Abstract
The purpose of this study was to collect the foot dimensions of 1033 Taiwanese males and 752 females aged 18-40 years and to classify three-dimensional foot shapes. Foot type sizing system and a customized shoe last were built based on the results of the foot type classification and some practical considerations. Principle component analysis was applied to obtain the important dimensions, including foot length, foot width and the arch height. The parameters belong to the length, width and height of the foot dimensions for better foot shape explanation. Clustering analysis was performed to identify four foot shapes including : narrow-short with low arch height, narrow-short with high arch height, wide-long with high arch height and wide-long with low arch height for males; wide-long with high arch height, average with high arch height, average with low arch height and narrow-short with low arch height for females. Moreover, we established a category sizing system to differentiate the foot shape of the people by gender. In application, we proposed a shoe last design based on the foot shape of this study. Finally, the customized shoe last design is expected to achieve fast and high degree of mass customization of shoes with production.