Investigation on body sizes and skin surface area variations due to joint movements and its application on woven uniform fit improvements

Abstract

Joint movement has been recognized as the primary cause for body surface change. Few studies have been conducted to evaluate quantitatively and systematically skin surface changes with reference to different joint motions, because there is no effective and reliable method to capture the full-body real skin surface under dynamic motion. This topic is of interest for a number of research fields. In medicine and surgery, for example, skin deformation is specified not only in dynamic status but also in composition analysis for prevention of wrinkle generation or certain skin diseases, although it has usually been studied in a small-range of skin area. For human modelling, the human body has been simulated in various poses for further study in certain environments, for instance for animation purpose, but body surface deformation was mainly studied for simulation rather than capturing and analysing the real status. Based on the limitations of prior research, in this study, we extend consideration to garment fit improvement based on the effects of skin surface variation under dynamic motion. This study has therefore been separated into five parts. The first part is a literature review and identification of the existing research gap. The second part is a preliminary investigation of the needs and issues for fit and ease in current woven garments in various industries including catering, hospitality and customer service. The third part proposes a novel method including 3D body scanning and motion capture with the help of human/shape modelling to collect skin surface variation under full-body movements; the validity and application scope of this method are also examined. Full-body skin was segmented for analysis and the detailed variation for each joint is quantified. The fourth part further improves the method with automated pipelines of all processes, also extracts body measurements from every dynamic pose, laying the groundwork for garment improvement to ensure dynamic fit. Variations in key body dimensions were recorded and organized, then combined with the mainstream patterning method for ease improvement. With improved ease, shirts, jackets and trousers were accordingly reconstructed based on the body figures of rowing athletes for production. Finally, the fifth part presents a wear trial experiment for athletes to evaluate the garments with improved fit, thus confirming the effectiveness of this method applied to garment construction. This study developed and validated a novel method to explore full-body skin variation under joint motion. The results involved surface area changes and body measurement variations. The former could be useful in fields such as ergonomic product improvements, while the latter was further applied in this study on garment construction for a specified population (i.e. rowing athletes), which could be a valuable reference for future research on garment design in the field and the academy.