 m or 7.5 m. FIG. 3 illustrates that a visual motif 22 may appear several times in the synthetic image. If any copy of the visual motif 22 is mirrored (as in FIG. 3) or differently oriented in the plane of the image, it is nevertheless considered as a repetition. Repetition of visual motifs cannot easily be detected by an observer 26 if the above-defined criteria are met.

[0064] FIG. 4-6 illustrate one among several processes for generating a synthetic image usable in the context of the present invention. The illustrated process starts from a database (image library) 28 containing various local prototype motifs, hereinafter also referred to as “base images”, 28a, 28b, 28c, 28x. The base images are snippets from photographs and categorized in accordance with the material type (stone, wood, cork, bamboo, etc.), the material sub-type (a more precise designation of the material). The snippets comprise areal and lineal features forming characteristic visual motifs of the natural material. The user may be prompted to enter the type (and sub-type) of material he wants to mimic, whereupon corresponding base images are selected from the database. In case of a large database, a subset of, rather than all of, the base images meeting the selection criteria may be selected. Whereas that could be done by the user, an automatic (e.g. a random) selection is preferred. The base images are then assigned to different positions in a canvas area 30, which is to become the synthetic image.

[0065] The distribution is random and respects certain predefined constraints. Preferably, for instance, the base images are placed in such a way that they do not overlap. Another constraint may be that the base images are distributed on a grid defining rows and/or columns and/or a honeycomb pattern, or the like. Yet another constraint may be that the content of each base image is aligned in a predefined way. For instance, in the case of snippets representing visual motifs of a wood floor, one constraint may be that the grain of the wood depicted on the different snippets is more or less aligned.

[0066] Last but not least, one constraint may be that each base image is inserted only once into the canvas area or that a second copy of each base image is not inserted into the canvas area within a certain radius from the first copy of the base image. Preferably, each base image in the database comprises an attribute from which it may be inferred by the processor within which radius the base image must not be repeated. Such attribute could be an empirically determined indicator of how eye-catching a base image is in comparison to the other base images. The more eye-catching a base image is, the greater will then be the radius within which the processor will prevent any repetition. As an alternative, the minimum radius for a repetition could be used as said attribute.

[0067] FIG. 5 shows that the base images are arranged loosely, so as to leave gaps 32 there between. In the next step, the processor fills up the gaps 32 by extrapolation of the lineal and area features of the base images into the gaps and blending the extrapolated features into one another. The base images may remain unchanged but it is preferred to modify also the base images in order to achieve a homogeneity (especially in terms of colours) across the synthetic image. It is worthwhile noting that the extrapolation is not confined to a linear extrapolation but preferably mimics the features contained in the base images, e.g. by introducing “self-similarity” at different scale. The step of optically blending the base images into one another eventually yields the synthetic image 33 (FIG. 6), which exhibits a generally seamless appearance, i.e. wherein the boundaries of the individual base images are no longer discernible by eye.

[0068] It may be worth mentioning that the base images could also be arranged so as to define a dense mosaic in the canvas area (essentially devoid of interstices between the base images). In this case, the step of optically blending the base images into one another requires the modification of the boarder zones of some or all of the base images.

[0069] After the different layers 12, 14 and 16 have been assembled, the multilayer floor covering 10 is preferably cut into individual elements (planks, panels, tiles or the like). The cutting is preferably achieved in register with the print layer (i.e. along predefined lines). Finally, connection profiles are machined into the side edges of the floor covering elements. The connecting profiles of opposite edges are preferably complementarily shaped, e.g. as male and female profiles. FIG. 7 shows the connection profiles of two adjacent floor covering elements 10a, 10b in the coupled state. The first connection profile M has a recess 34 at the bottom face 35 of the floor covering element and a tongue 36 overhanging the recess 34. The second connection profile F has a protrusion 38 at the bottom face 35 of the floor covering element and a groove 42 for receiving the tongue 36 of the male profile M.

[0070] The thickness (or height) of the substructure 12 (including all of its sublayers 12a-d) preferably amounts to between 1 mm and 7.5 mm. The wear layer 16 preferably has a thickness between 0.1 mm and 1.8 mm. The thickness of the print layer 14 preferably amounts to between 0.05 mm and 0.25 mm. The thicknesses of the different layers are preferably chosen such that the floor covering elements 10a, 10b have a total height of 10 mm or less, e.g. 9 mm, 8 mm, 7 mm, 6 mm, 5 mm, 4 mm, 3.5 mm or 3 mm.

[0071] FIG. 8 illustrates a further process for generating a synthetic image usable in the context of the present invention. The process of FIG. 8 uses a 3D model 44 of the material to be mimicked. In FIG. 8, the 3D model represents a tree but that is for illustration only. If, for instance, the material to be mimicked is granite, one would use a 3D model of a granite rock. The 3D model is (virtually) sliced, whereby a 2D surface 46 is obtained. It may be noted that one is not limited to planar cuts of the 3D model. Indeed, one may “carve” out any 2D surface embedded within the 3D model. If not already planar, the 2D surface is then mapped into a plane (preferably using a diffeomorphism or similar transformation). Preferably, the 2D surface is smooth so as to avoid visible discontinuities after the mapping step. The 2D patterns thus obtained may be used for printing if the resolution is sufficient.

[0072] With respect to FIG. 8 it is now supposed that the resolution of the 3D model 44 (and thus of the 2D surface 46) is not sufficient for printing and/or a different image is desired. The image generation process uses a database 48 of local prototype motifs 48a, 48b, 48c, 48d . . . . The local prototype motifs 48a, 48b, 48c, 48d, . . . are snippets from photographs and categorized in accordance with the material type (stone, wood, cork, bamboo, etc.), the material sub-type (a more precise designation of the material). The image generation process uses a multiscale approach to generate the synthetic image. The 2D surface 46 obtained from the 3D model is used to coarsely define the structure of the texture. Local prototype motifs (of the same material) from the database 48 are selected and arranged on the 2D surface 46 in such a way that good fit on a coarse scale is achieved. Detail is added using a multiscale locally Gaussian approach. In the end a high-resolution synthetic image is obtained, which, on the coarse scales is similar to the 2D surface 46 but wherein high-resolution detail 50 results from a multivariate Gaussian distribution.

[0073] FIG. 9 is an illustration of how a 3D model 44 of a material to be mimicked may be acquired. A sample of the material to be mimicked 52 is scanned by a scanning apparatus 54 in three dimensions using any suitable technology (e.g. X-ray tomography, ultrasound, magnetic resonance tomography, thermographic imaging, photography, etc., or any combination thereof). Acquisition of 3D images may be combined with the acquisition of photographs. Examples of scanning apparatuses are, for instance, available from Microtec (e.g. CT Log™ or Goldeneye™). The data are combined into a 3D virtual model 44, which may be explored and enhanced on a workstation 56, a computer, a notebook, a tablet or even a smartphone, provided the processing power thereof is sufficient to for the purpose.

[0074] While specific embodiments have been described herein in detail, those skilled in the art will appreciate that various modifications and alternatives to those details could be developed in light of the overall teachings of the disclosure. Accordingly, the particular arrangements disclosed are meant to be illustrative only and not limiting as to the scope of the invention, which is to be given the full breadth of the appended claims and any and all equivalents thereof.