Virtual Designer

Hi all, I am new to this board and am hoping someone might be able to point me in the right direction. I am interested in creating a simple design center.

An example of what I am referring to is at

http://www.bbjlinen.com/Design-Your-Event-Table

I am not looking at this intricate, but am wondering about how to one would go about doing a simple pattern selector where a user can click the pattern and have it overlaid on a chair without having to preload 100s of images of the same chair photographed with the different fabrics. I thought there might be a way to do this with actionscript/dynamic masking etc…

Any help would be greatly appreciated.