Robo Sew

Stiffening the fabric is a great conceptual leap.  They can stiffen it right off the roll and laser cut the pattern.  But as presented, it couldn’t sew a bathtub floor.  They’ll need a pliable stiffener and bending processes to make it really useful.  Most garments have seams where non-identical curves are joined – those are non-planar shapes.

Looks like the bending-bots are well on their way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djPdzCj4k14

cool video

it seems like if you wanted to “robo sew”, a different paradigm would be more efficient

heat welding rather than sewing

maybe something that creates fabric into finished good like a 3D printer

they have machines that automatically knit socks, maybe something like that