3D Hand Anthropometry of Korean Teenager’s and Comparison with Manual Method

Abstract

The requirements of wearing products fitting comfort was continuously increasing and considerable attentions had been paid for a long time. The assessment of the physical dimensions of the human hand provided a metric description to establish human-machine compatibility. Higher accuracy in hand anthropometric measurements could be achieved with the aids of an image analysis system. Scanning of hand surfaces either 2D or 3D was an alternative method for manual measurements. Three-dimensional anthropometry may lead to significant improvement in fitting comfort of wearing products. The purpose of this study was to measure 3D hand anthropometry and compared it with manual methods. For that purpose, 10 hand measurements of the right hand (lengths, breadths, and circumference of hand and fingers) were taken from 1,700 middle and high school students by age ranged from 13 to 19 years old. The hand was measured by manual (using anthropometric sliding, spreading calipers and measuring tape) and using a high-resolution 3D hand scanner (NEXHAND H-100, Knitech, South Korea) with the scanning accuracy ± 0.5 mm. From the scanned data, the hand measurements were extracted using scanning software (Enhand, Knitech, South Korea). Mean and standard deviation for each hand measurements were calculated. T-test statistical test on the data revealed that there was no significant difference between the manual and 3D hand measurements (p > 0.05). Therefore, 3D anthropometry can be replaced with manual methods. The data gathered may be used for ergo-design applications of hand tools and devices. And also it can provide a great help to develop a hand anthropometry database for hand wearing products.