Apparatus and process for manufacturing of decorative panels and relevant decorative panel.

The present patent application relates to an apparatus and process for manufacturing of decorative panels and to the decorative panel obtained with said apparatus and process.

Decorative panels are very much used in the interior decoration sector, especially for wall covering. Decorative panels with non-abstract images are especially popular, being able to give a special aesthetical value to the wall, similar to a fresco.

To that end, such decorative panels are generally provided with a coating film on which an image is printed.

Nevertheless, such printed image suffers from rapid deterioration, being subjected to the action of weather agents. Moreover, the panel is difficult to clean, because the image can be damaged by the detergent products.

These drawbacks are at least partially solved with the use of decorative panels, which are provided with a layer of glass or other transparent material to cover the image. However, it must be considered that the printed image is very sensitive to the UV radiation of the light passing through the glass. Therefore, also in this case, the image is deteriorated rapidly.

The purpose of the present invention is to eliminate the drawbacks of the prior art by providing an apparatus and process capable of manufacturing decorative panels with image characterised by long duration and high resistance to weather agents and detergents.

A further purpose of the present invention is to provide such an apparatus and process capable of industrially manufacturing perfectly reproducible decorative panels with low production cost and high production rate. These purposes have been achieved according to the invention with the apparatus, process and panel whose characteristics are claimed in the enclosed independent claims 1 , 5 and 9.

Advantageous embodiments are disclosed in the dependent claims. The manufacturing process of decorative panels according to the present invention comprises the following steps:

storage of at least one image in digital format,

conversion of said digital image into a CAD image suitable to be read by a numeric control machine, said CAD image being composed of a plurality of geometrical figures of different size,

transmission of said CAD image to a numerical control cutting machine fed with at least one panel, and

execution of a plurality of holes on the panel by said cutting machine on the geometrical figures of the CAD image, in such a way to obtain at least one perforated decorative panel, with holes having different dimensions and being arranged in such positions to create an image that represents the original digital image.

The advantages of the invention that allows for manufacturing decorative panels in a rapid, inexpensive and perfectly reproducible way are evident.

Being deprived of a printed image, the panel obtained according to the present invention has high resistance to weather agents and detergents used for cleaning.

Additional characteristics of the invention will become more evident after a detailed description that refers to a merely illustrative, not limiting, embodiment, as shown in the enclosed figures, wherein:

Fig. 1 is a block diagram that shows the process and apparatus of the invention;

Fig. 2 is a view of the panel obtained with the process and apparatus of the invention; and

Fig. 2A is an enlarged view of the detail contained in rectangle A of

Fig. 2. Referring to the figures, the process and apparatus for manufacturing of decorative panels according to the present invention are disclosed.

Referring to Fig. 1 , a digital image (1 ) is stored on a memory support, such as the hard-disk (20) of a PC (2). The digital image (1 ) can be digitized in the most common formats, such as for instance *.bmp, *.jpg, *.gif, *lco, and *wmf.

The image (1 ) preferably represents a non-abstract composition, such as for example a person, landscape, one or more objects, etc. and can be taken with a digital photographic camera or loaded from an archive of existing images.

The image (1 ) must respect the minimum resolution requirements measured in pixels, according to the size of the image.

For example, an image with 20x30 mm size in 4:3 format must have minimum resolution of 787x1181 px, that is to say a resolution higher than 1 megapixel preferably.

In this way, the digital image (1 ) can be represented in negative or positive, as if it were a photograph. The contract, brightness and other intrinsic features of the digital image (1 ) must be such to represent an image as much defined as possible, meaning that the image resolution must be higher than the minimum requirements.

The digital mage (1 ) is converted into a CAD image (3), such as for example in *.DXF format, in order to be read by numerical control machines (NCM). The image conversion is made with dedicated CAD-type software installed in the PCT (2). Various types of CAD software with such a function are known on the market, such as for example rendering software to obtain rendering views of products to be produced with numerical control machines.

The conversion of the digital image (2) into CAD image (3) consists in representing the image by means of a set of geometrical figures (circles, hexagons, squares, triangles, etc.) of different size, according to the presence of light and dark in the image and arranged in very exact positions that are recognised by the numerical control machine.

The CAD software is capable of managing the quantity, dimensions and position of the geometrical figures that make up the image. In this way brightness and contrast can be adjusted in the CAD image.

Preferably, for the composition of the image, circles are chosen among the various geometrical figures available. The circle diameter is set in such a way that circles with minimum diameter can be made as holes in a panel by means of the punch of a cutting machine.

Then the CAD image (3) is transmitted to a numerical control cutting machine (4), in which a sheet of hard material, such as steel, hard plastic, glass or wood, is inserted. For each geometrical figure that makes up the CAD image (3), the cutting machine (4) makes a hole with outline corresponding to the geometrical figure.

Accordingly, a perforated decorative panel (5) is obtained from the cutting machine (4), as shown in Figs. 2 and 2A. The decorative panel (5) shows an image (50) obtained with a plurality of holes (51 ) with different diameter, in which the darker parts of the images are represented by the holes with higher diameter and the lighter parts of the image are represented by the areas of the panel without holes.

The decorative panels (5) can have different dimensions, varying from a few square centimetres to hundreds of square metres, such as in the case of panels used to cover a frame or a building facade.

Moreover, the image (50) can be represented on a plurality of panels (5) that are combined together to form the image (50). In this case holes (51 ) representing a part of the image (50) are obtained on each panel (5).

Numerous variations and modifications can be made to the present embodiment of the invention by an expert of the field, while still falling within the scope of the invention as claimed in the enclosed claims.