Feature-based reverse engineering of mannequin for garment design

This paper discusses the issues of applying feature technology to the reverse engineering a mannequin. A torso of a person is described by a cloud of points obtained from a co-ordinate measuring device. The feature model of a mannequin consists of the major features of the torso for garment design. These features are recognized from the point cloud by comparing with a generic feature model. Association is set up between the point cloud and the mannequin features. Fitting the generic feature model to the point cloud yields the mannequin feature model of a specific person. This is achieved by optimizing the distance between the point cloud and the feature surface, subject to the continuity requirements. The approach is useful in torso measurement for garment panel design. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.