Indian Journal of Fibre & Textile Research

Vol. 36, December 2011, pp. 336-343

From anthropometric measurements to three-dimensional shape

Eric Paqueta,b, Isis Peab & Herna L Viktorb
National Research Council Canada,1200 Montreal Road, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
b
School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Faculty of Engineering,
University of Ottawa, 800 King Edward Ave., Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Functional clothing encompasses a wide range of apparels such as protective equipments, functional garments and fireretardant clothing. Depending on the application, they must adapt to the shape of the human body, should not interfere with
the body motion and should isolate the body from a potentially hazardous environment. In order to achieve these objectives,
it is imperative to characterize a body or a body part with the most representative measurements and to understand their
interrelationships. More recently, it has been possible to acquire the three-dimensional shape of the human body with full
body scanners. Such a three-dimensional shape is of course highly desirable for functional clothing, because it contains
detailed information about the whole shape; for instance, a protective mask is most likely to be efficient if the shape around
the mouth is known precisely. Consequently, it is essential to be able to analyze and compare these shapes and to understand
their relations with traditional anthropometric measurements which are still widely used by the apparel industry. This paper
describes our results when analyzing an anthropometric database, using both anthropometric measures and 3D data. Our
results indicate that these two sets of data offer complimentary perspectives of the human body and it's measurements, in
terms of the resultant sets of clusters and associated archetypes. Through combining these complimentary perspectives, the
goal of designing well-fitting functional apparel may be realized.
Keywords: Anthropometry, Archetype, Clustering, Functional clothing, Three-dimensional shape

1 Introduction
The design of functional clothing that fits the subject
well is of crucial importance in many domains, ranging
from protective clothing for hazardous waste disposal,
pilot helmet design to astronaut suit design. In such
domains, the apparel should be comfortable, and
should not hinder the task at hand. These clothing
should be based on real anthropometric data, and also
incorporate information regarding the shape of the
human body, in order to ensure a close fit.
The CAESARTM database is an anthropometric
database that contains detailed data regarding human
subjects that reside in the USA, Italy and the
Netherlands. The database contains numerous
anthropometric measures and demographic profiles. In
addition, it contains the 3D body scans of all subjects.
This database thus presents us with the opportunity to
profile the typical groupings of human bodies, based on
the anthropometric data as well as 3D data. This paper
presents the results of our analysis, when aiming to find
the archetypes of typical groupings or clusters, for
functional clothing design.
_____________
a
To whom all the correspondence should be addressed.
E-mail: eric.paquet@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca

The present study includes (i) a short overview of

cluster analysis and introduction of main clustering
techniques, (ii) methodology followed to perform the
cluster analysis on the Dutch CAESARTM populations,
and (iii) presentation of the results when clustering
the anthropometric data, followed by cluster analysis
results when considering the 3D data. This is followed
by a discussion of the results and the implications
thereof from a functional apparel perspective.
2 Cluster Analysis Overview
Cluster analysis or clustering is an unsupervised
learning data mining technique used to group data
records into unlabeled classes. More formally,
clustering is the process of partitioning a set of
physical or abstract objects into subsets or clusters
based on data similarity1. A cluster is a collection of
objects that are similar to one another and are
significantly different from the objects in other
clusters. The similarity or dissimilarity between two
data objects is determined based on the attribute
values describing the object, and some distance
measure. Euclidean, Manhattan and Minkovski
distances are well-known methods for distance
measurement2,3.

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Clustering techniques are grouped into partitioning,

hierarchical,
density-based
and
model-based
methods1-3. Partitioning methods construct the clusters
by dividing the dataset into k partitions or clusters,
where k is the desired number of clusters provided by
the user. Partitioning algorithms create an initial
partitioning and, by an iterative reallocation process,
attempt to improve the partitioning according to some
criterion function. The criterion function to evaluate
the quality of a partitioning could be square-error
function. Hierarchical methods create a hierarchical
decomposition of the dataset, i.e. a tree of clusters
also known as dendogram. Hierarchical methods are
categorized into agglomerative (bottom-up) and
divisive (top-down). The agglomerative approach
starts with one-object clusters and recursively merges
clusters that are close to one another. On the other
hand, the divisive approach starts with all the objects
in the same cluster and recursively splits into smaller
non-overlapping clusters. The process continues until
a termination criterion (e.g. the requested number k of
clusters) is achieved. Density-based methods consider
the clusters as dense regions of objects in the data
space that are separated by regions of low density.
The general idea in these methods is to continue
growing a cluster as long as the density (number of
objects or data points) in the neighbourhood exceeds
some threshold. Density-based methods discover
clusters of arbitrary shape. Model-based methods
attempt to optimize the fit between the dataset and
some mathematical model. These methods are based
on the assumption that the data is a mixture of
independent samples from a series of heterogeneous
group populations. In these methods, it is assumed
that the data are generated by a model, the clustering
algorithm then tries to recover the original model
from the data. Since these methods attempt to find
heterogeneous groups in the data, this leads to an
automatic way of determining the number of clusters.
Other clustering methods include grid-based,
constraint-based and fuzzy clustering 1-3.
In our domain, clustering is considered as a data
reduction technique, in the sense that, through
clustering, one can characterize the objects in each
cluster in terms of a cluster archetype. An archetype is
defined as the centrally located subject in each cluster
under the assumption that the cluster has a spherical
or quasi spherical symmetry. If this is not the case,
more than one archetype may be necessary to
fully characterize the cluster. Archetypes are then

337

representatives of all other subjects that belong to the

same cluster or cluster region2. In this research, the
archetypes have been used for designing well-fitting
functional apparel, as discussed next.
3 Clustering of Anthropometric Data
As introduced earlier, we aim to characterize the
CAESARTM population and study its suitability for
functional apparel design. In order to identify the
natural body size groupings within the CAESARTM
populations, first the anthropometric data are
considered. In this study, only Dutch population is
studied, since the sampling of this set of data is the
most representative of the population. The data is first
separated based on the gender of the subjects. The
resulting sets consist of 567 Dutch males and
700 Dutch females. All our experiments are
implemented in WEKA, a collection of machine
learning algorithms for data mining tasks written in
Java, developed at the University of Waikato4.
Additionally, in order to verify the quality of our
results, the Cleopatra system, a 3D information
retrieval system developed at the NRC5, was used.
Determining Number of Clusters

In order to determine the number of clusters that

best describe the populations studied, we first
considered a number of different cluster analysis
algorithms. We also considered EM, an algorithm that
performs expectation-maximization analysis based on
statistical modelling6, and Classit, a popular and
simple method of incremental conceptual clustering
that creates a classification tree7. Both EM and Classit
are model-based algorithms that, as discussed in
section 2, may be used to automatically determine the
number of clusters.
The number of clusters obtained with EM and
Classit is found to be significantly large for our
purposes. The number of clusters generated by Classit
varies from 243 to 647 in all populations. EM
produces 11 - 14 clusters for the Dutch population,
both males and females. As can be seen, EM produces
a smaller number of clusters than Classit, but still
large from a tailoring point of view. We also
considered partitioning, hierarchical, density-based,
model-based and grid-based approaches.
In this process, the approach proposed by Witten
and Frank4 is followed to determine the optimal
number of clusters. They proposed an iterative
process where the dataset is first divided into
two clusters. Next, by inspection of the cluster

INDIAN J. FIBRE TEXT. RES., DECEMBER 2011

338

distribution, they decided the need of further splitting the

clusters. A cluster that is highly spread indicates that
further splitting is needed. This process is repeated until
no more cluster splitting is needed. This process allows
finding the minimum number of clusters that
characterize the data properly, since we start from the
minimum number of clusters and increase their number
(split) only when a cluster is not well defined. Therefore,
by inspection of the cluster distribution and through the
analysis of the results using Cleopatra, the number
of clusters for the female population was set to six
These clusters correspond to the number of clothing
sizes for the females. The results indicate that, for the
males, the best number of clusters is five.
Parameter
Chest
circumference
Waist
circumference
Hip circumference
Neck base
circumference
Shoulder to wrist
length
Stature
Shoulder breadth
Weight, kg
Number of subjects
Bust circumference
Waist
circumference
Hip circumference
Shoulder to wrist
Stature
Shoulder breadth
Weight, kg

The results indicate that for both males and

females, the best clustering is obtained using the
density-based algorithm with k-means components. In
order to validate the quality of the clusters produced
by the density-based algorithm with k-means
components, the cluster membership was verified
through querying the 3D body scans using the
Cleopatra system. The centroid characteristics of both
male and female are presented in Table 1. Figures 1
and 2 show the 3D body scans of the human subjects
that
correspond
to
these
anthropometric
measurements, highlighting the difference in the
representative body types of the clusters. By
inspecting Table 1, the cluster distribution, and

Table 1Body measurements of Dutch male and female centroids

X-Small
Small
Medium
Large
X-Large

XX-Large

93.1 (6.0)

Male
96.5 (4.8)

82.5 (6.9)

86.5 (5.7)

96.3 (7.4)

97.4 (5.7)

112.5 (9.1)

95.3 (4.6)
45.4 (2.4)

98.5 (3.6)
47.4 (2.5)

103.1 (4.5)
50.3 (2.7)

108.1 (4.0)
51.0 (2.3)

116.3 (6.2)
55.2 (3.4)

60.3 (3.3)

65.4 (2.6)

62.4 (3.0)

67.2 (3.2)

65.6 (3.6)

173.0 (6.6)
44.0 (1.6)
67.99 (6.7)
126 (22 %)

184.8 (4.6)
46.6 (1.8)
77.79 (5.53)
173 (31 %)

176.1 (5.6)
47.8 (2.0)
90.2 (7.93)
139 (25 %)

193.2 (6.2)
48.8 (2.0)
97.25(7.67)
82 (14 %)

188.1 (8.3)
52.0 (3.4)
119.79 (13.24)
47 (8 %)

90.7 (5.9)
74.1 (6.4)

92.1 (5.0)
76.4 (5.9)

Female
98.4 (6.2)
83.5 (7.1)

106.1 (6.7)
90.7 (8.0)

117.5 (8.3)
103.3 (9.4)

120.6 (9.2)
107.9 (11.0)

97.2 (5.1)
55.1 (2.4)
160.0 (4.7)
40.3 (1.7)
57.38(5.94)

101.2 (5.4)
58.5 (1.8)
169.7 (3.7)
41.7 (1.7)
64 (5.62)

106.4 (5.1)
62.0 (2.2)
176.9 (4.8)
44.0 (2.1)
74.97(6.58)

110.1 (5.8)
56.8 (1.9)
162.4 (5.1)
43.6 (2.4)
77.61(6.03)

117.5 (7.7)
58.6 (2.2)
167.1 (4.3)
47.0 (2.9)
95.25 (9.89)

121.6 (10.4)
63 (2.0)
176.9 (5.6)
47.6 (2.9)
106.27 (13.11)

125 (18 %)

83 (12 %)

39 (6 %)

Number of subjects
130 (19 %)
198 (28 %)
125 (18 %)
Mean values are given in cm along with the standard deviation in parentheses.

107.8 (6.7)

104.9 (6.2)

121.2 (7.0)

Fig. 1Cluster centroids for Dutch male population [ (a) Small, (b) Medium, (c) Large, (d) X-Large and (e) XX-Large]

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339

Fig. 2 Cluster centroids for Dutch female population [ (a) X-Small, (b) Small, (c) Medium, (d) Large, (e) X-Large and (f) XX-Large]

Fig. 3Cluster visualization of 3D data for the Dutch population (a) clustering of the male population and (b) clustering of the female
population

through the analysis of the results using the Cleopatra

system, we observe that the clusters discriminate
between the different body sizes.
4 Clustering of 3D Data
The analysis performed so far is based on
anthropometric measurements contained in the
CAESARTM database. However, this database also
contains detailed 3D shape information of each
individual. This allows the analysis of the features of
the individuals based on 3D shape information.
Following the same approach as with the
anthropometric data, cluster analysis on the 3D data
was also performed.
In this analysis, only the Dutch dataset is
considered since the best sampling was achieved for
this. 3D scans are represented by a set of three
histograms that contain a 3D shape index for the
human body8. Since the 3D data is normalized and we
require the height of the subjects to be considered in
the clustering, the data is first de-normalized. Again,

the data is separated into two sets based on the gender

of the subject. The resulting sets consist of 542 males
and 663 females.
We determined the minimum number of clusters
that best describes the population following the
process, as described in section 3. For the 3D data, the
results indicate that the male population is best
described using five clusters. For the female
population, the best results are obtained with six
clusters. Thus, the number of clusters is set to be five
for the males and six for the females. The same
algorithm that was found to produce the best results
has also been used for the anthropometric data and
hence the results are consistent and may be used for
the comparison. Thus, the density-based algorithm
with k-means components is used for both males and
females. The visualization of the resulting clusters for
the male and female population is shown in Fig. 3.
The number of subjects per cluster is given in Table 2.
Again, we verified the cluster membership through
querying the 3D scans using the Cleopatra system.

INDIAN J. FIBRE TEXT. RES., DECEMBER 2011

340

The 3D body scans of the centroids of the male and

female populations are shown in Figs 4 and 5
respectively. From the figures, it may be observed
that the centroids highlight the difference in body
types of the different clusters. Thus, the results
indicate that the 3D clusters distinguish between the
different body sizes.
5

Comparison of Anthropometric and 3D

Clustering Results
In previous sections, the results of clustering the
anthropometric data and 3D data are presented. This
section presents a comparative analysis of the
clustering results obtained from the anthropometric
measurements and the results obtained from the 3D
data.
By inspecting the number of subjects per cluster
(Tables 1 and 2), it is observed that the number of
subjects is not the same when the clustering is
performed using the anthropometric measurements
and the 3D data. Actually, we compared, for each
Table 2Number of subjects per cluster for Dutch males and
females
Size
X-Small
Small
Medium
Large
X-Large
XX-Large

Number of subjects
Male
Female
135 (25%)
79 (15%)
166 (31%)
106 (20%)
56 (10%)

132 (20%)
63 (10%)
103 (16%)
149 (22%)
147 (22%)
69 (10%)

Fig. 4Cluster centroids from 3D data for Dutch males [ (a) Small,
(b) Medium, (c) Large, (d) X-Large and (e) XX-Large]

subject, the subject size from the anthropometric data

against the subjects size from the 3D data. It is found
that 342 subjects (63.1% of the male population) and
523 subjects (78.9% of the female population) change
in size. Some subjects increase or decrease one, two,
three or even four sizes in the case of the female
population. Here, we proceed to analyze the
anthropometric measurements and 3D scans
information of a set of representative individuals to
find out the reason for this situation.
In this analysis, we considered the anthropometric
clustering results as reference to determine if a subject
increased or decreased in size. A subject increases
two sizes, if for instance according to the clustering of
anthropometric data, the subjects size is Small, but
according to the clustering results of the 3D data, the
subject size is large. The focus is mainly on the
subjects that have a significant change in size, i.e. the
subjects that increase or decrease three and four sizes.
Some examples of this situation are presented
hereunder.
Figure 6 shows the 3D body scan of a subject
whose size from the anthropometric measurements is
Small. However, according to the 3D data, his size is
X-Large. That is, the subject increases three sizes.
Together with the subject 3D body scan we have the
centroid of the X-Large size as obtained from the 3D
data. The subject anthropometric measurements are
given in Table 3.
It is observed that the body shape similarity
between the subject and the X-Large centroid is high.
This explains why according to the 3D data, the
subject is considered as X-Large. However, by
inspecting the body measurements and comparing
them with the anthropometric centroids in Table 1, we
noticed the body measurements correspond to the
Small size. This makes sense from the clustering point
of view. The clustering of 3D data is based on body
shape similarity while the anthropometric clustering is
based on the similarity of the body measurements.

Fig. 5Cluster centroids from 3D data for Dutch females [ (a) X-Small, (b) Small,(c ) Medium, (d) Large, (e) X-Large and (f) XX-Large]

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341

Table 3Anthropometric measurements of the subject in

Fig. 6 (a)
Measurement
Chest circumference
Waist circumference
Hip circumference
Neck base circumference
Shoulder to wrist
Stature
Shoulder breadth
Weight
Fig. 6Shape comparison with the X-Large centroid. The subject that
increases three sizes (a), and the X-Large centroid from 3D data (b)

Chest circumference
Waist circumference
Hip circumference
Neck base circumference
Arm shoulder to wrist
Stature
Shoulder breadth
Weight

The next example shows the opposite situation,

where a subject decreases three sizes. According to
the anthropometric clustering, the subject size is XLarge. Nevertheless, according to the results of the
3D clustering the subject is Small size. Figure 7
shows the subject 3D body scan and the Small
centroid from 3D data clustering. The subject
anthropometric measurements are provided in Table
4. From Fig. 7, it can be seen that the subject body
shape is very similar to the body shape of the Small
centroid, and therefore the subject is grouped into the
Small cluster. When we inspect the subject
anthropometric measurements, it is found that these
correspond to the X-Large anthropometric size.
Again, this is explained by the fact that the clustering
of the 3D data groups together similar body shapes.
The next two examples show female subjects that
increase or decrease four sizes. In the following
example, a subject decreases four sizes. That is, when
considering the anthropometric measurements the
subject size is XX-Large, while from the 3D data the
subject size is Small. Again, we compared the subject

96.6 cm
88.5 cm
97.5 cm
49.0 cm
61.3 cm
169.2 cm
43.6 cm
73.21 kg

Table 4 Anthropometric measurements of the subject in

Fig. 7 (a)
Measurement

Fig. 7 Shape comparison with the Small centroid. The subject that
decreases three sizes ( a), and the Small centroid from 3D data ( b)

Value

Value
103.0 cm
94.1 cm
101.7 cm
49.5 cm
66.9 cm
195.6 cm
47.7 cm
89.99 kg

body shape with the Small centroid (Fig. 8). The

subject anthropometric body measurements are shown
in Table 5.
In the next example, a case where a subject
increased four sizes is presented (Fig. 9). From
anthropometric measurements the subject size is
X-Small, while according to the 3D data the size of
the subject is X-Large. The subjects anthropometric
measurements are shown in Table 6. It can be
observed from the table that the subject
anthropometric
measurements
satisfy
the
anthropometric X-Small size, but for the 3D data
clustering, the shape is very similar to the X-Large
centroid.
By analyzing the above examples, the following
observations are worth mentioning. The clustering of
3D body scans groups together subjects with similar
body shape. On the other hand, when the clustering is
performed on the anthropometric data, the algorithm
groups in the same cluster the subjects with similar
height, weight, bust circumference and so on. The
change in size is due to the fact that even though two
subjects may have similar body measurements, their
body shape may be different. For example, two
female subjects may have the same bust
circumference. However, one of the subjects has wide
back and shoulder, while the other has narrow back
and large bust, making their body shapes different.
Then, the clustering of the 3D data and the clustering

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INDIAN J. FIBRE TEXT. RES., DECEMBER 2011

Table 5 Anthropometric measurements of the subject in
Fig. 8 ( a)
Measurement
Bust circumference
Under bust circumference
Waist circumference
Hip circumference
Shoulder to wrist
Stature
Shoulder breadth
Weight

Fig. 8 Shape comparison with the Small centroid. The subject that
decreases four sizes (a), and the Small centroid from 3D data (b)

Fig. 9 Shape comparison with the X-Large centroid. The subject that
increases four sizes ( a), and the X-Large centroid from 3D data (b)

of anthropometric data provide a different perspective

on the subject characterization. As a result, it can be
concluded that the clustering results are
complementary to one another.
When considering functional apparel, a good
understanding of the 3D shape of the body is crucial
to determine a close fit. That is, the 3D clusters give
us a very good indication of the various shapes within
the population, across the different body sizes.
Therefore, these clusters are actually based on
different shapes (e.g. pear and apple shapes), rather
than sizings "per se". For functional apparel design,
the above two different cluster analysis results should
be used as follows. First, for an individual, the
anthropometric cluster (s)he belongs to, should be
found first. This will give the apparel designer an
indication of the sizing constraints for this individual.
Next, the 3D shape-based cluster should be used to
modify the initial design, and to ensure a good fit. For
example, for the person shown in Fig. 8 (a), the sizing
constraints would ensure that the hips are wide
enough, while the small round shoulders are also

Value
104.6 cm
87.8 cm
98.4 cm
122.8 cm
65.4 cm
194.8 cm
45.1 cm
103.42 kg

Table 6Anthropometric measurements of the subject in

Fig. 9 (a)
Measurement

Value

Bust circumference
Under bust circumference
Waist circumference
Hip circumference
Shoulder to wrist
Stature
Shoulder breadth
Weight

94.2 cm
72.5 cm
75.4 cm
102.7 cm
52.7 cm
152.0 cm
42.9 cm
62.18 kg

taken into account, as observed from the 3D shapebased cluster membership. That is, within a specific
anthropometric cluster, the various shapes, as
obtained from the 3D shape-based results, may be
used to create a set of variations taking the common
body shapes (e.g. a large person with narrow back
and/or sloped shoulder shapes) into account.
6 Conclusion
The design of well-fitting functional clothing is
crucial to ensure the safety of personnel who works
in
dangerous
and
potentially
hazardous
environments. The study indicates that the
anthropometric and 3D data yields complimentary
results, which should be used together in order to
find the best fit. In particular, the 3D shape-based
clusters should be used to refine and complement the
anthropometric archetypes, in order to model typical
body shapes. Future work will include the testing of
our results in a real world setting. We are also
interested to extend this work to study the
anthropometry of the disabled. For instance, the
design of artificial limbs and clothing to facilitate
wheelchair navigation comes to mind.
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