Computerized girth determination for custom footwear manufacture

Abstract

Good fitting footwear requires matching not just the linear dimensions of feet but their girths as well. Footwear fitters have been using manual measurements for a long time, but the development of computerized techniques and scanner technologies have now made automatic determination of different foot dimensions feasible. The resistance to using such computer measurements has been the lack of trust in the accuracy of the data. This paper proposes an approach to obtain the necessary girths of feet in order to customize footwear. The proposed approach attempts to simulate the manual measurement procedures, and its effectiveness is assessed through an experiment with 15 foot castings. The results show that the simulated measurements can be within 5 mm of the manual measurements if the measuring locations can be correctly identified. Linear regressions show that the differences between the manual measurements and the simulated measurements can be modeled with the addition of a systematic error term of less than 4 mm. The computerized acquisition of foot dimensions is a useful way forward for custom shoe manufacturers.