Hole-filling and foot measurement extraction of the 3-D foot form data by template matching method

The 3-D foot scanning technology has become an important application in foot studies of large scale recently. Nevertheless 3-D foot forms scanned usually consist of many holes because of missing views and grazing angle views. These holes are significant drawbacks of 3-D foot anthropometry. To overcome this problem, this study is to demonstrate a method to fill holes using template matching method and extract the foot measurements from it as well. One 3-D foot form was developed without any holes as the 3-D foot template in this study, accompanying with two groups of points, 14 characteristic landmarks and 9 anatomical landmarks. Using template matching method, the 3-D foot template can be transformed into the 3-D foot form of the subject with characteristic landmarks on both of them correspondingly. After transformation, holes of the subjects´ 3-D foot form were filled, and concurrently the anatomical landmarks on the 3-D foot template would also be transferred onto it. The foot measurements could be extracted based on the anatomical landmarks as well. The results showed the template matching method is useful to fill the holes and to extract foot measurements of the 3-D foot form. The configuration of the groups of landmarks could be further studied.