With the increasing demand for comfortable footwear, manufacturers are seeking various means to develop shoes which fit well. The ability to determine whether a shoe fits a foot without putting it on can give manufacturers an advantage and build customer confidence in fitting technology. This study is an attempt to understand postural variations of the foot and subjective perceptions of footwear fit, while trying to determine the relationship between subjective and objective measures of footwear fit. To accomplish this task, 20 Hong Kong Chinese males participated in a footwear-fit experiment. Four pairs of shoes were tested and each participant was asked to rate the subjective feeling of fit of different parts of the shoe when wearing each pair. The subjects' feet and the shoe lasts we...[ Read more ]

With the increasing demand for comfortable footwear, manufacturers are seeking various means to develop shoes which fit well. The ability to determine whether a shoe fits a foot without putting it on can give manufacturers an advantage and build customer confidence in fitting technology. This study is an attempt to understand postural variations of the foot and subjective perceptions of footwear fit, while trying to determine the relationship between subjective and objective measures of footwear fit. To accomplish this task, 20 Hong Kong Chinese males participated in a footwear-fit experiment. Four pairs of shoes were tested and each participant was asked to rate the subjective feeling of fit of different parts of the shoe when wearing each pair. The subjects' feet and the shoe lasts were scanned using a three-dimensional foot scanner. The scans of feet and lasts were then aligned using an algorithm. The resulting dimensional differences were then used to quantify the match or mismatch of each foot with each last. This measure was also used to find the relationship with the subjective ratings. A significant relationship exists between the subjective perceptions of fit and the dimensional difference even though this relationship varies in each region. In addition, the transformation of a foot from a flat position to one that resembles a foot inside a shoe was also evaluated using an algorithm formulated especially for this purpose. The difference between the transformed foot and the actual foot had a mean difference of 1.076 mm and a maximum difference of 7.420 mm for all feet, and, thus appears to be acceptable for footwear fitting.