3D Design Method for Flat Footwear Soles

Research conducted on soles reveals that footwear details can be obtained in a wide variety of models by moulding. Soles are complex three dimensional objects. When assembling with the uppers, they have to correspond to the interior sole contour. That is why it is necessary that sole design be done with high accuracy and in strict accordance to the last. Nowadays, there are specialized software applications which can perform computer aided design processes for footwear. This paper presents a method, developed by the authors, of footwear flat soles 3D design using PowerSHAPE-e software of Delcam system. Computer-aided design used in this paper highlights several important advantages that include: increased design quality; soles three dimensional viewing, which can lead to immediate decisions regarding the acceptance of newly developed models; the complexity of mould cavities execution can be appreciated, without the need of making prototypes; the outlines of construction templates are accurately obtained for the mould cavities and for all size numbers; calculations can be easily done to determine the soles volume for the entire size number volumes, with implications on estimating polymer blend consumption and so on.