Best foot forward

US children’s footwear retailer Stride Rite has bought 30 Qinetiq FootSee 3D foot guages designed to give highly accurate foot measurements.

The use of the Footsee is already widespread in the UK, but US retailers, including Stride Rite, mainly measure feet manually. The chain, however, has trialled foot gauges in three Stride Rite stores in Boston since last November, and is considering widening the distribution of the FootSee units in its other stores.

According to Qinetiq, the FootSee is able to give a faster and more accurate reading of feet size because it uses six 3D camera systems to measure both feet simultaneously, providing information on length, girth and shape.

The recorded data also allows trends to be analysed, which could inform future footwear designs as well as enable more efficient stock control.

The foot gauge is based on 3D optical ranging technology developed by Qinetiq.