UMN News -- It used to be that when a researcher or industry professional needed a large amount of data about the shape of the human body, it would take at least an hour to measure one person by hand - and endless hours to retrieve data from enough subjects for a large-scale study. Then, there was the issue of translating reams of two-dimensional data into use for a three-dimensional (3D) form. But ever since the Department of Design, Housing, and Apparel got its hands on a body scanner, it takes 11 seconds to get that same information from one person.
