Shoes Customization Design Tools for the “Diabetic Foot”

Diabetes is one of the main causes that generate foot health related diseases. It impacts on a large percentage of world population and is expected to grow in next 20 years. Good footwear is fundamental for influencing foot health status in particular when foot can be subjected to many serious problems as in case of diabetic patients. This research work faces this problem by defining an approach and related computeraided echnologies in order to properly design customized shoes for people suffering from diabetes. Design rules have been fixed by formalizing knowledge that expert podiatrists use to prevent foot diseases. Studied and implemented technologiesinterest the whole footwear design process: foot scanning, foot dynamic pressure measurement, design of last, insole and outsole. This paper is focused on the description of design software system structure and related tools, and, then, it reports preliminary experimental results on 20 case studies.