Digital modeling and grading evaluation of fabric softness for online trading

Fabric softness is a very important tactile index to characterize clothing comfort. With the development of online trading, web-based, contactless clothing evaluation are demanded. But the softness evaluation of clothing is highly dependent on physical contact, and the evaluation method mainly relies on consumers' subjective evaluation. At present, there is a lack of classification standards and non-contact evaluation means for fabric softness. Through objective and subjective experiments, 18 objective mechanical property indexes and subjective softness evaluation results of 200 kinds of fabrics were obtained. Correlation analysis, variance analysis and linear regression were performed on the objective data and subjective results to gradually explore the relationship between the softness and mechanical indexes of different types of fabrics, and finally establish a digital evaluation model for fabric softness. Then the five grade classification standard of the softness are established. The sample of this study includes underwear, sports, suits, and the results have a wide range of adaptation. This digital evaluation model and grading standard make it possible to evaluate the subjective softness by objective means; meanwhile it provides a non-contact softness evaluation standard for online transactions, which facilitates the communication between merchants and users, reduces the differences caused by subjective evaluation, and is of great significance for the evaluation of clothing comfort for online transactions.