Who is Matthew Robertson?

Matthew Robertson is a GB Para-cyclist, who is yet to, but will soon, compete at the Paralympic games. Matthew suffers from Hemiplegia in the right side of his body – This means he is partially paralysed on his right side. After initially struggling with cycling in his younger years, Matthew mastered the art as a 13-year-old. After progressing through the Great British Cycling Team’s development programme, Robertson made his world-level debut at the 2019 Track World Championships in Apeldoorn. He performed admirably, finishing fifth in the 1000m and 12th in the individual pursuit. During this event, he also broke the C2 flying 200m world record at the time.


He has continued his progress on the track since and has set new personal best times in both the 1000m and individual pursuit at the 2019 UCI Manchester Para-cycling International. Robertson’s hard work and hunger for success is truly inspiring.


The Goal

Effectively, Matt has found a good riding position where his right side is most stable and comfortable for his hemiplegia when cycling. Matt and his coaches are looking to capture data of that ideal position to build a custom support to fix his arm in place


Right now, it’s effectively a support pad at the top of his forearm, one by his wrist, and a grip for his hand. Matt and his team want to design something more advanced and potentially get it manufactured from carbon fibre. All in, this should maximise the comfort and aerodynamics of the position, whilst maintaining safety and stability.


The Process

We first started by taking a quick scan of Matt’s bike in position. This gave us a basic reference frame to align data back to when combining scan data down the road. Matt then got in his riding position, and we took two scans of his arm from the shoulder down, with some of the bike included again.


In terms of equipment, we used our Hexagon AS1 scanner with a Hexagon Absolute Arm 85 to scan the bike, and a Peel2 to scan Matt. The AS1 was well suited to the bikes high-gloss finish, whilst the Peels non-rigid mode reduced the amount of post-processing.


Once scanned, the data required processing. Scanning non-rigid objects is particularly tricky, as it can result in overlapping surfaces and scan data. Refining this data involved:


  • Aligning the scans.
  • Trimming the scans in areas.
  • Merging the three scans.
  • Converting the resulting mesh to a point cloud.
  • Applying curvature filters and noise reduction.
  • Remeshing from points.
  • Deleting overlapping data and refilling holes.