The use of 3D imaging techniques has been early adopted in the footwear industry. In particular, 3D imaging could be used to aid commerce and improve the quality and sales of shoes. Footwear customization is an added value aimed not only to improve product quality, but also consumer comfort. Moreover, customisation implies a new business model that avoids the competition of mass production. However, footwear customisation implies a significant effort at different levels. In this paper, new advances in 3D techniques are successfully applied to footwear. Firstly, the characteristics of a stereoscopic vision system for footwear are presented. Secondly, a system for the interaction with virtual footwear models based on 3D gloves is detailed. Finally, an augmented reality system is presented that allow a hypothetical customer to check in real time the goodness of a given virtual footwear model from an aesthetical point of view.

Robotization in the footwear sector is a major challenge for the industry with difficulties present due to the inherent adaptive needs of some of the automated tasks performed by robotic arms. One of those of particular concern is collision prevention: working with those robots in automated on-line environments, considering they have limited awareness of the environment, may lead to dangerous situations with the movement of the robot along the calculated paths. To overcome this problem, a collision prevention layer based on a custom robotic software simulator is presented and justified in this paper to be used on automated shoe sole adhesive spraying cells. The performed experiments prove the feasibility of the proposed method in a real scenario with the speed and precision required by the automated task.

Abstract:The footwear industry is a traditional craft sector, where technological advances are difficult to implement owing to the complexity of the processes being carried out, and the level of precision demanded by most of them. The shoe last joining operation is one clear example, where two halves from different lasts are put together, following a specifically traditional process, to create a new one. Existing surface joining techniques analysed in this paper are not well adapted to shoe last design and production processes, which makes their implementation in the industry difficult. This paper presents an alternative surface joining technique, inspired by the traditional work of lastmakers. This way, lastmakers will be able to easily adapt to the new tool and make the most out of their know-how. The technique is based on the use of curve networks that are created on the surfaces to be joined, instead of using discrete data. Finally, a series of joining tests are presented, in which real lasts were successfully joined using a commercial last design software. The method has shown to be valid, efficient and feasible within the sector. Powered by Editorial Manager® and Preprint Manager® from Aries Systems CorporationDear editor, please, find below our answers to the reviewers.Most of the changes that they suggest have been carried out. I expect the changes are satisfactory and this version can be used for publication. Sincerely, Antonio Jimeno MorenillaReviewer #2:1. You state in the conclusion that "G2 continuity is achieved across the whole surface and in joining areas"How do you know that ? G2 continuity means continuity in curvature everywhere. For specific surface types (NURBS, Bicubic, Bezier...) you can aquire and prove this mathematically but you have not presented what mathematical representation you are using. As a reader you get the impression that what you mean with G2 continuity is that the result looks fine on the pictures. G2 is a mathematical requirement that must be proved or at least validated with zebra plots or similar. I suggest that you either prove that you have G2 continity everywhere or change the text. I agree with you that your method is superior over methods using data from a single intersection but I don't think you have shown that the blend is G2 everywhere.As the reviewer suggests, NURBS is the model used in this paper to represent the surfaces, which, therefore, ensures C2 continuity. The joining area is constructed using a Gordon Surface, which also guarantees C2 continuity. Following the reviewer's suggestion, the following text has been added at the end of section 1 (in the middle of page 2) to clarify the geometric model used:"The volume of a shoe last should resemble that of a natural object such as a human foot. It might be said that, there are two very important aspects of completely different nature that should be considered with regard to this: On the one hand, the object should be modelled using free surfaces, due to the fact that it derives from a natural form. On the...