ISSN: 2615-9740 JOURNAL OF TECHNICAL EDUCATION SCIENCE Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology and Education Website: https://jte.hcmute.edu.vn Email: jte@hcmute.edu.vn JTE, Issue 68, February 2022 121 Experimental Model of Determining Drape Coefficient of Fabric through Image Analyzing Techniques Nguyen Tuan Anh * , Ta Vu Thuc Oanh, Nguyen Thanh Hau Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology and Education, Vietnam * Corresponding author. Email: nta@hcmute.edu.vn ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Received: 29/12/2021 Softness is an essential key in designing, processing and using a lot of textile products. This paper is to approach fabric softness based on an experimental model of determining drape coefficient (i.e., a ratio of projected area of fabric sample to its undraped area) through analysis of digital images obtained from pixel histogram on a graphic software (PTS). Such investigations help to not only quantitatively evaluate but also significantly enhance accuracy for measurements of fabric softness owing to advances in digital image processing technology. Moreover, as comparing to previously conventional methods of calculating projected area such as tracing paper and edge contour, this model presented many advantages, especially time saving. Particularly, the results of drape coefficient obtained from cotton (CT) and polyester (PE) fabrics measured by this model clarified the affected factors on structural characteristics for both textile fiber and textile fabric. The experimental measurements of crease recovery and bending angle on textile woven fabrics were conducted to give additional affirmation about drape coefficient for the model with high reliability and practicality. Revised: 10/2/2021 Accepted: 11/2/2021 Published: 28/2/2021 KEYWORDS Softness; Drape coefficient; Crease recovery; Image pixel; Quantitative analysis. Doi: https://doi.org/10.54644/jte.68.2022.1102 Copyright © JTE. This is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium for non-commercial purpose, provided the original work is properly cited. 1. Introduction Fabric softness plays an important role to determine the ability of comfort and design for garment products [1]. Recently, the scientists have studied on the fabric softness in terms of qualitative opinion (i.e., according to the hand feeling or skin contact) and quantitative opinion (i.e., related to bending deformation of textile materials under force or gravity) [2]. Evaluation methods of fabric softness by using hand feeling clearly depend on human senses through skin sensitivity to fabric surface with many subjective assessments in terms of satisfaction in contact. Particularly, appearance of material surface with hairy ends fully induces supported feeling due the decrease in acceleration (or damping) as skin collides with textiles in order to generate the satisfaction. However, almost authors have studied the fabric softness according to the experimental methods with the specific results that might evaluate highly objectively the material deformation under certain conditions such as friction, extension, shear, compression and crease recovery. Figure 1. Evaluation method of fabric softness through drape manner [3,4]