Australian University gets new cutting edge body scanner

National efforts to improve Australia's clothing standards are taking a hi-tech turn at the University of Adelaide - with a new, state-of-the-art body scanner that can pinpoint more than two million features on the human body.

Installed in the University of Adelaide's Medical School, it will be used to collect data for the pilot study of human body size and shape for the future Body Size Survey of the Australian population.

Termed a Bodyline Scanner, the 3D human body surface scanner is the first of its kind in Australia and it will be used by SHARP Dummies Pty Ltd in collaboration with Professor Maciej Henneberg, Head of the Department of Anatomical Sciences, University of Adelaide.

"This surface scanner is a second generation machine capable of locating 2,048,000 points on the body surface," Professor Henneberg said.

"The software supplied allows automatic and manual identification of body landmarks and measurement of body surface lengths and girths. It will be evaluated to determine its suitability for non-contact anthropometric measurements."

Professor Henneberg said the measurements would support improved sizing in the clothing industry and applications in the exercise and body shaping fields (such as plastic surgery) and in monitoring body development from a medical perspective.

"The first use for the scanner will be a trial survey that will compare traditional body measurements of a sample of adult women with those taken by the scanner. SHARP Dummies and the University of Adelaide will be looking for volunteers to be measured and scanned," Professor Henneberg said.

Ms Daisy Veitch, the Managing Director of SHARP Dummies, says that this is an exciting step in the update of Australian clothing sizes because the scanner will capture shape and posture in addition to the usual size measurements.

It has been lent to Professor Henneberg by Hamamatsu Photonics K.K. of Japan in conjunction with their Australian Distributor, SDR Clinical Technology, who installed and commissioned it. http://www.adelaide.edu.au