Automation of the shoe last grading process according to international sizing systems

The last is the basic industrial component in footwear manufacturing, from which product development starts. Correct last grading ensures the best fit for the intended group of users of the footwear model to be produced. The size marked on the last should respect the specific intervals defined in the different international sizing systems, like the European, UK, US or Mondopoint systems, which are all described in international standards. New approaches in the field of CAD/CAM have emerged over recent years towards the automation of this process. However, these are partial approaches that neither address the grading process according to the different standards nor consider the various parts of the shoe that are not affected by size increments. This paper presents a new accurate and efficient technique for the automation of the shoe last grading process based on the conjugate gradient method. Through this method, it is possible to obtain a graded shoe last that conforms to the international standards in force relative to shoe sizing and allows for the shoe parts that are not affected by size increments. This technique is based on the target measures of length and perimeter of the last to be graded and aims to minimise the quadratic difference between these values and those obtained from the graded last. This method has been evaluated through a battery of tests performed on a geometrically heterogeneous group of shoe lasts. The results obtained were accurate and the execution time was fast enough to be used for mass production

Apparel sizing using trimmed PAM and OWA operators

This paper is concerned with apparel sizing system design. One of the most important issues in the apparel development process is to define a sizing system that provides a good fit to the majority of the population. A sizing system classifies a specific population into homogeneous subgroups based on some key body dimensions. Standard sizing systems range linearly from very small to very large. However, anthropometric measures do not grow linearly with size, so they can not accommodate all body types. It is important to determine each class in the sizing system based on a real prototype that is as representative as possible of each class. In this paper we propose a methodology to develop an efficient apparel sizing system based on clustering techniques jointly with OWA operators. Our approach is a natural extension and improvement of the methodology proposed by McCulloch, Paal, and Ashdown (1998), and we apply it to the anthropometric database obtained from a anthropometric survey of the Spanish female population, performed during 2006.This paper has been partially supported by grants TIN2009-14392-C02-01, TIN2009-14392-C02-02, GV/2011/004 and P1.1A2009-02. We would like also to thank the Biomechanics Institute of Valencia for providing us the data set, and to the Spanish "Ministerio de Sanidad y Consumo" for having promoted and coordinated the "Anthropometric Study of the Female Population in Spain".Ibanez, M.; Vinue, G.; Alemany Mut, MS.; Simo, A.; Epifanio, I.; Domingo, J.; Ayala, G. (2012). Apparel sizing using trimmed PAM and OWA operators. Expert Systems with Applications. 39(12):10512-10520. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2012.02.127S1051210520391

Portwest’s future strategy: Achieving €1Billion Turnover – Portwest and the Global Workwear Market

Portwest is a global manufacturer and innovator of workwear, safetywear and PPE and one of the fastest growing workwear companies in the world. The company has pursed growth successfully for the last 20 years, successfully employing new market entry strategies along with strategic acquisitions to gain footholds in over 130 countries worldwide. The company has also maintained a vertically integrated supply chain, owning factories and distribution centres. Growth can come at a cost- increasingly complex operations, a growing product portfolio and an increased exposure to risk in terms of business continuity. Should Portwest continue to aggressively target growth through new territories, or consolidate existing markets and streamline existing operations

LymphGo : Distal Limb Pressure Device

This report provides an overview of the development and testing of a wearable, pneumatic distal limb pressure device, called “LymphGo”, designed to manage swelling in the calf caused by lymphedema. Lymphedema is caused by insufficiency or damage in the venous system, manifesting itself as swelling due to the buildup of lymphatic fluid, especially in the lower legs. Compression methods are currently the most common method of symptom management. These devices are either inadequate in redistributing fluid up the leg to alleviate swelling and cause painful ulcers due to consistent static pressure or completely immobilize the user to achieve adequate functionality. The device described in this report seeks to create a mobile, actively driven device to act as a middle ground between existing solutions to help manage or lessen the symptoms of lymphedema

Portwest’s Future Strategy: Fashionising Workwear – Threading The Needle

Portwest- should they further pursue the leisurewear / workwear market or should they focus on expanding the current range? Portwest is a global manufacturer and innovator of workwear, safetywear and Personal protective equipment (PPE) and one of the fastest growing workwear companies in the world. Recently, the company launched an “Inspired Workwear” collection targeting the leisurewear/workwear market. It is a departure from their traditional markets where their acquisition strategy has seen Portwest rapidly gain market share. Management are concerned that this new departure may take resources from the core business of Workwear and dilute key resources

Automatic tailoring and cloth modelling for animation characters.

The construction of realistic characters has become increasingly important to the production of blockbuster films, TV series and computer games. The outfit of character plays an important role in the application of virtual characters. It is one of the key elements reflects the personality of character. Virtual clothing refers to the process that constructs outfits for virtual characters, and currently, it is widely used in mainly two areas, fashion industry and computer animation. In fashion industry, virtual clothing technology is an effective tool which creates, edits and pre-visualises cloth design patterns efficiently. However, using this method requires lots of tailoring expertises. In computer animation, geometric modelling methods are widely used for cloth modelling due to their simplicity and intuitiveness. However, because of the shortage of tailoring knowledge among animation artists, current existing cloth design patterns can not be used directly by animation artists, and the appearance of cloth depends heavily on the skill of artists. Moreover, geometric modelling methods requires lots of manual operations. This tediousness is worsen by modelling same style cloth for different characters with different body shapes and proportions. This thesis addresses this problem and presents a new virtual clothing method which includes automatic character measuring, automatic cloth pattern adjustment, and cloth patterns assembling. There are two main contributions in this research. Firstly, a geodesic curvature flow based geodesic computation scheme is presented for acquiring length measurements from character. Due to the fast growing demand on usage of high resolution character model in animation production, the increasing number of characters need to be handled simultaneously as well as improving the reusability of 3D model in film production, the efficiency of modelling cloth for multiple high resolution character is very important. In order to improve the efficiency of measuring character for cloth fitting, a fast geodesic algorithm that has linear time complexity with a small bounded error is also presented. Secondly, a cloth pattern adjusting genetic algorithm is developed for automatic cloth fitting and retargeting. For the reason that that body shapes and proportions vary largely in character design, fitting and transferring cloth to a different character is a challenging task. This thesis considers the cloth fitting process as an optimization procedure. It optimizes both the shape and size of each cloth pattern automatically, the integrity, design and size of each cloth pattern are evaluated in order to create 3D cloth for any character with different body shapes and proportions while preserve the original cloth design. By automating the cloth modelling process, it empowers the creativity of animation artists and improves their productivity by allowing them to use a large amount of existing cloth design patterns in fashion industry to create various clothes and to transfer same design cloth to characters with different body shapes and proportions with ease

What's Digital about Fashion Design? Fashion, Technology and the Digital Economy.

A project report resulting from the RCUK funded NEMODE (New Economic Models in the Digital Economy) Network+ scheme. Project was entitled "Enabling the designer fashion community to understand and adopt technologies that lead to New Economic Models in the Digital Economy", and culminated in a workshop for fashion designers and professionals. held on 27th October 2015 at The Photographers Gallery, London. Project was a collaboration with consultancy AAM Associates, London

Fashion misfit: women's dissatisfaction and its implications

This study draws attention to the link between under-developed and ill-informed sizing practices, fit dissatisfaction and the creation of textiles waste. The literature review identifies: issues that limit the effective development and application of sizing systems, the link between the complexities of consumer fit expectations, body image and self esteem and maps the link between fit dissatisfaction and the creation of textiles waste. Data analysis draws from a wider study designed to investigate women’s experiences of dress fit and body image. 20 women aged 18-45 years were audio-recorded while they tried on a number of mass-produced dresses, and were asked to select one dress, which they could keep. All the dresses were selected except one style, which failed to satisfy any of the women’s fit requirements. The findings clearly demonstrate why this dress was considered to be unsatisfactory as well as the subsequent link between poor fit and body dissatisfaction. Findings support the theory that women identify with their clothes’ size and when this link is disrupted it causes discomfort and body dissatisfaction, which in turn contributed to rejection of the garment increasing the potential for the creation of waste. This study is the first to link unsatisfactory fashion sizing practice with the production of textiles waste. The process of capturing women's interactions with high street fashion dresses whilst trying them on, enabled a detailed analysis that contributes new evidence to the debate around sizing practice, poor fit and its impact on body image and self-esteem

Assessing the effort of exercise using low cost sensors

In this work, it is proposed a solution that tries to help the physical education teachers in the assessment of their students, also trying to increase the motivational levels of students with the inclusion of new technologies in class, and with the fact that the presented metric, being estimated for each student from their own effort. It is proposed a solution that uses a sensor, in this case an accelerometer, in order to capture accelerometry data during the execution of four physical activities: volleyball, handball, basketball and futsal. Data was retrieved from two classes of the 9thº Portuguese school year. The device used to capture those accelerometry data was the student’s own smartphones, through a mobile application that collects data and sends it to a server. After that data is uploaded, it is analysed in order to calculate the metric Running Equivalent of Activity (REA). An empiric study was developed aiming at the experimental validation of the metric referred above, having been followed diverse experimental protocols. A set of good practices is suggested for the adoption of the proposed solution, a mean to enable a fair and equitable assessment of the effort applied by the students during the physical education classes.No presente trabalho é proposta uma solução que visa ajudar os professores de educação física a fazer a avaliação dos seus alunos, e os alunos a sentirem-se mais motivados com a inclusão de tecnologia nas aulas de educação física e com o facto da métrica apresentada, ser calculada a partir do esforço de cada um, tentando assim ultrapassar alguns vieses inerentes ao processo de avaliação. Foi proposta uma solução que utiliza um sensor, neste caso o acelerómetro, para a obtenção de dados de acelerometria durante a execução de quatro atividades físicas: voleibol, andebol, basquetebol e futsal. Foram recolhidos dados de duas turmas que frequentam o 9º ano. O dispositivo utilizado para a obtenção desses valores de acelerometria foi o smarpthone dos alunos, através de uma aplicação móvel que é responsável pela recolha dos dados e por os enviar para um servidor. Esses dados foram sintentizados e analisados de forma a calcular a métrica Running Equivalent of Activity (REA). Foi realizado um estudo empírico que visa a validação experimental da referida métrica tendo sido testados diversos protocolos experimentais. São sugeridas um conjunto de boas práticas para a adopção da solução ora proposta, no sentido de permitir uma aferição justa e equitativa do esforço aplicado pelos estudantes nas aulas de Educação Física