The retailing and electronics industries are joining forces to remove the greatest frustration of clothes shopping - the frequent mismatch between customers' bodies and the clothes they try on in the store or, worse still, order by mail.
Body scanners are being installed in major British stores to capture the precise size and shape of individual shoppers. Similar research is being carried out elsewhere, but Prof Philip Treleaven, the project leader, said no other country was adopting such a comprehensive approach.
Armed with three-dimensional information from the scanner, people will be able to see how they look in "virtual clothes" before trying anything on, using a computer screen in the shop or at home.
Yesterday, the British government signalled the start of what participants say will be the biggest revolution in clothes shopping for a generation, by announcing a £3.4 million sterling (£3.8 million) project to develop 3D electronic commerce. Installing the technology will cost tens of millions of pounds.
Hamamatsu Photonics, the Japanese scanner manufacturer, is a partner in the British project. It has installed about 40 body scanners in Asia, for modelling and designing expensive custom-made ladies' underwear.
The US-led Caesar project is extracting detailed measurements from 15,000 people, while the French navy is scanning 70,000 sailors.
The new Centre for 3D Electronic Shopping, based at University College London, will prepare the infrastructure on behalf of a 20-member consortium, including leading retailers and specialist clothing, electronics and information technology companies.
The scanning process takes less than 10 seconds. The customer steps into a booth, wearing underclothes, and is scanned with invisible beams of low-power infra-red light that measure 100,000 points on the body.
The computer then extracts a high-resolution image, which can be fitted with "virtual clothes" and animated on screen, so that the customer can see how the fabric changes shape as she or he moves.
But in the long term the most important application may be to enable people to buy clothes confidently from home.
