BodyKit – An API to the Human Body | Hacker News Reader

BodyKit – An API to the Human Body

bodylabs.com

95 pointsjschwartz1127 comments

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Here's an idea:

1. Let people enter their measurements.

2. Ask people to upload a photo of their face. Slap it as texture onto the head.

3. Do an animation: This is you, if you lose X pounds of weight / gain Y pounds of muscle.

Let people save this and use for motivation.

There's something intriguing SEEING yourself transform in front of you. "This is how you could look like" and it's tangible.

Maybe I should make an app for that :D

Totally, a great idea for fitness! In our statistical model, we actually have a measurement called fitness. It is mapping hours of exercise to how muscular a body will be which is learned from really world data. We are planning to expose this measurement in the future!

It's a very good idea, you should work on it. Although the face model should be quite detailed or the user will see their "uncanny valley" self. I would use such an app. It has a high viral potential: people could share on social media fatter/thinner faces of themselves or famous people they like.

I made something like this while working at a payments provider for the fitness industry. It'd take a full-body shot of the person and a current weight and goal weight and then generate a new full-body photo showing what they'd look like. It turned out to be simple to make and it worked really well. Unfortunately, they don't have it mentioned in any of their marketing materials, so I can't link to it.

They had me make it so that the gym could use it as a selling tool, but I was too far removed from the gyms to know if it was effective, or even if it was widely used.

I found a product with similar end results. I'm not sure if their solution is also automated:

http://www.soundfeelings.com/products/alternative_medicine/w...

I am working on an application that does something similar. The idea is to create a 3D avatar using 3 pictures (front, side, back) of a person. Like bodylabs, I also have a statistical model of a person (although not yet as detailed as their), so transforming the person should be doable.

Here is a video of the current state of the app : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGVhvFLY4lQ

I want to fix a few rough edges before releasing a public alpha; I hope that happens soon :)

I'm hopeful that someday we'll be able to get measured once professionally, and then input a code/set of measurements to order perfectly-fitting clothes, glasses, shoes, etc online through different providers. That would be so cool. Seems like this is a step towards that.

Totally our vision as well. Check out http://woodiesclo.com/. They're using ShapeX right now to let you do that!

Yes! We are working hard on perfect + consistent measurements. Here is a quick overview:http://imgur.com/ndgq2Ci And this feature will be released in API really soon. Stay tuned!

This is pretty different than what they were asking for though. I, at least, wouldn't mind finding a professional/ scanner to measure me. It would be nice, though, to have that information that multiple manufacturers work off of. That way I can just send them my WhateverCompanyName measurements to the store and they would have a size adjusting model that uses those measurements that could be worked with to create my item.

Unless you're planning to create a synthetic copy of your body to wear the clothes you got made, "measured once" doesn't really work. We kind of change shape over time :)

Awesome! So, I'm trying to take my own measurements to see if the 3D model would be accurate. I downloaded the PDF about measurements, but I find it not specific enough. For example, chest girth: depending on how much air I got in my lungs it changes a lot! I guess I should measure when it seems the most « normal », but a little more information would be greatly appreciated (:

Hey there. Great point! The body is always in flux, and that's why hand measurements can be so imprecise (also due to general human error). I'd say it's best to just take hand measurements in a 'normal' state (i.e. normal chest breath, posture, etc.)

You can do some funky stuff with it... !

http://snag.gy/duLPz.jpg

I thought that one's mind is the API to the human body.

The mind is extremely limited in this context.

How so?

I have no way of knowing my hormone levels or various nutritional information. Do I not have enough Vitamin D? Is my body low in zinc?

I think the issue here is that we want to put our unique biological systems into a mathematical framework. The mind already has a way of knowing what the body needs, however, it doesn't provide a json feed. As a culture, I think we need to get more in touch with our inner selves instead of seeking the aid of an outside device.

The website crashes both Chrome & Chromium (Will lock both of them up at the same time, if I visit this website. I have to kill them.)

I don't understand... how can a website bring down two browsers if I access it only from one?

I hope some day apps like this will consider the rest of the world that uses the metric system.

It does. Not sure where you were looking...

How does this compare to MakeHuman?

http://www.makehuman.org/

There are some serious small text font rendering issues on this page with Windows+Chrome. Almost unreadable really.

Seems very neat, but the page is killing my scrollwheel...

Sounds pretty awesome. Looking forward to this!

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