Page 12 - Anthropometry, Apparel Sizing and Design

New directions in the field of anthropometry, sizing and clothing fit 7

(Simmons, 2001). The total cost of the survey was 6 million dollars, and more
than 4400 people were scanned over a period of 3years (Robinette et al., 1999). With
a view to demonstrate the complexity of the system, it might be mentioned that
before use, the scanner had to be calibrated for the lighting scheme, camera scheme,
landmark detection scheme, scanning garment colors, landmark marking sticker
colors or shapes, luminance versus color for landmark detection and image stitching
accuracy calibration, etc. (Robinette and Daanen, 2003). It took weeks to stitch the
scans together to make the 3-D form and get the final output. A recent study by
Lee et al. (2018) conducted on the head scans from CAESAR survey shows that
scans have holes in occluded areas of the body and require tremendous amount of
manual effort and processing to edit and landmark the scan data before the results
are ready for use of product designers. Though the survey was conducted in 2000,
the expertise to analyze and apply the data obtained from this survey became available
only recently. This indicates that there is a huge phase lag between the time a tech-
nology such as this is developed and the time it takes for practitioners to adopt it.
A lot of developments can happen during this large window of time, and a technology
may actually be rendered redundant by the time people accept and understand it
completely. This is what seems to have happened in the case of 3-D body scanners.
While companies were working to make the booth-type scanners more compact,
efficient, and user-friendly, the market has been flooded with cheaper and more
user-friendly options.
A variety of portable, easy-to-use 3-D scanners have come into the market since the
CAESAR survey. One example is the BodyLux scanner by ViALUX, Germany
(www.vialux.de). The company, set up in the year 2000, provides scanners that mea-
sure 3-D shape based on a combination of micromirror projection and phase-encoded
photogrammetry. The scanner has two parts—a cart with the integrated sensor unit
and a turntable with handhold for the subject to stand on. It requires no special clothing
and scans the body for about 50s. A coordinate triplet, independent of the neighbor-
hood, is calculated by means of projected pattern sequences for each camera pixel.
The 3-D model is generated in real time, and body measurements are automatically
calculated in accordance with specific standards. The lower-body scanner, BodyLux
classic, is configured for customizing the sizing of compression wear. It calculates all
required circumference and length measures from the scan and compares the dimen-
sions of the customer with those in the size tables of compression garment manufac-
turers. The operator helps the customer to select the best product match from the
enlisted suppliers of compression stockings, and the order is generated directly
completing the circle from measurement to product ordering. The system costs about
US$ 22,000 and weighs about 35kg. While the system is cheaper and easier to use, the
scans suffer from similar issues of occlusion and data loss in some parts of the body as
with the booth scanners.
Further development in the field of scanning is that of high-resolution handheld
scanners such as Artec Eva, developed by Artec3D, Luxembourg. The scanner weighs
less than 1kg, costs about US$20,000, and scans and processes data in real time
(Fig. 1.1B). Because of the portability and ease of use, handheld scanners can be used
for special applications that require customization, for example, to measure the