The Evaluation of Scan-Derived Anthropometric Measurements

• Published in: IEEE transactions on instrumentation and measurement Vol. 59; no. 8; pp. 2048 - 2054
• Main Authors: Jun-Ming Lu, Wang, Mao-Jiun J
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.08.2010; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: 3-D body scanner; Acceptability; Accuracy; anthropometric measurement; Anthropometry; Collection; Error analysis; Human; Human subjects; Humans; Industrial engineering; Instrumentation; Instruments; ISO standards; Mannequins; mean absolute difference (MAD); Measurement standards; precision; Scanners; Scanning; Shape measurement; Software measurement; Time measurement; Velocity measurement
• ISSN: 0018-9456; 1557-9662
• DOI: 10.1109/TIM.2009.2031847

The use of 3-D whole body scanners has opened new opportunities for effective anthropometric data collection and its numerous applications. Meanwhile, there is a growing concern about whether the scan-derived measurements are comparable with the manual measurements. In this paper, an experiment was first conducted with 263 human subjects to evaluate the scan-derived measurements. By comparing the mean absolute difference (MAD) between the repeated scan-derived measurements against the interobserver error of the traditional anthropometric survey, the precision of the scan-derived measurements was found to be better than that of the manual measurements. As for accuracy, the results of the paired T-test indicated that some of the scan-derived measurements were significantly different from the corresponding manual measurements. In addition, most of the MADs between the scan-derived measurement and the manual measurement exceed the ISO 20685 criteria. The unacceptable accuracy was possibly due to the variation caused by the human subject. Thus, a mannequin was utilized for a second-stage evaluation of the scan-derived measurements in which the variation of human subject was eliminated. In contrast to scanning human subjects, the experimental results showed that the scan-derived measurements produced acceptable and satisfactory accuracy and precision while scanning a mannequin. As a result, the variation caused by human subject seems to be a critical influencing factor and needs to be minimized in 3-D scanning. Moreover, some important countermeasures are proposed for enhancing the performance of 3-D scanning, including designing supporting devices to reduce body sway, training the staff with adequate measurement skill, and increasing the scanning speed and resolution of the 3-D body scanner.