Method for calculating the comfort level of footwear

1. A method for the virtual footwear fitting and computationally measuring the comfort level of a shoe for a user's foot with a set of computer modules wherein computer modules including computer processor, hardware and memory chips, comprising the following actions:

placing a user's foot on or near a flat object of known size and shape to the computer modules;

photographing a user's foot on or near the flat object from different angles through a camera and obtaining an array of foot images containing a part of the user's leg and the flat object;

providing a client computer module for obtaining an array of foot images to meet a pre-defined requirement;

executing said client module or a server computer module to process the obtained array of foot images and to turn the obtained array of foot images into black and white images as an array of processed foot images in order to detect the flat object's contour and the user foot's contour;

providing a computer module for identifying the flat object's contour using a template and the Monte Carlo method for the array of processed foot images;

providing a computer module for calculating the camera's position and angle for each of said array of processed foot images using the flat object's contour;

providing a computer module for defining the user's foot contour using the calculated camera position and angle from each of the said images;

providing a computer module for chipping away from an initial voxel box an excessive voxel whose projection from the calculated camera position is beyond the user's respective foot contours in the array of processed foot images, generating a set of remaining voxel;

providing a computer module for constructing a user's 3D voxel foot model from the set of remaining voxel of said initial voxel box, and converting the user's 3D voxel foot model into a user's 3D polygonal foot model for storage;

providing a computer module for obtaining a topological foot with a foot knowledge database;

providing a computer module for obtaining a vertex topological shoe inner space model;

providing a computer module for fitting the user's 3D polygonal foot model into the said vertex topological shoe inner space model by zooming in and out said user's 3D polygonal foot model to insert it into said shoe inner space model; and

providing a computer module for virtual fitting said vertex topological shoe inner space model and the user's 3D topological foot model and computationally measuring a comfort level of the shoe for the user's foot by calculating of virtual forces acting on a set of grid nodes of the inner topological shoe space model.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising the action of:

providing a computer module for calculating a comfort level of the shoe for the user's foot by calculating virtual forces acting on a set of grid nodes of the inner shoe topological space model during a simulation of a footwear wearing process dynamically.

3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising the actions of:

providing a computer module for accessing and retrieving a set of foot sensitivity information from the foot knowledge base based on the user's 3D polygonal foot model, and for applying to vertex points of the user's 3D polygonal foot model with the set of foot sensitivity information.

4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising the actions of:

providing a computer module for detecting the foot contour in the array of processed foot images by calculating “physical interaction” between the image points after applying an attractive and a bending force.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the action of photographing is performed by a mobile device and the client computer module is installed on the mobile device.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein the client computer module is installed on a computer including a single board computer.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein multiple comfort levels are calculated and are expressed in a range of colors.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein the colors of multiple comfort levels are mapped to the user's 3D polygonal foot model.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the user's 3D voxel foot model is further enhanced by applying anti-aliasing process to eliminate ridges and jaggy appearance on the voxel foot model surface.

10. The method of claim 1 , further comprising the action of: providing a computer module to measure a length, a width and a girth of the user's 3D polygonal foot model.

11. The method of claim 1 , further comprising the action of:

providing a computer module for fitting the user's topological foot model to the shoe's topological inner space model in motion while virtual forces at each of the vertex of the user's topological foot model are calculated; and when equilibrium virtual forces at the vertex points in motion are reached and calculating a comfort level based on the equilibrium virtual forces at each of the vertex points.

12. The method of claim 11 , wherein the equilibrium virtual forces are modified with a corresponding weight factor reflecting anthropometric sensitive characteristics of a foot at each of the polygon of the user's topological foot received from a foot knowledge base.

13. The method of claim 11 , wherein the equilibrium virtual forces are modified with a corresponding weight factor reflecting the shoe's structure, material, and lace information retrieved from a shoe knowledge database.

14. The method of claim 1 , wherein said vertex topological model of the shoe's inner surface is constructed by a shoe scanning computer module from a set of scanned images or video stream generated by a shoe scanner device.

15. The method of claim 14 , wherein the said shoe scanner device is configured with a set of multiple sensor shank probes, each shank probe equipped with an indicator, a camera, lens and a backlight, and the set of shank probes are configured to open at different angles that can apply pressure to the inner surface of a shoe.

16. The method of claim 15 , further comprising an action of:

providing a computer module for retrieving information about shoe types, stiffness, material, vamp, and shoelaces from a shoe database, and for applying the vertex points of said vertex topological model of the shoe's inner surface with this information.

17. The method of claim 15 , wherein said computer module for shoe's inner space calculates flexibility and elasticity of a shoe vamp by using scanning images obtained with different pressures created by the shank probes and by scanning the inner surface of a shoe with different opening angles of the shank probes.

18. The method of claim 1 , further comprising an action of:

providing a computer module for receiving a second vertex topological model of a used shoe of a user for comparing the comfort levels of said vertex topological model of the shoe's inner surface with the comfort levels of said second vertex topological model of the used shoe to produce a comparison result for providing consumer suggestions.

19. The method of claim 18 , wherein the comfort level of the second vertex topological model of a used shoe's inner surface is used for designing customized shoes.