ARTICLE IN PRESS

Applied Ergonomics 38 (2007) 377384

www.elsevier.com/locate/apergo

Optimal brassiere wire based on the 3D anthropometric measurements

of under breast curve
Hyun-Young Leea, Kyunghi Hongb,
a

Department of Clothing and Textiles, Kunsan National University, Kunsan, Jeollabuk-do, Korea
b
Department of Clothing and Textiles, Chungnam National University, Daejeon, Korea
Received 23 January 2004; accepted 30 March 2006

Abstract
It has been difcult to quantify the t of brassiere wire to the natural nude under breast line due to the difculty of obtaining womens
nude under breast line in 3D image. The objectives of this study are rstly to design the ergonomic brassiere wire that should t to the
curve of under breast and thorax and secondly to apply the 3D measurement of human body structure to the product design and
evaluation using phase shifting moire topography. Eight brassiere wires were evaluated and key factors of comfortable wires were
selected depending on the types of womens under breast those are considered as backbones of the brassiere structure. Twenty-one
middle-aged women participated in the subjective wear test, and 17 volunteers of them continued to participate in the 3D image
recording. 3D morphological data of the breast before and after wearing experimental brassieres was examined by phase shifting moire
topography. As results, it was found that the tting of the global average radius of curvature of wire to that of the bodyline of the under
breast curve was an important variable for the design of wires. Conventional shape of brassiere wire was suitable to the majority of the
subjects. However, for those who have skewed under breast lines, the wire of larger global average radius of curvature along the inner
part of the under breast line was rated higher in terms of wear comfort and appearance. The recommended magnitude of the torsional
rigidity of the brassiere wire was about 0.015 N/mm2 mm. The observation on womens under breast curve and their comfortable breast
wire as discussed in this paper would provide with comfortable and stable t for women in special needs such as soldiers, athletes
and actress.
r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Brassiere wire; 3D measurement of breast; Global average radius of curvature

1. Introduction
A brassiere wire often draws attention as a key element
of brassieres, since it is regarded as a backbone variable
which should t the bony thorax and one of the major
sources of uncomfortable wear sensation of brassieres
(Kim et al., 2000; Lee et al., 2001). Recently instead of wire,
a rather radical approach, a 3D form substitute was
introduced in the brassiere cup for better t reformability
(Precision Toolmaker, 2001). Wireless brassiere is often
preferred due to its comfortable wear sensation. Nevertheless, to support the mass of the breast, wires are still
necessary and generally used in brassieres due to their
Corresponding author. Tel.: +82 42 821 6828; fax: +82 42 821 8777.

E-mail address: khhong@cnu.ac.kr (K. Hong).

0003-6870/$ - see front matter r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.apergo.2006.03.014

function and lower price. Therefore, new types of brassiere

wires are continually developed and introduced to consumer, which include modied cross-sectional wires and
memory wires (Inll Co., Ltd., 2002).
Compared with these material developments of wires,
geometrical consideration of the 3D body shape has not
been fully explored to the optimal design of wires.
Although the 3D body scanning has been utilized for
general use (Robinette and Daanen, 2006; Zhang and
Molenbroek, 2004) as well as apparel industry (Kang and
Kim, 2000; Kim and Kang, 2003; Nam and Han, 2001), the
specic information on the nude breast is difcult to nd in
public. It has been also known that achieving high accuracy
in scanning human subject is not easy to reach even with
the modern 3D laser scanner in wear trials, especially in the
case of evaluation of clothing items with subtle differences.

ARTICLE IN PRESS
H.-Y. Lee, K. Hong / Applied Ergonomics 38 (2007) 377384

378

It is because human subjects could not maintain the same

posture each time due to the freedom of many joints and
breathing as well. Nevertheless, it is important to obtain
3D base line of breast around thorax, under breast line, of
which structure is rm compared with the breast bulk of
soft and compressible tissues.
Recently, Lee et al. (2004) obtained 3D images of nude
breasts and classied the under breast curve of the nude
body into two types, symmetrical type and skewed type to
outward, and suggested a new parameter called the global
average radius of curvature in careful experimental
procedures with human subjects. In this paper, as a
continuation of the prior paper, optimal shape characteristics of brassiere wire suitable for different breast types
were investigated to nd the effectiveness of implementing
3D shape parameters to the ergonomic design of the
brassiere wire. It was also attempted to determine whether
the accuracy of the 3D scanner, phase shifting moire
topography in this paper, was sensitive enough to detect
the subtle differences in the wire design in the actual images
of womens breast before and after wearing brassieres.
Wear sensation of the experimental brassieres was also
observed to conrm whether women of different breast
shapes prefer a certain type of wire. Additionally,
mechanical properties of the brassiere wires, especially
torsional rigidity of brassiere wires were also examined for
the development of comfortable brassieres with acceptable
supporting capabilities of breast mass.

Table 1
Performance of 3D phase shifting moire topography
Performance
Range of measurement

460 mm  580 mm  270 mm

(width  length  depth)
0.12 mm (single image)
0.09 mm (general object)
Halogen lamp, 300 W
640  480 CCD camera
N-plane 3D calibration

Accuracy
Reproducibility
Light source
Camera
Calibration

BP

2. Methods
2.1. Breast measurement
3D images of breasts were obtained by phase-shifting
moire topography (Intek Plus Co. Ltd.), and the 3D images
of the curved surface were analyzed by RapidForm (INUS
Technology, Inc.). The performance of phase-shifting
moire topography is summarized in Table 1 (Kim et al.,
1999; Choi, 1997).
Seventeen middle-aged women (30s50s) who normally
wear 80A brassieres in the Korean size specication
(bust girth: 87.592.5 cm, under bust girth: 77.582.5 cm)
participated in the wear test. The focus of the camera was
xed on the right breast of the participant in an oblique
view to get a whole breast image within the view of the
scanner. Taking an image in an oblique view is necessary
since reference points on the side would not appeared in a
single image if the angle of view is straight ahead to the mid
sagittal line. For sagging breasts, the under breast point
(UBP) or the under breast curve is impossible to detect. In
this case, two semi-transparent cellophane tapes (150 mm
length  18 mm width) were used to lift the middle of breast
just until the image of the under breast curve could be
observed barely not to distort the line of the under breast
curve (Lee et al., 2004). Locations of the measurement
points on the 3D image of under breast curve are shown in
Fig. 1 and other measurement method was followed by the
previous research (Lee et al., 2004).
In this study, a useful shape parameters called global
average radius of curvature dened as the radius of the
circle that passes the three points that are not collinear, was
used as a measurement variable in the analysis instead of
conventional denition of radius of curvature based on
calculation of the adjacent three points. It is because that
position of three adjacent points are rather unstable due to
noise in the 3D scanning image, which resulted in
considerable changes in the conventional radius of
curvature as discussed in the previous paper (Lee et al.,
2004). If three points on the under breast curve were
selected farther enough such as IBP, UBP, and I which is
the farthest point from the straight line passing IBP and
UBP as illustrated in Fig. 1, the information on the global

bust point

UBP under breast point

IBP inner breast point

OBP outer breast point

BP
IBP

OBP

inner breast curve

IBC

OBC

O
UBP

IBC

outer breast curve

OBC

(UBP ~ IBP)

(UBP ~ OBP)

the farthest point from the

the farthest point from the

straight line passing IBP and

UBP on the IBC

straight line passing OBP and

UBP on the OBC

Fig. 1. Reference points around the under breast curve.

ARTICLE IN PRESS
H.-Y. Lee, K. Hong / Applied Ergonomics 38 (2007) 377384

379

average of radius of curvature was stable and useful in the

evaluation of breast type and brassiere.
When the ratio of the global average radius of the
curvature of the inner breast curve (IBC) to that of outer
breast curve (OBC) is larger than 1.4, the breast type is
regarded as a skewed type (4 persons out of 17 persons
in this study). If the ratio of IBC and OBC is less than 1.4,
the breast type is considered as a normal type.
2.2. Experimental wires
The four types of wire shape, i.e., Narrow, Medium,
Wide, and Body are shown in Fig. 2. The Narrow type (A-1)
is a representative wire of a brassiere available in the
Korean market for several years. The Body type (B-4) is
specially designed in this experiment to reect the skewed
bodyline of the under breast curve, considering the large
global average radius of the curvature along IBC for
middle-aged womens breast. The Medium and Wide wires
follow the curves between the Narrow and Body type,
which are A-2, and A-3, respectively. The experimental
wires were made of two different levels of torsional rigidity,
i.e., hard and soft type to gure out the range of hardness
as favorable brassieres for the middle aged women.
Eight types of wires (4 types of curve shapes  2 types of
torsional rigidity) were inserted into identical brassieres.
Experimental brassieres were specially constructed with an
elastic material for easy deformation to reect the effect of
wire. Besides the shape characteristics of the wires, the
initial bending modulus and bending rigidity were measured using a stressstrain curve as the brassiere wires were
extended in the width direction. Initial bending modulus
was dened with the declination of the stress-strain curve at
the origin. Bending rigidity was obtained by Eq. (1).
Torsional rigidity (Eq. (2)) of the wires was also measured
since the brassiere wires were bent backward (Z-direction
in 3D measurement) along the torso in the actual wear
situation. To measure the torsional rigidity, an instrument
Body : 133mm

Fig. 3. Instruments for the measurement of torsional rigidity of wires.

Left: overall view, right: magnied picture of the circled region. Distance
of free arm (inner part: 81 mm, outer part: 111 mm).

was specially developed using plates for xing, calipers,

and weights as shown in Fig. 3. The various characteristics
of the experimental wires were obtained by repeated
measures and summarized as shown in Table 2:
Bending rigidity N=mm2

W =A
at 30mm elongation,
Dl=l

where W (N) is the load required to extend a brassiere wire

to 30 mm, A (mm2) the cross-sectional area of wire, l (mm)
the distance between two jaws (130 mm), Dl mm the
extended distance between two jaws (30 mm):
Torsional rigidity N=mm2 mm gf=mm2 mm

W =A
,
Dd

where W (N) is the load, A (mm2) the cross-sectional area

of wire, Dd (mm) the displacement of wire from the original
xture.

Wide : 135mm
Medium : 125mm

2.3. Human wear test

Narrow : 115mm
3
Outer
end
points

2 1
Inner
end
points

Inner part

Outer part
4

(B)
(A)

UBP
5 mm

5 mm

Fig. 2. Schematic diagram of the experimental wires tested. A-1: narrow

type, A-2: medium type, A-3: wide type, B-4: body type. Inner and outer
end points of wire correspond to IBP and OBP of the breast.

Twenty-one participants wore experimental brassieres

and rated the wear sensation on a seven-point Likert scale,
while 17 of them participated in 3D nude scanning
voluntarily. Subjects wore the experimental brassieres for
10 min in random order, and then rated the wear sensation
on a seven-point Likert scale. Ten minutes were allocated
for each evaluation of brassiere. Subjects wore a brassiere
and took various postures and movements to evaluate wear
sensation not only in static posture but also in dynamic
conditions, i.e., turning around their trunk left and right
alternately, and stretching their arms up and down and
crossing two arms. They are allowed to wear all of eight
brassieres again if they requested to do so for the precise

ARTICLE IN PRESS
H.-Y. Lee, K. Hong / Applied Ergonomics 38 (2007) 377384

380

Table 2
Geometrical and mechanical properties of experimental wires before wearing (mean values of three measurements)
Hard wire
Narrow
Global average radius of curvature of IBC (mm)
Global average radius of curvature of OBC (mm)
Ratio of global average radius of curvature (IBC/OBC)
Initial bending modulus (N/mm2)
Bending rigidity (N/mm2)
Tortsional rigidity (N/mm2 mm)
Inner part
Outer part
Width (mm)
Area of cross section (mm2)
Material

Soft wire
Medium

Wide

58.7
61.6
66.6
69.3
72.0
80.1
0.85
0.85
0.83
90.5
84.1
96.5
29.8
24.3
32.5
1.30E02 1.31E02 1.50E02
9.22E03 8.04E03 8.53E03
115
125
135
2.2 (breadth)  1.0 (thickness)
Steel

Skewed type (HardWire)

Overall Wear comfort

Overall Wear comfort

10
8
6
4
2
0

Narrow

Medium

Wide

Body

Medium

Wide

76.2
73.3
1.04
81.7
28.7
1.30E02
9.22E03
133

58.7
61.6
66.6
69.3
72.0
80.1
0.85
0.85
0.83
75.2
54.3
76.6
18.7
19.3
22.7
7.85E03 8.44E03 8.63E03
4.51E03 5.00E03 4.91E03
115
125
135
2.0 (breadth)  1.0 (thickness)
Steel

Body
76.2
73.3
1.04
64.1
18.8
7.36E03
5.30E03
133

14

12

Narrow

Symmetrical type (Hardwire)

14

Body

12
10
8
6
4
2
0

Narrow

Medium

Wide

Body

Fig. 4. Overall wear comfort of the experimental brassieres for each breast type (*: signicantly different at a 0:05).

3. Results

Women of the skewed type breast ranked Body wires

the highest in overall wear sensation and those of the
symmetrical type breast preferred Narrow wires signicantly as shown in Fig. 4. Body wire follows the bodyline of
skewed breast type more closely compared with other types
of wires. The subject could notice small differences among
the experimental wires. The score of wearers satisfaction
on the shape of breast for the Body wire was signicantly
higher (score 10.3 at a 0:05) than Medium (8.0) and Wide
(8.8) in the case of the skewed type as shown in Fig. 5. For
the symmetrical breast type, subjects did not prefer Body
wire to Narrow wire. On the whole, the Body wire was
considered the best for the skewed type, and the Narrow
wire was generally rated as the best for the symmetrical
type. The results imply that the shape of the wires should
match to that of the body curve around the thorax bones,
especially inner breast part.

3.1. Wear sensation of the experimental wires

3.2. Breast shape in wear test

In the case of the group of Soft wires, the scores of the

subjective evaluation were generally poorer than those of
Hard wires. Actually, Soft wires were too exible to
support the mass of breast, which the subject did not like
due to instability. Therefore, only the results of Hard wires
would be discussed, hereafter. The result of the wear test
was analyzed by repeated measures in SPSS 11.0 to
control the variability among individual subjects.

To nd the objective evidence of the subjective preferences to a certain type of brassiere depending on the breast
type, the performance of the experimental wires were
evaluated by analyzing 3D images of the breast before and
after wearing experimental brassieres, as summarized in
Tables 3 and 4 and Fig. 6. Generally the global average
radius of curvature of the IBC decreased after subject wore
brassiere as in Table 3, while the global average radius of

comparisons among brassieres. It takes more than one and

half hour to go through the eight types of brassiere for a
subject, which is enough for a customer to select a proper
brassiere by wearing many brassieres in the shop. The
seven-point questionnaire included t of wire, comfortable, pushes breast inward and aesthetically appealing appearance. Scores of t of wire and comfortable
were categorized in overall wear sensation, which gives
14 points for their upper limit score. Likewise, scores of
push breast inward and aesthetically appealing appearance were grouped and the scores were summed in the
category of wearers satisfaction with the shape of
breast, which resulted in 14 points for their upper limit
score.

ARTICLE IN PRESS
Skwed type (Hardwire)
14
*

12

10
8
6
4
2
0

Narrow

Medium

Wide

381

Symmetrical type (Hardwire)

Wearer's satisfaction ont he
shape of breast

Wearer's satisfaction ont he

shape of breast

H.-Y. Lee, K. Hong / Applied Ergonomics 38 (2007) 377384

Body

14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0

Narrow Medium

Wide

Body

Fig. 5. Wearers satisfaction with the shape of breast of the experimental brassieres for each breast type (*: signicantly different at a 0:05).

Table 3
The effect of wearing of Hard wires on the global average radius of curvature
Before wearing
(nude)

Shape of under
breast curve

Global average
radius of curvature
of IBC (mm)

Global average
radius of curvature
of OBC (mm)

Ratio of global
average radius of
curvature (IBC/
OBC)

After wearing
Narrow

Medium

Wide

Body

Average

86.8

66.7b

65.9b

67.1b

72.1a

Skewed type
Symmetrical type
Average

94.3
84.5
60.5

65.1
67.3
73.3b

66.5
65.7
73.3b

70.4
66.2
80.1a

71.9
72.2
72.3b

Skewed type
Symmetrical type
Average

53.6
62.6
1.46

72.6
73.6
0.91b

71.1
74.0
0.90b

80.2
80.1
0.84c

72.8
72.1
1.00a

Skewed type
Symmetrical type

1.76
1.36

0.90
0.92

0.94
0.89

0.88
0.83

0.99
1.00

 Results from Duncan grouping a 0:05 within each breast type. The same letter indicates that there is no signicant difference.

Table 4
The effect of wearing of Hard wires on the height of bust point
Before wearing (nude)

After wearing
Narrow

Height of breast point

Height of BP (mm)

Average
Skewed type
Symmetrical type

52.2
56.8
50.8

41.7
42.1
41.6

Medium
b

39.1
41.1
38.5

Wide
39.7
41.3
39.3

Body
40.3ab
42.1
39.7

Results from Duncan grouping a 0:05 within each breast type. The same letter indicates that there is no signicant difference.

curvature of OBC increased, which indicates that womens

breasts undergo asymmetrical deformation upon wearing
brassiere wires. It was noted that the ratio of global
average radius of curvature between IBC and OBC of Body
wire was the highest after wearing brassiere, which is close
to that of nude. It was found that the shape of the breast
wearing Body wire changed the least among the experimental wires, which is favorable to comfortable sensation.
The breast shapes of middle-aged women tend to be
sagged. Therefore, the reformability of womens breasts

could be represented as the values of the height of BP (bust

point) as surveyed by the previous study (Kim et al., 2000).
Table 4 summarized the effect of the wire types on the
height of BP. The BP of Narrow wire was the highest and
the differences from those of other wires were statistically
signicant. Although there is no statistical signicance, the
height of BP of the Body wire in the case of skewed type
breast was not worse than any other wires.
X-displacement between IBP and OBP demonstrates an
interesting deformation of the different wires in width

ARTICLE IN PRESS
H.-Y. Lee, K. Hong / Applied Ergonomics 38 (2007) 377384

382

Skewed type (Hard wires)

Symmetrical type (Hard wires)

15

10
5
0
-5
Narrow Medium

Wide

Body

-10

Deformation of wires in
width direction (mm)

Deformation of wires in
width direction (mm)

15

10
5
0
-5
-10

Narrow Medium

Wide

Body

Fig. 6. Deformation of wires in width direction after wearing measured by X-displacement between inner and outer end points of wires. Original width:
narrow wire (115.0 mm), medium wire (125.0 mm), wide wire (135.0 mm), body wire (133.0 mm). Width after wearing in skewed type: narrow wire
(127.2 mm), medium wire (125.2 mm), wide wire (132.1 mm), body wire (129.9 mm). Width after wearing in symmetrical type: narrow wire (125.4 mm),
medium wire (124.4 mm), wide wire (129.3 mm), body wire (125.6 mm).

direction as shown in Fig. 6. Narrow wire was spread by

12.2 mm, which would naturally exerted pressure on the
breast. In the case of Medium wire, there was almost no
change in the width direction. The width of Body and Wide
wires decreased by 2.97.4 mm, which is in the opposite
direction to the case of Narrow wire.
4. Discussion
4.1. 3D data of human body as a design criteria
As Robinette (2002) indicated, 3D scan data have not
been fully utilized in the product design yet. Even though
we have tremendous 3D data of human body, 3D
parameter application extracted from the 3D images to
an actual design are very much limited so far. Especially,
data on womens breast in nude are very rare to obtain,
hence there are no product development reported which
utilized actual 3D data of womens breast. The global
average radius of the curvature obtained directly on the 3D
plane of body was proved to be a useful macroscopic
parameter characterizing the shape of breast curve
compared with the conventional radius of curvature for
the design of the brassiere wire. Information on breast
displacement between nude and clothed body would also
give the designer the amount of pressure exerted by the
brassiere wire if we have enough data for the modeling of
soft tissue displacement and force in future. As a stating
point, locations of the best and the worst wire selected in
the subjective wear test compared with those of the nude
breast were illustrated in Fig. 7. The outer curve of the best
wire was located closer to the outline of the nude breast
compared with that of the worst wire in the symmetrical
type (left in Fig. 7). In other words, for the subjects with
symmetrical type breasts, the displacement between the
nude outer breast curve and the clothed outer breast curve
was signicantly less a 0:05 in the best wire (Narrow
wire) than in the worst wire (Medium wire). However, for
breasts of the skewed type, there was no signicant
difference in the outer breast curve.
In the case of the inner breast region, there was also a
tendency for the best wire (Body wire) to follow the slanted

Fig. 7. Representative curves of nude breast curve along with those of the
best and the worst wire on the 3D shells obtained by registration (left: an
image around the outer breast curve for the symmetrical type, right: an
image around the inner breast curve for the skewed type).

5
OBC

IBC

3
3
2

2
1

1
UBP

Fig. 8. Subdivision of the wire for the calculation of the global average
radius of curvature (* is a critical region for the performance of the best
wire in the case of the skewed type).

breast curve more closely than the worst wire (Medium

wire). To examine the characteristics of the inner breast
curve further, the global average radius of the curvature
was calculated while varying the length of curve. When we
divided the whole length of the wire into ten sections as
illustrated in Fig. 8, and then compared the global average
radius of the curvature using three consecutive points, the
global average radius of the curvature crossing the inner
breast points of Sections 24 of the best wire was closer to
nude than that of the worst wire in all subjects of the
skewed type (Table 5). As was found in the previous study
where women rated high for the brassiere cup maintaining
the width between two bust points wide as in nude (Lee
et al., 2001), the result of this study conrmed that

ARTICLE IN PRESS
H.-Y. Lee, K. Hong / Applied Ergonomics 38 (2007) 377384

0.6

Subjects

Nude (mm)

Best wire: Body

(mm)

Worst wire:
Medium (mm)

0.5

1
2
3
4

86.7
103.2
133.6
94.5

69.7
67.2
68.9
78.2

67.0
61.7
60.2
60.1

Stress (N /mm2)

Table 5
Comparisons of the global average radius of the curvature along the inner
breast points of Sections 24 in Fig. 8 (for the skewed type)

Comfortable range of
torsional rigidity
(0.013 ~ 0.017 N / mm2. mm
y = 0.0129x
y = 0.0547x

0.4

y = 0.0170x

4.2. Torsional rigidity

In Fig. 9, the torsional rigidity of experimental (HardNarrow, Soft-Narrow) and that of commercial brassiere
wires used in the previous research (Kim et al., 2000; Lee
et al., 2001) were compared to estimate the torsional
rigidity range of wires that would offer a comfortable wear
sensation. Among the ten types of commercial brassieres
used in the previous papers stated above, representative
wires elicited the best and the worst wear sensation were
selected. The torsional rigidity range of the two wires
offering the best sensation (bra 6 and 7 in Fig. 9) were
within 0.0130.017 N/mm2 mm. The torsional rigidity of
the wire offering the worst wear sensation was about
0.055 N/mm2 mm (bra 5 in Fig. 9). The torsional rigidity
range of the Hard wire used in this study was located in the
range of good brassieres. However, the Soft wire was about
0.013 N/mm2 mm, which was evaluated as too exible,
located outside of the lower range of good brassieres.
Therefore, roughly speaking, the torsional rigidity of an
appropriate wire would be 0.015 N/mm2 mm based on the
experimental data accumulated over 5 years in the same
laboratories.
5. Conclusions
Human wear test veried the efcacy of the applying 3D
breast data to the engineering design of a form-tting
garment, the brassiere. Utilizing the global average radius
of the curvature of the under breast curve in the design of
brassiere wires improved the overall wear sensation and the
satisfaction on the shape of the breast, especially for those
who have breast curves skewed along the torso. Considering that about 25% of middle-aged women have skewed
under breast curves (Lee et al., 2004), application of the 3D
body shape to the design of brassiere wires could alleviate
the complaints of those types of women in the underwear

y = 0.0078x

0.3
0.2
0.1

following the shape of breast in nude would be a desirable

design guideline of the brassiere. Actually, we extended the
duration of wearing to 30 min for additional eight subjects
with more rigorous dynamic movement, and the results
was in the same tendency, although we could not nd a
signicant differences with these small number of the
subjects.

383

Bad wire (Bra 5)

Good wire (Bra 6)
Good wire (Bra 7)
Hard-Narrow wire
Soft-Narrow wire

y = 0.0131x

0.0
0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

Displacement (mm)
Fig. 9. Comfortable range of torsional rigidity of brassiere wires.

market. Although, the number of the skewed type

samples tested in this paper is small, subjective ratings,
objective evaluations of bust height, and other shape
characteristics increased to a favorable direction by the
adopting the 3D shape on the baseline breast to the design
of brassiere wire.
Another application of these results would be protective
clothing patterns for women whose breast should be settled
on place without much oscillating or sagging. According to
the augmentation of the womens activities as soldiers,
pilots, athletes, and actress, needs of those in specialized
elds for comfortable and stable close-tting garments are
increasing. 3D shape of womens under breast curve which
t to the bony thorax would give valuable information to
endow more comfortable wear sensation to such specialists.
Acknowledgment
This work was supported by Grant No. R04-2000-00000087-0 from the Basic Research Program of the Korea
Science & Engineering Foundation.
References
Choi, Y.B., 1997. Phase-shifting Moire topography for precision
measurement of 3-dimensional proles. Doctoral Dissertation of
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology.
Inll Co. Ltd., 2002. Comparison of wire characteristic. Inll Technical
Report.
Kang, T.J., Kim, S.M., 2000. Development of three-dimensional apparel
CAD system, Part 2: prediction of garment drape shape. Int. J.
Clothing Sci. Technol. 12 (1), 3949.
Kim, S.M., Kang, T.J., 2003. Garment pattern generation from body scan
data. Comput. Aided Des. 35 (7), 611618.
Kim, S.W., Choi, Y.B., Oh, J.T., 1999. Reverse engineering: high speed
digitization of free-form surfaces by phase-shifting grating projection
Moire topography. Int. J. Mach. Tools Manuf. 39, 389401.
Kim, J.W., Lee, S.Y., Hong, K.H., 2000. Development of sensible
brassiere for middle aged women. J. Korean Soc. Clothing Textiles 24
(5), 714723.

ARTICLE IN PRESS
384

H.-Y. Lee, K. Hong / Applied Ergonomics 38 (2007) 377384

Lee, H.Y., Hong, K.H., Kim, E.A., 2004. Measurement protocol of

womens nude breasts using a 3D scanning technique. Appl. Ergonom.
35, 353359.
Lee, H.Y., Hong, K.H., Kim, J.W., Lee, S.Y., 2001. Development of
design parameters of brassiere: Part 1. Three dimensional shape of the
breast and under-wire of the brassiere. Proceedings of Joint World
Conference; Korea Society of Clothing and Textiles/International
Textile and Apparel Association, p. 90.
Nam, Y.J., Han, H.S., 2001. Automatic human extraction algorithms for
the apparel industry. J. Korean Fiber Soc. 38 (9), 478486.

Precision Toolmaker, 2001. Software Support for New Bra. Precision

Toolmaker 19 (2), 21.
Robinette, K.M., 2002. 3-D of not 3D? That is the question. Proceedings
of Ergonomics of Korea, April.
Robinette, K.M., Daanen, H.A.M., 2006. Precision of the CAESAR scanextracted measurements. Appl. Ergonom. 37 (3), 259265.
Zhang, B., Molenbroek, J.F.M., 2004. Representation of a human head
with Bi-cubic B-splines technique based on the laser scanning
technique in 3D surface anthropometry. Appl. Ergonom. 35 (5),
459465.