M. Germani et al. <strong>Methods</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong><strong>to</strong>ols</strong> for <strong>shoes</strong> cus<strong>to</strong>misationdetermine foot injuries. 1 st Joint will be generallycharacterized by soft materials (low stiffness), in order <strong>to</strong>redistribute insole forces on close areas.Most interesting results concern the integrated shoedesign phase, in fact, the definition of a single CADplatform for shoe components design allows increasingefficient collaborative design among companies withdifferent competencies (last, insole <strong>and</strong> outsole). Shoedata sharing <strong>and</strong> use during design phase of componentshas been improved by the definition of XML datafile. EachCAD module can directly read <strong>and</strong> write from this file,allowing <strong>to</strong> transmit from one module <strong>to</strong> another one asmore information as possible. In this way, it will be alsopossible <strong>to</strong> make parallel some design phases, such asinsole <strong>and</strong> outsole design.CAD module is based on <strong>dedicated</strong> comm<strong>and</strong>s fordiabetic feet speeding up designing phase. An opera<strong>to</strong>rcan start from the most suitable last <strong>and</strong> he/she canmodify it in order <strong>to</strong> respect footwear features for thespecific patient. Insole <strong>and</strong> outsole design is faster byusing the proposed process because some usefulinformation, like isobar curves, have been calculatedduring patient data gathering phase. The insole-outsoledesign system used for experimentation does not adoptthe material selec<strong>to</strong>r <strong>and</strong> the au<strong>to</strong>mation of insole-outsolemodeling, thus further improvements will be surelyachieved. Foot-last fitting module allows thest<strong>and</strong>ardization of procedures used <strong>to</strong> compare foot <strong>and</strong>last, in order <strong>to</strong> establish how a last is fitting a foot. Byusing this software an objective evaluation is done, ratherthan a mere qualitative one. In few seconds, a technicianis now able <strong>to</strong> know more than one hundred of measuresfor foot <strong>and</strong> last; otherwise, a manual measurementprocedure requires about a few tens of minutes. Averagetime measured for carrying out the main phases ofpersonalized shoe design on 20 pairs of <strong>shoes</strong> aresummarized in table 2.Foot pressure <strong>and</strong>geometrymeasurement <strong>and</strong>preliminary dataelaborationFootwear featurescalculationFoot pressurevisualizationTraditionalprocess[minutes]Patient data gathering15(foot geometryis manuallymeasured <strong>and</strong>foot pressureis reported in2D files)Proposedprocess[minutes]3(for this phasethe newprocessproposes atraditional 3Dscanner <strong>and</strong> abaropodometricplatform; the“Minilab” is notstillexperimented)Footwear features calculation20 4(materialselec<strong>to</strong>r is notstillexperimented)Footwear integrated designImprovement[minutes]-12-18- 2 +2Last 40 20 -20Insole-Outsole 25 20(the currentadvantage isdue <strong>to</strong> the dataderiving fromthe pressureviewer <strong>to</strong>ol: thebenefits of theInsole-OutsoleDesignermodule are notconsidered))Foot-Last fitting 35 2 -33-5Total time 135 51 -86Tab. 2: Time for data gathering <strong>and</strong> footwear design forcomparing traditional <strong>and</strong> developed systems (averagemeasured time for a pair of cus<strong>to</strong>mized <strong>shoes</strong>)The most important innovations proposed by thisresearch project are summarized in: Integrated framework of CAD systems for insole,outsole <strong>and</strong> last design for diabetic patients: theintegration of last, insole <strong>and</strong> outsole design software<strong>to</strong>ward a special framework using the same CADsystem (Rhinoceros), it allows the transparent dataflow from one system <strong>to</strong> the other one. In this way,information generated by a framework module areeasily used by another software as input data. Theexample is given in § 5, where isobar curvescalculated by Foot Pressure Viewer are gathered bythe Insole designer, in order <strong>to</strong> build insole geometry; Definition of links between footwear design features<strong>and</strong> biomechanical parameters: in this project hasbeen defined a last that can be used in case ofdiabetic people with a set of outsoles. These ones,have been parameterized by four main footweardesign features (apex angle, apex position, rockerangle <strong>and</strong> sole stiffness), which are the mostimportant in terms of pressure reduction on 1st Pointjoint. Links between footwear features <strong>and</strong>mechanical parameters are s<strong>to</strong>red within a database,which, using specific Neural Networks Algorithms,they allow the definition of the best shoe for a specificpatient; Definition of criteria which allow the orientation in thespace of feet <strong>and</strong> relative lasts in an objective way: aset of criteria for relative last <strong>and</strong> feet orientation hasbeen defined (§ 4.1) in order <strong>to</strong> position them in arational way, before take measures. Using suchcriteria, feet <strong>and</strong> lasts measure can be comparedduring last design or verification phases. Definition of measure on lasts <strong>and</strong> feet in order <strong>to</strong>compare them: a set of measures <strong>and</strong> relative rulesfor their revelation on a geometry (feet <strong>and</strong> lasts)have been defined. Definition of rules for insole materials selection: insole<strong>and</strong> outsole common materials have been testedwithin labora<strong>to</strong>ries with the aim <strong>to</strong> define theirmechanical properties (stiffness above all). The rulesallow the definition of link between biomechanicalparameters (only foot pressure till now) <strong>and</strong> insolematerials, as already defined in § 5.6 ConclusionsLiterature overview shows that there is a need of<strong>dedicated</strong> systems <strong>to</strong> support the development of <strong>shoes</strong>for people with diabetes <strong>and</strong> on the contrary, there are notavailable technologies <strong>to</strong> effectively overcome allproblems implied in footwear cus<strong>to</strong>mization, flexibility,rapidly <strong>and</strong> quality.A general framework based on a KB system formanaging the whole <strong>shoes</strong> development cycle is defined.It sets the basis for innovating the whole process fromdesign, <strong>to</strong> manufacturing <strong>and</strong> retailing. The paper isfocused on the description of the adopted approach <strong>to</strong>define the design framework <strong>and</strong> on the preliminaryresults about the implementation of the CAD-basedplatform for cus<strong>to</strong>mized <strong>shoes</strong> design. Developedmodules (KB system, foot pressure viewer, last designerJune 15th – 17th, 2011, Venice, Italy705Proceedings of the IMProVe 2011
M. Germani et al. <strong>Methods</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong><strong>to</strong>ols</strong> for <strong>shoes</strong> cus<strong>to</strong>misation<strong>and</strong> foot-last validation <strong>to</strong>ol) are only a part of the wholesystem but they showed interesting advantages respect<strong>to</strong> the traditional shoemakers way of doing. The proposedsystem framework tries <strong>to</strong> integrate in a single <strong>to</strong>ol thedigitalization <strong>and</strong> the CAD functionalities used <strong>to</strong>elaborate the geometry according <strong>to</strong> the chosen last, themedical parameters, etc. It allows <strong>to</strong> effectively combinethe foot acquired geometrical data <strong>and</strong> the plantar footpressure map. Finally it is based on expert shoemakersknowledge in order <strong>to</strong> model the last (<strong>and</strong> in the nearfuture also insole <strong>and</strong> outsole) within a highly usable 3D<strong>dedicated</strong> CAD system.Future research will be concentrated both on thedevelopment <strong>and</strong> optimization of hardware <strong><strong>to</strong>ols</strong> forsimultaneously acquiring the dynamic 3D foot shape <strong>and</strong>the related variable plantar pressure <strong>and</strong> on theimplementation of further design modules (insole-outsole,material selec<strong>to</strong>r, last valua<strong>to</strong>r). In parallel many effortswill be done <strong>to</strong> completely develop the whole framework<strong>and</strong> relative adaptive manufacturing systems.[12] Luximon, A.; Goonetilleke, R.; Tsui, K.: A fit metric forfootwear cus<strong>to</strong>mization, 2001 World Congress on MassCus<strong>to</strong>misation <strong>and</strong> Personalization, MCPC 2001, 2001.[13] Kouchi, M.; Mochimaru, M.: Development of a LowCost Foot-Scanner for a Cus<strong>to</strong>m Shoe Making System,5th Symposium on Footwear Biomechanics, Eds. E.Hennig, A. Stacoff, 58-59, 2001.AcknowledgementThis research is funded by the European Community’s7th Framework Programme within the SSHOES project(NMP2-SE-2009-229261), which involves 11 partnersfrom University, Research <strong>and</strong> footwear industry.References[1] www.who.int/diabetes[2] Ber<strong>to</strong>lini, M.; Bottani, E.; Rizzi, A.; Bevilacqua, M.:Lead time reduction through ICT application in thefootwear industry: A case study, Int. J. ProductionEconomics, 110, 198–212,.2007.[3] Raffaeli, R.; Germani, M.: Advanced Computer AidedTechnologies for Design Au<strong>to</strong>mation in FootwearIndustry, IDMME-VIRTUAL CONCEPT 2008, 8-10Oc<strong>to</strong>ber 2008, Beijing - China, 2008.[4] Smith, G.; Claustre, T.: A case study on conceptdesign <strong>and</strong> CAD modelling in the footwear industry,International Design Conference, DESIGN 2006,Dubrovnik - Croatia, 2006.[5] Boër C.R.; Dulio, S.: Mass Cus<strong>to</strong>misation <strong>and</strong>Footwear: Myth, Salvation or Reality?, Spinger, ISBN:978-1-84628-864-7, 2007.[6] Luximon, A.; Luximon, Y.: Shoe-last designinnovation for better shoe fitting, Computers in Industry,60(8), 621-628, 2009.[7] Redaelli, C.; Sacco, M.; Dulio, S.; Boër C.: Analysisof cultural gap for cus<strong>to</strong>mized products, 3rdInterdisciplinary World Congress on Mass Cus<strong>to</strong>misation<strong>and</strong> Personalization, MCPC 2005, 2005.[8] Luximon, A; Goonetilleke, R.S., Zhang, M.: 3D footshape generation from 2D information, Ergonomics 48(6), 625–641, 2005.[9] Rutschmann, D.: The mobile <strong>and</strong> affordable lightbeam® 3D foot scanner for best fitting <strong>shoes</strong>, 3rdInterdisciplinary World Congress on Mass Cus<strong>to</strong>misation<strong>and</strong> Personalization, MCPC 2005, 2005.[10] Carpanzano, E.; Ballarino, A.; Jovane, F.: Towardsthe new Mass Cus<strong>to</strong>misation <strong>and</strong> PersonalizationParadigm: needed next generation manufacturingtechnologies, 40th CIRP International Seminar onManufacturing Systems, Liverpool, 2007.[11] Sievanen, M.; Pel<strong>to</strong>nen, L.: Mass Cus<strong>to</strong>misingFootwear: the left foot company case, InternationalJournal of Mass Cus<strong>to</strong>misation, 1(4), , 480-491, 2006June 15th – 17th, 2011, Venice, Italy706Proceedings of the IMProVe 2011
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