Drawing hands for glove design: Does the data match-up?

Abstract

When we teach students how to draw the human hand, we instruct them to block-out the sketch with a specific set of proportions. These are well defined in classic drawing and anatomy literature, and glove designers often use them to determine functional features, including: flex zones, padding, gussets and seams. For this pilot study, the authors used 3D hand scan data (29 subjects), collected by a Structure Sensor to understand if these proportions hold true. Anthropometric measurements of the palm and 3rd finger, were analyzed to see how well they align to the cited drawing instructions. The results found that none of the proportions hold true, as cited by the literature. Recommendations for future research include expanding the sample size for more significant results, looking at different scan tools and the differences between races, ethnicities, other cited hand proportions and specific glove users.