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A protocol for validating anthropometric accuracy of computer manikins using a boundary family was proposed. Three commercial computer manikin systems were validated by this method, and errors were calculated for 4 dimensions (thumb tip reach, dactylion height, dactylion height, overhead and span) measured on 9 representative body forms. The validation protocol was applicable to all three systems. Results were reproducible, and the operation was not difficult. Whereas, definitions of measurements used to generate a body form in the software were unclear. The number of errors (race × representative body forms × measurements) to be evaluated may be large, but visualization and statistics can help in understanding the results.

An auto-landmarking method for foot measurement was developed. With most of the conventional methods, landmarks of the face and the body were estimated using the curvature, textures and statistics information of body dimensions. In this method, landmarks of the foot were estimated by deformation of the generic foot model. Variation of foot shape was represented by the spatial distortion based on the Free Form Deformation (FFD). The generic foot model was deformed and fit into a new measured foot. Landmarks on the deformed generic foot model were projected to the surface of the measured foot. The mean absolute error of the estimated landmarks was 2.8 [mm]. The error of this method is appropriate to distinguish foot shapes for selecting shoes on a retail store, however it is insufficient for anthropometric database.

A way to calculate representative forms from given set of forms was developed, in which surface data is modeled by polygons based on landmarks. Inter-individual distances are defined as distortions in FFD control points. By calculating inter-individual distances for all possible pairs of forms, a distribution of 3D forms in n-dimensional space is obtained using MDS. Each MDS dimension represents independent shape factors. Forms with specific MDS scores such as (0.5,0,0,0), (1,0,0,0) in standard deviation units are calculated as weighted averages of all actual forms. An FFD transformation grid is calculated that represents systematic form transformation along an MDS dimension. Forms with different scores for only the first MDS dimension and average scores (=0) for other MDS dimensions are calculated using these transformation grids.