Can we reconstruct a human body remotely?

Citation

Stylios, G.K. (2000), "Can we reconstruct a human body remotely?", International Journal of Clothing Science and Technology, Vol. 12 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijcst.2000.05812eaa.001

Can we reconstruct a human body remotely?

Can we reconstruct a human body remotely?

One of the areas that traditional textile and clothing research overlaps with the more appealing imaging and visualisation research is that of measurement and modelling of the shape of the human body. The challenge here is not only in overcoming the sizing problems that we face but to provide better technological means to reconstruct the human body for use in Internet retailing, home shopping, or global retailing. At the end of the day we like to see ourselves trying clothes on in virtuality, or as it is referred to perform "virtual wearer trials".

Global retailing is an area of enormous interest because it challenges the conventional way of buying, selling, producing and distributing clothes. There are three important areas which if integrated can introduce new ways of designing, selling and producing garments. The three areas are the simulation and animation of garments and humans, the on-line exchange of technical and trade data, and the on-line synthetic human modelling system. The latter is of great interest seen as having a pivotal role.

Research should be based on a parametrical general geometric model of a human. This means that either a man or a woman should synthetically change in body size and shape on-line by real data, which can be provided by the user of the system, who in most cases, would be the reconstructed human as well. Research should be developing a human model, which allows the 3D reconstruction of the human body from 2D data by imaging techniques, and the data structure of the human model should be able to be changed in order to represent the different shapes of individuals. Initial work should therefore be concentrated on constructing a compact, parametrical, geometric virtual human body model that can easily be changed under different human body data.

Such a convenient image measurement technique has already been achieved, which is capable of obtaining body data needed for modelling a body from 2D images of a person. In order to implement such a system, a SQL Server database was needed, in which the user is able to collect, classify, analyse and manage data. The research aims to bring together on-line human body data measurement, collection, modelling reconstruction and visualisation, into one system. This would constitute a comprehensive, remote, on-line human body modelling system for realistic 3D virtual human modelling based on 2D images which would be used in a number of areas not only in clothing, but in imaging, visualisation, virtual reality and elsewhere.

The overall objective of the research is to establish an on-line human body measurement and reconstruction system which would integrate the following parts: image processing and 3D body profile recognition, a body reconstruction system, human head reconstruction and image mapping, and data storage and retrieval. A schematic of the proposed system is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. The on-line human body measurement and reconstruction system

The results of this research were presented at the 3rd International Conference on Innovation and Modelling of Clothing Engineering Processes, IMCEP 2000, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, October 11-13, 2000, Maribor, Slovenia.

George K. Stylios