Abstract: Manufacturing of a shoe or a portion of a shoe is enhanced by executing various shoe-manufacturing processes in an automated fashion. For example, information describing a shoe part may be determined, such as an identification, an orientation, a color, a surface topography, an alignment, a size, etc. Based on the information describing the shoe part, automated shoe-manufacturing apparatuses may be instructed to apply various shoe-manufacturing processes to the shoe part, such as a pickup and placement of the shoe part with a pickup tool.

Abstract: A system and method for allowing a 2D character to perform a 3D motion having x-axis, y-axis and z-axis information is provided. In the present invention, 3D human motion data entered is analyzed to obtain motion information of angles, coordinates and depths of all human body parts in the 3D motion data. By matching a sprite with the 3D motion, an image of each body part of the 2D character is capable switching to a reasonable image for a particular angle according to angle information of the 3D motion data, and adjusting a size or deforming the image of each body part of the 2D character according to the depth and angle information of the 3D motion data. Therefore, the 2D character is allowed to achieve visual performance effects of frontal performance, sideways performance, turning performance or rear performance having depth information as a 3D character.

Abstract: A system and method for allowing a 2D character to perform a 3D motion having x-axis, y-axis and z-axis information is provided. In the present invention, 3D human motion data entered is analyzed to obtain motion information of angles, coordinates and depths of all human body parts in the 3D motion data. By matching a sprite with the 3D motion, an image of each body part of the 2D character is capable switching to a reasonable image for a particular angle according to angle information of the 3D motion data, and adjusting a size or deforming the image of each body part of the 2D character according to the depth and angle information of the 3D motion data. Therefore, the 2D character is allowed to achieve visual performance effects of frontal performance, sideways performance, turning performance or rear performance having depth information as a 3D character.

Abstract: The specification discloses an electrophotographic image forming system. The system includes a photoconductor connected to a first electric potential constituting substantially an elongated cylindrical drum provided for rotating around an axis along an elongated direction of the cylindrical drum having an external charging surface disposed thereon. The electrophotographic system further includes a non-contact charger which includes a plurality of mutually insulated conductive films each having a sharp edge pointing perpendicularly to the charging surface. The non-contact charger further includes a packaging frame for securely attaching to and supporting the plurality of mutually insulated conductive films thereon. The plurality of mutually insulated conductive films are connected to a second electric potential different from the first electric potential for activating an electric discharge between the sharp edges of the conductive film and the charging surface.

Abstract: A direct contact type charging component for use in electrophotographic process containing a protective surface layer which comprises a polyether-ester-amide block copolymer. The copolymer is environmentally stably having a volume resistivity between 10.sup.6 Ohm-cm and 10.sup.12 Ohm-cm and a Shore hardness between Shore D 5 and Shore D 90. During the electrophotographic process, a voltage is applied externally to the charging component to cause a charged component, which typically comprises a photo-conductive drum, to become electrostatically charged. In the preferred embodiment, the voltage consists of a direct voltage of .+-.200 to .+-.2,000 V overlapped with an alternating voltage having a peak-to-peak voltage of 4,000 V.