For the online customer, confidence in the purchase of a garment depends on the effectiveness of sizing charts and how the garment would appear as part of an entire outfit. Unfortunately, it is difficult for the customer to precisely predict how the product would fit when worn and just how well the garment coordinates with others. This often leads to consumer regret and an increase in product returns, incurring substantial costs for clothing retailers.

The proposed research involves the development of software capable of fitting a piece of clothing to an avatar based upon customer measurements. The development would include the creation of avatar geometry from photographic information and the computer simulation of fabric based on physics. The project would also include interfacing with clothing merchants through the partner organization in order to obtain sample clothing data (material type and dimensions). For this project, the focus would be developing the software for t-shirts.