Getting to the bottom of footwear customization

Abstract

Footwear have been evaluated mostly using commercially available products, while some researchers have used custom shoes. Hence, the understanding of the effects of various parameters of a shoe is quite limited. The footbed simulator invented in recent years allows a range of parameters to be studied in quiet standing. It can be used to evaluate perceived feel and center of pressure changes to changes in heel height, seat length, material, wedge angle and toe spring. This paper is meant to show the value of the footbed simulator in terms of research and the actual production of shoes. A study performed with two heel heights, three combinations of seat length and material and three wedge angles showed that the perceived feel is closely related to the center of pressure. The results also show the optimum footbed has a significantly different perceived feel. Thus, the footbed simulator is an ideal way to generate custom footwear designs.

Does Minimalist Footwear Design Aid in Postural Stability and Fall Prevention in Ergonomics?

“…The term foot-bed refers to region of the footwear that is in close proximity and in contact with the foot. The foot-bed shape along with its design features of heel seat length and heel wedge angle contribute to maintaining postural stability (Weerasinghe & Goonetilleke, 2011; Witana, Goonetilleke, Au, Xiong, & Lu, 2009). Previous research has reported that a heel wedge angle and a heel portion of the foot-bed that promotes greater contact with the foot can aid in better foot pressure distribution and greater comfort (Witana et al, 2009).…”

Designing ultra-personalized product service systems

“…Academia considers systems of shoe personalisation (i.e. Piller, Lindgens, and Steiner, 2012;Weerasinghe and Goonetilleke 2011) and their history (Ball and Rollinson 1935;Greene 2018). Moreover, shoes were the first wearable computer (Mann 1997) and continue to fascinate HCI as a rich location for data (Schirmer et al 2015, Feijs, Nachtigall, and.…”

An Innovative Framework for Managing the Customization of Tailor-made Shoes

“…Customized and made to measure (MTM) shoes contribute to increase the foot comfort, a crucial parameter for a high customer satisfaction. Literature is full of interesting studies regarding the development of methods and tools to support the customization and personalization of shoes or shoe components (Weerasinghe and Goonetilleke, 2011). Some of them face the 3D foot shape reconstruction with the aim to maximize the shoe fitting (Zhao et al, 2008).…”