Representation of a human head with bi-cubic B-splines technique based on the laser scanning technique in 3D surface anthropometry

Three-dimensional (3D) anthropometry based on the laser scanning technique not only provides one-dimensional measurements calculated in accordance with the landmarks which are pre-located on the human body surface manually, but also the 3D shape information between the landmarks. This new technique used in recent ergonomic research has brought new challenges to resolving the application problem that was generally avoided by anthropometric experts in their researches. The current research problem is concentrating on how to shift and develop one-dimensional measurements (1D landmarks) into three-dimensional measurements (3D land-surfaces). The main purpose of this paper is to test whether the function of B-splines can be used to fit 3D scanned human heads, and to for further study to develop a computer aided ergonomic design tool (CAED). The result shows that B-splines surfaces can effectively reconstruct 3D human heads based on the laser scanning technique.