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2007, Piran, Slovenia

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Environmental Ergonomics XII<br />

Igor B. Mekjavic, Stelios N. Kounalakis & Nigel A.S. Taylor (Eds.), © BIOMED, Ljubljana <strong>2007</strong><br />

ANALYSIS OF SLOVENE ARMY SOLDIERS’ FEET<br />

Tomaž Kolšek 2 , Aleš Jurca 2 and Igor B. Mekjavic 1<br />

1 Department of Automation, Biocybernetics and Robotics, Jozef Stefan Institute, Ljubljana &<br />

482<br />

UCS d.o.o., Vrhnika, <strong>Slovenia</strong><br />

Contact person: tomaz.kolsek@ucstech.eu<br />

INTRODUCTION<br />

In order to provide optimal combat equipment for soldiers, the army boots have to be<br />

carefully designed. Within this process, a foot-shoe fit is an important issue. A poor fit can<br />

result in injuries such as blisters, chafing, bunions, sprains, and strains. The aim of the present<br />

study was to obtain information regarding feet geometry of personnel in the Slovene Armed<br />

Forces (SAF) as a prelude to the development of prototype army footwear.<br />

METHODS<br />

A total of 432 male soldiers had both their feet scanned with a 3D high resolution foot<br />

scanner (VORUM YETI 3D). During the testing, each person wore thin white socks. The data<br />

was exported to independent ASCII format, describing foot surface in detail. The proprietary<br />

geometrical data was converted into independent computer digital format and relevant<br />

characteristics extracted. These characteristics were analysed in order to provide data for<br />

potential new lasts, which may serve as the geometrical basis for any new footwear.<br />

A proprietary computer software tool GRAFOMAT (GRAphical FOot MAnipulation Tool)<br />

was used to convert data between different computer formats, visualize, edit, extract relevant<br />

characteristics, compare and manipulate the scans (Figure 1).<br />

Figure 1: GRAFOMAT graphical user interface

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