ABSTRACT
While human modeling has always been at the forefront of ergonomics research, it is being propelled at
an unprecedented tempo in the digital age by the advancement of computer technology. Digital human
modeling is rapidly emerging as an enabling technology and a unique line of research, with the promise
to profoundly change how products or systems are designed, how ergonomics analyses are performed,
how disorders or impairments are assessed, and how therapies or surgeries are conducted. Digital
human representations in various forms are increasingly being incorporated in the computer-aided
design of human-machine systems, such as a driver-vehicle system or a manufacturing workstation.
With the computing power and computational methods available today, we are able to render digital
human models that are an order of magnitude more sophisticated and realistic than the ones produced
a decade ago. There is, however, still a long way to go for achieving the “ultimate” digital human surro-
gates — ones that look, act, and even think like we do. Some of the limitations associated with the current
digital human models are unlikely to disappear as computer performance further advances.
