Page 58 - Anthropometry, Apparel Sizing and Design

54 Anthropometry, Apparel Sizing and Design

There are two trends in 3-D anthropometry. One is high-quality scanning for a
national sizing survey using a high-end scanning system. The other is in-shop or
in-house scanning for retail use using an inexpensive scanning system or a
smartphone. Only a few high-end scanning systems are now available, because two
manufacturers of high-quality whole-body scanners discontinued scanner production
due to the small market size. Users (institutes) can select a suitable scanner for their
sizing surveys based on a standard quality assessment report. Moreover, institutes
should conduct quality control for their sizing surveys.
On the other hand, inexpensive whole-body scanners are available for use in shops.
Recently released, very inexpensive sensors may have accelerated the general trend
for a lower price. These scanners may have sufficient accuracy to make made-to-
measure garments or select the best fitting size (Daanen and Haar, 2013). Distributed
scanners can accumulate a large amount of scan data in a short time. In the future
large-scale but not very accurate scan data and small-scale but very accurate data
may be utilized for developing software utilized for customer services.
For the quality control of large-scale data, it may be necessary to establish a pro-
tocol for evaluating the comparability between the automatically calculated landmark
locations and landmark locations decided by a skilled anthropometrist.

2.7 Sources of further information and advice

Definitions of landmarks and measurement items are described in textbooks of anthro-
pometry. Several manuals of anthropometry are available through the Internet. Man-
uals for a specific survey provide practical information on procedures to decide
landmark locations and to take measurements, though measurement items specific
to garment design are not included in most of these textbooks and manuals.
Martin’s textbook (Martin and Knußmann, 1988) is the most frequently used ref-
erence. Landmarks and measurement items for physical anthropology and ergonomics
are briefly described. Sometimes, it is unclear how to handle the instrument to take a
measurement as described. A book by Cameron (1984) describes measurement items
used for the study of child growth using photos. A textbook by Norton and Olds (1996)
describes measurement items used for sports and health sciences.
A reference manual by Lohman et al. (1988) describes a measurement technique
and information on literature and the reliability for several measurement items. This
book also includes chapters on measurement errors and which side to measure.
A measurer handbook used in the anthropometric survey by the US Army (Clauser
et al., 1988) describes over 100 measurements including some for garment design.
Each landmark and measurement item is described in detail in a practical way using
a photo and a figure.
A color atlas by van Sint Jan (2007) describes bones and how to palpate bones to
find landmarks. Though most of these landmarks are not used in anthropometry for
garment design, it provides useful anatomical information. Errors in landmarking
in traditional methods are quantified in Kouchi and Mochimaru (2010).