Contact model, fit process and, foot animation for the virtual simulator of the footwear comfort

This paper describes the new advances carried out for Simucal. Simucal was introduced in [13] and it is a footwear virtual simulator designed to perform studies of comfort and functionality in CAD footwear design. In this paper, a new finite element model for the deformation of shoe upper materials in gait is presented. This model provides a physical interpretation from the point of view of the contact mechanics to the previous model used in Simucal, as well as the new form of the problem allows that new materials and models can be easily computed. This paper also presents a wider description of the simulator, specifying the main tasks of the two main programs included in Simucal such as the initial fit performed by the Aligner. Finally, the process carried out to obtain the feet animation database is described.