by Anke Klepser
Hi everyone,
Hohenstein research team for clothing technology works with 3D scanner systems since 1999. The aim is to take body measurements and geometrical data to provide important information for garment construction, product development and optimization.
One of our recentprojects was concerning sportswear for wheelchair athletes. Garment should be constructed for the specific target group. Therefore, focus was to analyze the change of dimensions and geometry due to specific sports movement and position. We used Kinect sensor and ReconstructMe software for acquisition of handcycling athletes in their sports wheelchairs. The system gave many advantages over stationary 3D bodyscanners: Being able to scan people during training times at different places and acquisition of athletes in handcycles.
We captured the athletes in two shots and merged the files as shown below.
Merging of 3D scan files
One result was that due to the specific posture in the handcycle athletes do have a differing neck position (see image below). Therefore, collars of sports shirts should be constructed differently to prevent discomfort to the customer.
Differing neck position due to different posture in handcycle
With the results of the research project companies are enabled to produce adapted sportswear fulfilling the special requirements of wheelchair athletes.
All images courtesy of Hohenstein Institute. If you have any questions please contact us a.klepser@hohenstein.de.