Research on fabric draping anisotropy based on 3D laser scanning technology

The traditional umbrella fabric drape test method is improved to verify whether it can distinguish fabric drape in different directions. The 3D scanning technology is used to extract six draping parameters in 0°, 90°, 45°, and 135° directions from 30 kinds of woven fabrics and the spreading length is used for calculating the drape anisotropy index. A Multidimensional Drape Anisotropy Index, IMDAi, is further proposed by fusing 2D spreading-length ratios with 3D hanging-angle ratios, which reconciles planar projection and spatial morphology. Results show that the correlation coefficient between the six parameters with bending length or bending stiffness in each of the four directions is higher than those in the other three directions. The drape anisotropy index proposed in this paper is feasible and the closer the four drape anisotropy indexes are to 1, the smaller the difference for draping in different directions. The stiff direction of the fabric is prone to forming wave peaks, while the soft direction is easy to form valleys. The bending performance of a fabric in a certain direction can be estimated by a circular sample, and the improved umbrella method can be used to measure the anisotropy of fabric drape performance. The IMDAi amplifies concordant anisotropy signals and moderates false-negative isotropy inherent to single-view descriptors, as demonstrated by representative fabrics with divergent 2D and 3D indices.