Fully Automated Pipeline for Body Composition Estimation from 3D Optical Scans using Principal Component Analysis: A Shape Up Study

The increasing prevalence and adaptability of 3D optical scan (3DO) technology has invoked many recent studies which use 3DO scanning as a convenient and inexpensive means for predicting body composition and health risks. The Shape Up studies seek a device-agnostic solution for body composition estimation based on principal component analysis (PCA). This paper reports a progress made on Shape Up’s previous work which served as a criterion analysis for PCA-based body composition and health risk prediction. This study presents proof-of-concept for a novel automated landmark detection step that allows for a fully automated PCA-based approach to body composition estimation that facilitates a practical device-agnostic PCA-based solution to body composition estimation from 3DO scans. Our results show that replacing expensive and time-consuming manual point placement with the proposed automated landmarks will not diminish the quality of body composition estimates allowing for a more practical pipeline that can be used in real-world settings.