Building a human parametric model, using reverse engineering data

In this work a brief abstract of “IQUKE” project will be shown, which has been in progress at the Università degli Studi di Brescia. It is a study on how to develop a tool to insert and operate a digital human model in a commercial mechanical CAD environment. Such a tool is intended to answer the need of the designer who needs human models to develop machines featuring a demanding man-machine interface. This tool should be interesting in preliminary and executive design activities, being an help to the every-day work of the designer. It is to be emphasised that the aim is in the design task and not in the ergonomic analysis, which can rely on dedicated software tools. A tool to obtain body data by a “reverse engineering” operation was developed as well. On the purpose the goal was to derive the parameters needed to shape the human model from a 3d cloud of points, such points being the output of a 3d scanning operation performed on a real human person. The referred optical scanner has been developed in our department by the electro optical staff, but it is not included in the subject of this memory. To be underlined that to derive a limited number of structured parameters from a cloud of some millions points is highly recommendable in order to store a relevant information in a very small database to be used by our software tool During our work we discovered that the data processing method could be used in other reverse engineering applications: in fact fitting algorithm developed for human body revealed to be useful also to extract synthetic parameters of solid bodies which have a structure like a “loft” or a “sweep” function. Lately we were asked to keep some seminars in Italy and abroad to teach how to take care of the man-machine interface while designing auxiliary tools for disabled people.