A Fit Metric for Footwear Customization

Abstract

Due to rapid advancements in technology and the globalization of companies, customized products are becoming key to a company’s competitiveness, efficiency, profitability and market share. As a result, there is a trend toward extensive collection of individual customer data and the footwear industry is no exception. Even though the importance of footwear fit and comfort is well surveyed, the term, fit still remains somewhat subjective. A few studies have provided a methodology to quantify fit in 2-D. The 2-D fit metric has been worthwhile to show many footwear fitting problems. In this paper, the 2-D methodology has been extended to 3-D. First, the foot and the last outlines were aligned. Then, considering the heel height and toe-spring of the last, the height dimensions were included in the computation of the potential mismatch between foot and shoe. For ease of interpretation, the mismatch was color-coded. The proposed method enables footwear fit quantification so that fit-related comfort may be predicted. Furthermore, if a 3D foot scan is available, the proposed method will enable the manufacturer to choose the "best-fitting " last from a group of available lasts.