2D and 3D anatomical analyses of hand dimensions for custom-made gloves.

Measuring hand anthropometric data for the development of good-fitting gloves is crucial. In pursuing higher accuracy in hand anthropometric measurements, scanning of hand surfaces with the aids of image analysis system to acquire measurements is an alternative to the manual methods. This study proposes a new hand measuring approach by using 2D and 3D scanning which are evaluated through comparisons of manual measurements. Thirty-three dimensions are measured by using (1) tape and calliper measurement; (2) 2D image analysis; (3) 3D image analysis based on ten captures; and (4) 3D image analysis based on three captures, respectively. Repeated-measures ANOVA, correlation analysis and RMSE are used to examine the results. The hand dimensions obtained from the four methods are highly linearly correlated. Hand data taken from 3D image analysis has no significant difference compared with manual measurements on hand and wrist circumferences, length and breadth dimension, regardless of the number of captures.