M Shahiryar Afzal 0150 research paper

measurements required for specialized
garment design
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panelŁukasz Markiewicz a, Marcin Witkowski a, Robert Sitnik a, Elżbieta Mielicka b
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https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2017.04.052Get rights and content
Highlights
 •
A complete guide for anthropometric data acquisition from a 3D scan
is introduced.
 •
A comparison with manual measurements and a state-of-the-art
system is presented.
 •
Common 3D anthropometry problems and origins are discussed
Abstract
3D anthropometry is key to the automation and facilitation of tedious,
costly, and time-consuming traditional anthropometric tasks such as the size
designation of a specialized garment.
This article provides a short survey of 3D anthropometry in garment design.

The results show that due to a lack of detailed, complex analyses of the
entire anthropometric procedure from a raw body scan to a set of
anthropometric measurements, there was a need to prepare and describe a
comprehensive system from scratch. The aim of this article is, therefore, to
present the developed 3D anthropometric solution, along with fully
documented algorithms for automatic measurement extraction from a 3D
body scan, results of tests, and its validation.
Based on a list of desired measurements, a general processing path was

prepared. Its methods are described in detail, including algorithms for body
segmentation, characteristic points localization (body landmarking), and
final specific measurements of girth, arc, and linear lengths (widths and
heights). Furthermore, pseudo-code for the algorithms and 3D description
of the characteristic points is included in Appendices A and B. The scanning
procedure and posture recommendations are explained. Finally, test results
and analyses are presented.
The validation dataset consisted of 40 subjects (21 male and 19 female

volunteers) aged between 25 and 55 years, weighing from 55 to 105 kg and
150 to 205 cm tall. Each of the subjects was measured once manually and
three times automatically by both our system and the Human Solutions
system to check the repeatability of the consecutive measurements. The
performance of the 3D anthropometric system was evaluated by comparing
its output with the manual measurements treated as the best possible
ground truth. The output was also compared with the results from a leading
commercial 3D anthropometric scanning solution provided by Human
Solutions GmbH. The accuracy of both systems was measured using both
the relative percent and millimeter difference error. Consistency and
absolute agreement between systems and manual measurements were
evaluated using the Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC) method. Finally,
comparability between the manual and automated measurements was
assessed according to ISO 20685. It appeared that for our system, only 5
out of 26 measurement types passed the highly demanding test from ISO
20685 and for the Human Solutions system, 3 out of 26 types passed the
test. However, most of the accuracy, consistency, and absolute agreement
results appeared to be on a satisfactory level according to garment design
experts taking part in the project. Girth measurements were characterized
by the highest degree of consistency and absolute agreement, while arc
length measurements were still acceptable, but least satisfactory. The
degrees of general consistency and absolute agreement between our system
and manual measurements fell into the excellent interval of the ICC
practical significance measure. These tests also showed high inter-rater
agreement between the proposed system and the commercial one (the
Human Solutions product). It appeared that the current version of the
system can provide results relatively close to those of the state-of-the-art
solution. However the system still needs further development and tests on a
larger population, as it is not completely free of errors, particularly those
resulting from improper body landmarking and inconsistent posture.
Introduction
Anthropometry can be defined as the science that deals with the
measurement of the size, shape, and other features of the human body
(Pheasant & Haslegrave, 2005
Traditionally, these metrics have been measured manually by a trained

operator. Since 3D body scanners became a subject of extensive research in
late 1980s, however, the importance of semi- and fully-automatic 3D
anthropometry has grown accordingly (Fan et al., 2004, Tyler et al., 2012).
This kind of anthropometry is widely used in medicine, human system
engineering (including clothing), comparative morphology, virtual reality,
and other fields (Jones and Rioux, 1997, Werghi, 2007). In this research, 3D
anthropometry is treated as a tool for the size designation of a specialized
garment.
The silhouette of a human body changes significantly over time. Therefore,

there is a need to monitor its anthropometric parameters periodically in
order to provide the best fitting and most ergonomic clothing, especially for
people like soldiers, police officers, sportsmen, and others for whom the
correct garment fit plays an important role. In order to meet this need, an
up-to-date anthropometric database of a representative population needs to
be maintained. This is a very costly and tedious task because of the size of
the representative population and the complexity of the measurements. One
group affected by the outdated size designation systems are Polish officers.
To solve this issue, a project named “Formfit—Anthropometric studies of
officers employed by the Polish Ministry of the Interior (MSW)” was
launched by the Polish National Centre for Research and Development
(NCBIR). The expected outcome of the project is an updated and unified
system for the size designation of the body dimensions of MSW officers
distinguished by gender. As the traditional approach of gathering body
measurements data is often operator dependent, too expensive, and time-
consuming, it was decided that the project should take advantage of 3D
anthropometry.
The aim of this article is to present the measurement algorithms for

anthropometric data acquisition developed within the Formfit project. The
project required the system to be easily expandable, flexible, and
transparent. Two possible solutions for the acquisition of 3D body surface
measurements were considered: using a specialized commercial system or
developing a new one. A review of existing solutions revealed that none of
the systems available in the market provided all of the desired
measurements and met the project requirements, so the second option was
chosen. Developing such a system from scratch required a careful selection
of methods and procedures. Despite the extensive research that has
recently been
done on the topic of 3D body measurement, a detailed, complex analysis of

the whole procedure from a raw data scan to set of measurements is still
lacking. Existing publications tend to cover particular elements of the
desired system but do not describe it in detail. Furthermore, the ready-to-
use commercial solutions were not helpful, as they were obviously closed
projects without publicly available technical documentation that would be
useful for new systems development. We therefore decided to describe the
entire process in this paper. For validation purposes, manual
anthropometric measurements were performed and treated as a gold
standard. Additionally, in order to provide at least a partial comparison with
the professional solutions, the widely known commercial system from
Human Solutions GmbH and Vitronic GmbH was used. The validation
dataset consisted of 21 male and 19 female volunteers who were each
scanned three times. Although the 3D scanner was also developed during
this project, the 3D scanning itself will not be covered in detail as the
described measurement algorithms are hardware independent and should
work for any 3D whole body scan.
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Section snippets
The state of the art

The typical 3D anthropometry process consists of human body scanning,
data segmentation, body landmarking, and feature extraction. Other
approaches for the acquisition of human size data exist (e.g., model-based
fitting based on scans (Hirshberg, Loper, Rachlin, & Black, 2012) or derived
from orthogonal-view images (Zhou, Chen, Chen, Zhao, & Zhao, 2016) but
will not be covered in this survey as their approximate nature does not
provide the required accuracy.
There are currently two major
Materials
Automated anthropometric measurements would not be possible without a
specialized 3D whole-body scanner. For this research, two systems were
used: the OGX Mobile Measurement System (OGX|MMS), based on structured
light measurement developed within the Formfit project (Sitnik, 2005); and
for comparison purposes, one of the current state-of-the-art systems—
Human Solutions (HS), which utilizes the Vitronic VITUS smart XXL 3D body
laser scanner and the Anthroscan ScanWorX analysis software (Human
Methods
In order to automatically obtain the list of 34 measurements (Table 2 above)
from 3D virtual data, a number of methods were implemented. Based on an
analysis and assessment of existing procedures and technologies, the
following generalized processing path was proposed (Fig. 5)
Results
The scanning procedure was similar for both systems. The subjects were first
introduced to the scanners. Next, they needed to undress to undergarments
and take the proper position inside the scanning volume. The volunteers
were asked to put their feet on marked signs, keep their upper limbs away
from their torso, and stay still during the scanning process because high-
degree body sways could lead to an improper scan. Only one scan was
needed to perform the calculations with the OGX|MMS, whereas
General behavior of the scanning systems

A rough analysis of Fig. 13, Fig. 14, Fig. 15 led to a preliminary conclusion
that both OGX|MMS and HS provided similar accuracy. It appeared that the
median signed percent error as well as the millimeter difference error
seemed to be generally a bit smaller for OGX|MMS. As it turned out, the girth
measurement algorithms were the most accurate and stable. Widths and
heights were usually also measured with a satisfactory level of reliability. In
contrast, the arc measurement process was
Conclusions
In this paper, we present a full processing path for comprehensive 3D
anthropometric data acquisition, starting from raw data acquired with a 3D
scanner and ending with complex multi-segment measurements. All of the
crucial algorithm steps for the universal and automatic 3D anthropometric
body measurement system are covered here in one paper, which was not
seen in literature before. Validation was performed on 40 subjects, including
comparison with ground-truth manual measurements and a
Acknowledgment
This work has been financially supported by the National Centre for Research
and Development as part of the project DOB-BIO6/20/74/2014, realized
within the Defence and Security Programme (2014–2017) and statutory work
of IMiF Warsaw University of Technology.

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measurements required for specialized

This article provides a short survey of 3D anthropometry in garment design.

Based on a list of desired measurements, a general processing path was

The validation dataset consisted of 40 subjects (21 male and 19 female

Traditionally, these metrics have been measured manually by a trained

The silhouette of a human body changes significantly over time. Therefore,

The aim of this article is to present the measurement algorithms for

done on the topic of 3D body measurement, a detailed, complex analysis of

Access through your organization

The state of the art

General behavior of the scanning systems

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