3D laser foot scanner

Six things to consider about retail 3D foot scanners

New technology can be complicated. We’ve put together a checklist to make it easy to choose the right foot scanner for your stores.

3D foot scanning technology is revolutionizing the footwear industry. Gone are the days of huffing and puffing while trying on multiple pairs of ill-fitting shoes or stepping on clunky measurement devices. The entire shopping experience has needed to be faster, better and more fun. Scanning shopper’s feet enables new possibilities for digital sales channels. Most retailers have limited knowledge about 3D scanning technology, therefore the task of vetting what’s out there can be daunting. There has been a sharp uptick in new foot scanning products being introduced to the market, and very often advantages and disadvantages of new products are unclear. What to pay attention to? Which technology works best? What questions to ask, to separate good from the bad?

‍1. User Experience

User experience is key to retail. The ideal experience should be one-click and effortless. If shoe shoppers and sales associates don’t engage and the experience isn’t enjoyable, no amount of accuracy or data savviness is going to help.

To evaluate the shoe shopper experience of the scanning process, you should examine the following parameters:

• It is important that the scanning process is quick, the stand still time must be no more than 5 seconds. Based on our research, we concluded 10 seconds of scanning time is a no-go. Things get hectic very fast in retail stores on busy days.
• Technology should be subtle so that store associates can do what they do best: engage with customers. You should be able to step on, press a button and hey presto, done. It should work barefoot or with socks of any color. When capturing pressure distribution, walking over a small patch of scanner is a big no-no since the experience will be horrible -- hello tripping hazard -- not to mention the gait will be unnatural and hindered.
• Make sure that shoe shoppers will enjoy the experience of scanning feet. They have to feel empowered by the results of the scan. Make sure that the results are actionable and easy to understand, so that shoe shoppers can make a better purchase decision using the scan. Keep in mind that measurements of various parts of the foot are required to find the best fitting shoes, using only foot length and width is not sufficient.

‍2. Accuracy

You want to make sure that the foot measurement results are accurate so that your sales associates will trust the technology they’ll be using every day. It’s easy to make bold claims about the accuracy, anyone can do it. It’s harder to back it up with actual material, scientific papers, or otherwise.

Here is what you should be looking at:

1. Check the precision: make sure that scanning the same person several times in a row gives you very similar results. You can expect some variability if scanning real feet since it’s really difficult to ensure exactly the same pose of feet every time you make a scan. If possible, use a few pairs of plastic feet of different sizes to eliminate the variability of real feet when estimating the precision of a scanner.
2. Exactness (or trueness): After scanning the same feet several times in the previous step, calculate average measurements and compare them to measurements of an alternative method (you can use a Brannock device or a caliper). Results of the scanner and the alternative method should be within 1mm difference to consider them exact or true. Keep in mind that the length difference between two consecutive shoe sizes is only 4.23mm.

Making claims about accuracy is easy, many tech partners flaunt wild numbers. A 0.1mm accuracy is highly suspicious and unattainable, and it’s a red flag for other claims a potential tech partner may make. Request detailed explanations of what exactly the accuracy claims mean and how they were obtained! - Dig deep, ask for written detailed reports. The larger the number of feet used in the accuracy evaluation, the more you can trust the accuracy figures.

Some vendors claim that their technology captures a 3D shape of the foot, but only experts in computer vision and 3D scanning can tell how accurately the cameras and computational methods being used in a solution really capture 3D shapes. If you don’t have in-house knowledge in these fields, find help from an external consultant to get a technical assessment of the solution you want to use in your retail channels. This is important especially if you’re looking at solutions that use mobile phone cameras.

3. Analytics

Equally important is an analytics dashboard that is delivered to your inbox. Metrics such as the average number of scans per day per store, the number of online scanners and so on, are vital to run a smooth operation in-store and online. Store managers need support from HQ. You should think of the following parameters when choosing any technology for your stores:

• Automated analytics is available and easy to set up on day one. Ask the tech partner what kind of analytics capabilities are available to them. If it’s not already in place - then do not go further.
• Make sure every sales associate gets proper training before they start using the scanning technology.
• Sales associates shouldn’t be dealing with any hardware or software issues, but sometimes things can go wrong. Ask the tech partner about their support team, how fast they solve issues and how satisfied their other retailers are with their support.

In today’s world, even cars get software updates whenever it is needed. An agile tech partner should respond to any issues or feedback quickly.

• Ask the tech partner how frequently they deploy new updates. If it is non-existent or if it’s more than a month in the frequency of updates and complicated, then they are probably not a reliable tech partner.
• It is important that the solution continuously adapts to the feedback of sales associates and shoppers.
• Make sure that frequent software updates are automatically installed without any involvement of sales associates. Ask how they do it with their other customers.

‍5. Omnichannel Capabilities

Shoppers these days shop everywhere and expect a great experience in all channels. That is why the 3D data and insights gathered in the store should be available through your e-commerce sites. The importance of online sales got a boost from the Covid-19 crisis. Digital sales channels will be increasingly important even after the Covid 19 crisis. Whatever solution you pick needs to have a product offering to support digital sales and marketing channels, as well as strong integration possibilities with your existing digital platforms.
‍

• Make sure the data collected in-store can be used online in an easy, non-convoluted way. Working with one partner on all fronts is the ideal setup since bringing another company to the mix could complicate things and take even more time. Ask the tech partner what they can offer in terms of omnichannel and what they are capable of delivering across all channels.
• Mobile is the new desktop. Mobile foot scanning is even more so. Ask the tech partner what concrete products they’re working on beyond their scanner, does it sound vague? Perhaps they don’t really have any.
• Digital marketing tools to create personalized experiences. Now that you have a relationship with the customer and know all about their foot, are you able to use this information to retain them in your ecosystem? Does the partner offer digital marketing tools or fit visualizations that you can use in email or SMS campaigns to tell them which shoes you have that will fit them perfectly? Can you create personalized shopping pages on your e-commerce site that curate the best-fitting shoes for each shopper? Make sure that any FitTech partner you go with can do more than just scan and offer recommendations, but can help you stay connected with your customers through all touchpoints.

‍6. The Team Behind The Tech

Last but not least, remember that products are made by people and those people need a vision. You want to work with a tech partner that is agile and ambitious and continues to offer new solutions based on new technologies. The best companies to work with are tech-savvy and manage to maintain a talented team that enables your sales channels to win over existing and new shoe shoppers again and again.

The authors

Ales Jurca has been applying 3D foot scanning technology to the footwear industry since 1999. He used 3 different medical laser foot scanners in his early research, and he managed developments of 4 generations of retail foot scanners. Ales is the VP Footwear Research at Volumental.

Alper Aydemir is an entrepreneur with a background in robotics and computer vision. After a PhD in robotics, he has worked at NASA JPL and Google's Project Tango, aiming to bring computer vision to the masses. Alper is a co-founder and the CTO at Volumental.

3D scanning of a person with a budget scanner Peel 3D

Powerful tool for high-quality digitization of the human body

Order a test scan

• Branches
• Scanning step by step
• 3D model examples
• Hardware and software
• Where to buy?

3D human scan with peel 3D scanner

1. Fast and accurate acquisition of individual body images in color, taking into account all the features of the figure and clothing texture


2. Efficiently create 3D models of a full-length human or a separate body part for implants in medicine, fashion design, entertainment, fashion, and 3D printing of souvenirs and advertising layouts


3. Refinement of the 3D model in the embedded software, easy removal / addition of individual elements for further printing of the object

If you need to perform a human scan, you can order it from our specialists.

Applications

Medicine

• creation of individual prostheses, orthoses, surgical templates, implants
• visualization and modeling of the result of transplantation, prosthetics and plastic surgery

Souvenirs

• making figurines of real people for 3D printing
• manufacture of personalized accessories and jewelery
• digitization of mini-copies of real objects, sculptures, busts

Entertainment, fashion

• creation of digital models of real people for computer games and other programs
• 3D clothing modeling, sizing improvement
• use of 3D models for trying on clothes on sites

Project examples

Scanning the human body

Human body (whole)

Man in winter clothes

Saint Alphonse Liguori

More cases in different industries

Test the scanner for free and see how it performs for your needs Test scan

Body Scan Guidelines

Do you want to test the 3D scanner?

Order a scan in our office or make an appointment
for an online demo.

3D human scanning solutions

3D scanner peel 3d Scanning a person is fast, easy and safe!

The compact peel 2, peel 2 CAD, Go!SCAN 20 scanners are professional solutions for digitizing objects up to 3 m with an accuracy of 0.1 mm and the ability to capture texture and color.

Go to catalog

Software Unleash your creativity with this powerful 3D modeling software!

The peel 3d software product allows you to solve all the main tasks when processing scanned data.

Go to catalog

Why order

Exclusive distributor of peel 3d in Russia

Professional
3D scanners at the price of budget counterparts

Free trial
3D scan of your part

Demo hall in Moscow: more than 10 scanners and 3D printers

Services for the implementation, maintenance and repair of 3D equipment

Training in the use of 3D scanners in prof. activities

3D scanning services based on our own fleet of equipment

About

Rules for 3D human scanning

For the greatest similarity of the resulting 3D copy with the original object and the successful implementation of the process of digitizing a human figure, several important rules must be observed.

By adhering to these recommendations, you can always achieve the highest quality and realistic results. Order a peel 3d scanner from iQB Technologies and you will be able to make a high-precision 3D model of yourself or any other person, and then print it using 3D printing.

All scanner models are in stock in our warehouse.

1. Scan each body part once, especially when scanning a human face. If you scan the face several times in a row, the program will recreate the model as something in between all the received 3D scans. As a result, you will get an option that is completely different from the original face of the person being scanned.
2. In the process of work, the person being scanned must absolutely not move - otherwise, any movement, whether it be tilting, turning the head or stepping from foot to foot, can lead to image deformation. It is advisable to freeze in one position for a while and remain motionless until the very end of the procedure.
3. If you want to create a figurine using 3D scanning, then you do not need to use additional light. To get a high-quality 3D figurine, LED flashes are enough.
4. When using a turntable, its speed must be made as slow as possible. Thus, a 3D scan of a person will be much more accurate, and difficult places such as palms or ears will be much easier to scan.

The process of scanning a person with a 3D scanner

If you need to scan a person, you can order a scan of any part of the body from us at a bargain price.

The process of 3D scanning and modeling in software generally takes from 10 minutes to several hours.

The obtained data of 3D scanning of the human body is processed in specialized software: errors are corrected, problem areas are eliminated. The finished 3D model with an accurate texture and a clear rendering of the smallest details, if necessary, is sent for 3D printing. At the same time, a high-precision copy of a person can be obtained on a 3D printer, which in the future can become a memorable gift or souvenir. It is possible to scan with the transfer of the color of the object.

Also, the finished model can be used to create individual products that are ideally suited to the human figure.

It should be mentioned that 3D human scanning is completely safe, painless and does not harm the human body.

Scanner options

3D scanners for scanning a person are divided into:

1. Optical:

   Optical 3D scanning technology uses a lamp flash designed to take measurements with the highest accuracy. Projection distortions of the object are recorded by the scanner's video cameras, thereby allowing to determine the shape and dimensions of the scanned object, and then transferred to a specialized PC program for further processing.

   Optical 3D scanners are fast, allowing you to scan people even in motion and in full growth.

   Scanning a person with a 3D scanner using this technology takes from two minutes when using a special cell and up to 20 minutes when using a hand-held scanner.

   Most optical handheld devices are capable of color scanning and texture reproduction of the original model and various details, including jewelry and clothing.

2. Laser:

   Traditional laser scanners, as a rule, are developed for the tasks of metrological measurements, and therefore require special reflective marks to be fixed on or near the object, the position of which is read by the device for precise positioning. Some models of 3D scanners work in tandem with a tracking device (tracker) and do not require the use of reflective marks on the scanned object, for example, Creaform portable 3D scanners.

   Such devices are rarely used for digital measurements of moving objects, including the human body, since the concept of a metrological instrument rarely includes a color camera to capture the texture of an object. However, when it is necessary to produce more accurate models, for example, for orthopedics, prosthetics or the creation of exoskeletons, specialists prefer 3D laser scanners. In addition, this technology allows you to scan shiny, mirror and other complex surfaces, unlike optical three-dimensional equipment.

iQB Technologies offers to buy hand-held 3d scanners in Moscow or order a human scanning service at an affordable and favorable price. Our specialists guarantee fast delivery and high-quality service of the presented equipment.

3D Foot Scan

In recent years, 3D foot scanning technology has made a lot of noise, and the 3D scanner is perceived by many as a miracle machine that automatically does everything accurately and quickly. But is it? Let's try to figure it out. I look forward to the indignation of ardent supporters of modern devices! I want to immediately appeal to everyone with a request to carefully read this article to the end ...

I'll start by saying that I don't know a single case in shoes where this technology fully and self-sufficiently works! Sorry, but we have been in this topic for more than 10 years ... and enough information has accumulated from a variety of sources. At the same time, there is no doubt that in the near future this technology will still conquer the world and turn the entire industry upside down. Traditional shoe factories will sink into the past, and shoes in the world will be produced according to other principles. But what's stopping you from doing all this now?

Consider all the problems of 3D foot scanning. So, the foot consists of bones, joints, tendons, muscles and fatty tissues, on top - the skin. Due to the anatomical structure, the foot, and especially its anterior section, has a fairly large mobility. Compare the same foot barefoot and in comfortable shoes, this can be done visually. The foot in the shoe will be tucked up, and to a large extent its forefoot. Who knows in what places and how far the foot is going ??? Maybe there are some criteria? Or math formulas? Those who are professionally engaged in individual tailoring of shoes ( Bespoke ) know that there is nothing like this. This factor is purely individual for each person, and it can only be judged by measurements of the customer's feet taken by hand in the traditional way. This is how shoemakers in Bespoke have been working for centuries, and this traditional method has more than justified itself. Also, do not forget about the thresholds of pain sensitivity. Meanwhile, each person has their own!

Now the main question, how do manufacturers of 3D leg scanners take into account all this???

How are these factors taken into account in traditional, hand-measured shoemaking? Very simple. Leg measurements are not taken by random people, as a rule, these are fashion designers or craftsmen with education and experience. And from their own experience, they feel how, when measuring, to collect, and not squeeze the foot. For example, when I take my foot measurements in the traditional way, I always measure both feet standing and sitting. Thus, I try to get more complete information about the degree of mobility of the human foot. And when measuring the girths of the foot, from my own experience I feel how to tighten the stihmass (a special shoe centimeter) and where to pinpoint the parameters. In general, shoemakers know how to work with the foot! And they always remember that the foot is not a rigid object, but a living moving system! Shoes made to measure should not squeeze the leg, and impede blood flow! But even the slightest freedom leads to the fact that the shoes do not “sit” on the foot, but dangle - the person “falls out” of the shoes.

Same question again, how does 3D scanning take these factors into account? Yes, they have existed for a long time, and 3D scanning technologies for shoe lasts are quite successfully used. But this is a completely different matter! Shoe last is a rigid object. The foot is not! Does this technology understand the difference between a living and moving leg and, say, a wooden object very similar to a leg???

So this is the first major problem!

Now slightly sideways. Imagine that you are buying shoes for yourself. Try on shoes - they are tight. Then the seller offers to try on the same ones, but more fullness. And in this pair you feel comfortable. So, the difference in girths (sectional perimeter) of the pads between the fullness is 4.5 mm. If this is translated into linear dimensions, then the difference will be ~ 0.7 mm - this is between two adjacent completenesses. Those who wish can calculate it on their own - it's not difficult. In order for a person not to feel the difference in fit, the girths should not deviate by more than 1. 5 mm; and linearly - it is no more than 0.2 mm. Let's remember the last number.

And now, I propose a simple visual experiment. It is necessary to bring the fingers together so that there is a gap between them, approximately 1-2 mm. Now freeze, and try to fix this gap for the maximum possible time. Well, how? Who got what? To a lesser extent, but the same effect occurs with the legs when we stand. We do not notice it, but this problem exists! What is the scan time stated by the 3D scanner manufacturer? Will a person be able to freeze and not move for this time?

This is the second major problem!

Manufacturers of 3D scanners follow a simple logic - they are looking for all sorts of applications for their devices, from construction and aviation to tailoring shoes to measure. But scanning a hard, static object and a human foot are completely different tasks. Why is no one thinking about this? Interestingly, did anyone even set up a task for scanning the foot? How is this supposed to work?

In 2008, we first encountered 3D scanning technology. This article was written in 2014, but I did not publish it, I decided that the technology is new, raw, and everything should change in the right direction. As the saying goes, why dirty the paper... In 2019nevertheless, the article was published, because over the past 10 years, and things are still there, nothing has fundamentally changed. The question is, where is the progress? Did you get stuck?

Yes... The purpose of my writing was not to criticize "bad" technology, but to reveal the problem, which I tried to describe in general terms above. Now it's not bad, at least try to set a task. It's no secret that the right task is half the success.

So, I'm trying:

1. When scanning the foot, individual factors of mobility and pain thresholds of foot sensitivity should be taken into account. You must always remember that the foot is not a rigid object!

2. The total scan time should be kept as short as possible so that any shaking and wiggling of the person is minimized.

Learn more

• 
  3D printed spinning tops
• 
  Program to create 3d prints
• 
  Tomtop 3d printer
• 
  Relativity 3d printer
• 
  Makita battery holder 3d print
• 
  3D printer frame design
• 
  3D printer for house models
• 
  Sirona 3d dental scanner
• 
  Build your 3d printer
• 
  Ltt 3d printer
• 
  Diy 3d scanner z17or