Fixing Flaws in Engineering Anthropometry, Ears and All

Abstract

This document reports on four years of work on improvements in documentation of anthropometry involving human ears and the whole body. The results have led to several new concepts for enhancing dimension titles, titles and abbreviations for landmarks and other origins and terminations and codes for constraints of paths between them. Included are recommendations for improved text descriptions, new formats, labels and view planes for illustrations and improved data tables. These approaches are intended to fix frequently found errors and vaguely defined aspects of anthropometry as previously practiced for developing engineering design requirements and for planning plastic surgery. The goal has been to create crisply clear, accurate documents. The fixes are based on ergonomic principles and successful methods from aerospace engineering, chemistry and business accounting, combined into an integrated system. Development of the system is traced through a series of documents, including bibliographies, guidelines for recommended common terminology and illustration formats, illustrated dictionaries, translations, trial applications, and a history of errors and other problems uncovered in surveys spanning more than a hundred years. The process has inspired breakthrough concepts for ear anthropometry reference planes and for extensions of concepts for point landmarks into formal titles and abbreviations for reference planes and surfaces. The system will be exemplified in two statistical databases now in work that will demonstrate many improvements applicable to whole-body anthropometry, though they are focused on human ear dimensions. These data bases were compiled from reports on surveys of more national populations than have previously been available in one document. One will be limited to as-published documents related primarily to plastic surgery planning and client consultation. The other will include many newly derived and estimated dimensions to benefit digital modeling and ergonomic design of ear-related devices.