A Photographic Device for the Collection of Anthropometric Data on the Hand

A photographic device used to collect anthropometric data of the hand is described in this report. The hand photometric system, or photobox, was designed for measuring the human right hand, and evaluated for possible use in a large-scale Army anthropometric survey. The advantages of such a system are that it would be much faster than current methods of collecting hand data and would provide a permanent record from which measurements can be taken as needed. Using the photobox, 16 hand measurements from 30 subjects were taken and compared to a more traditional method of collecting data. In this comparative method, finger breadths were measured by sliding calipers, while hand length, hand breadth, digit length, and crotch heights were measured from paper graphs on which landmark locations had been marked. This paper method was developed as a means of measuring hand records comparable to photobox silhouettes. Univariate statistics indicated that the results of the methods were very similar differences between means of silhouette measurements and papercaliper measurements ranged from 0.04 to 0.16 cm. Many of the larger differences were in finger breadths -- the caliper method consistently produced smaller results due to skin compression.