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Full body 3-D scanners 6

Susan P. Ashdown
Department of Fiber Science and Apparel Design, College of Human Ecology,
University of Cornell, Ithaca, NY, United States

6.1 Introduction

Commercially made full-body 3-D scanners have been available since the late 1990s.
These scanners have driven new developments in the arts, entertainment, medicine,
and apparel. The capability of this technology to capture a 3-D image of a full human
body quickly and easily has contributed to the development of realistic animations for
gaming applications and movies, advances in medical diagnostics and treatment, var-
ious technological initiatives in the apparel industry, and many anthropometric studies
that increase our understanding of the anthropometric variation among and within dif-
ferent populations. Recent developments in this technology are making it more widely
available and driving even more uses, for example, as a tool for tracking body changes
with exercise. Software systems that can be used to measure, manipulate, deconstruct,
and modify 3-D body scans are now widely available and user-friendly. Scanners
themselves have changed on the one hand from large, expensive stationary installa-
tions to smaller affordable units on tripods or handheld devices and on the other hand
to multiple sensor installations that can capture the full 3-D body in motion in high
resolution and with great precision. The availability of affordable 3-D printing is also
driving more uses of 3-D body scans, from the marketing of small 3-D portrait stat-
uettes to the 3-D printing of prosthetics.
Three-dimensional scanning of the body has been used by apparel researchers and
the automotive and other industries that require anthropometric data for the last two
decades, since the technology was perfected and commercialized for capturing the
whole body in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Early scanners were expensive and
had a large footprint, which limited their availability for many uses. Although some
scanners could be set up as mobile units, most were stationary. The early scanners
mainly used white light or eye-safe lasers for their light sources, though scanners using
microwaves were also developed. The computing requirements for these early scan-
ners were sometimes met with multiple computers to collect and display the data.
Some scanners only captured surface data; others also had cameras to record color
and texture information, and the microwave scanner could scan through clothing.
Early body scanners in industry were used for custom fit manufacturing on a small
scale, automated size selection, the generation of virtual fit avatars, the manufacture
of dress forms, and for anthropometric studies.
With the recent introduction of improved sensors, infrared light sources, and
upgraded computing capability, 3-D body scanning can now be done very

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