whpearson comments on New Year's Predictions Thread - Less Wrong

18 Post author: MichaelVassar 30 December 2009 09:39PM

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Comment author: whpearson 27 August 2010 02:21:06PM 2 points [-]

I would be deeply shocked if no one has ever used laser modeling to fit garments of some kind.

You don't have to be shocked. Here is one.

I think what user-specific clothing and shoes currently lacks is sufficiently advanced robotics. If you are doing the obvious, cutting out bits of material and attaching them together you have quite a few problems. You are having to manipulate non-standard sized bits of flexible material. The production line deals with many of the same sized and shaped bits of material so you can change molds/tools dependent upon the size of the shoe.

The knitting machine above removes that consideration as it produces the finished garment in one piece.

I found this pdf on customized shoe production from 2001 (requires login) while trying to find some videos of shoe manufacturing to confirm my ideas. I don't have time to look into it, but seems relevant to the discussion.