An investigation on the validity of 3D clothing simulation for garment fit evaluation

Virtual cloth simulation received much attention in the past decade, and the fashion industry has been attracted to use this newly available tool in actual product development process to strengthen the collaboration along the supply chain and shorten the product time to market. This paper serves as an exploratory study to analyse the accuracy of 3D cloth simulation system so as to examine its validity and effectiveness in garment fit evaluation. A four-phase methodology is proposed in this paper: 20 types of woven fabrics are first tested in standard laboratory, and the obtained fabric property data are input to simulate the results of a flare skirt design. Real sample skirts are produced for comparison. An objective evaluation method is proposed to assess the accuracy of 3D simulation by comparing the quality of 3D virtual simulation results. Generally speaking, 3D clothing simulation is accurate because 18 out of the 20 tested fabrics have statistically similar results of 3D simulation and the real sample. The simulated results of the two fabrics are different from the real sample, particularly in the hip areas. Further study is thus required. With the range of validity identified, guidelines can be provided to the fashion industry for the use of 3D simulation system in design and fit evaluation.