I have seen at least one searchable web site where people upload pictures of themselves by height, weight and body fat percentage. While watching the Body Labs video, naturally my thoughts turned to how useful custom 3D models could be for weight loss applications. I recently ordered a set of tank tops in various colors in two different sizes online and had to go to a store to return the half that didn’t fit, so I certainly welcome a future in which I can use my data to make better decisions about sizing. But now that external scanners that fit to iPads for capturing 3D video can be had for a couple hundred dollars, we’re probably not too far off from a time where they are standard in every iPhone or iPad and more web sites support upload of measurements or even 3D scans to help when shopping. So far it is only available in select locations and seems rather specialized to the jeans application, from what I can see. I recently watched a QS meetup presentation video about Biometrics, a body-scanning booth based on Kinect scanners that has been adopted by Bloomingdale’s and other high end department stores to help women them find the perfect pair of jeans.

It is also public knowledge that they have a 2 year, nearly $1 million contract with the US Army to scan thousands of male and female soldiers to provide data that will guide army clothing designers to create better-fitting clothing and body armor across a range of body sizes and builds. This makes the customer happy and reduces returns for the company. The company’s blog shares a few details about three alpha testers, all custom clothing designers who are using the Body Labs’ developer kit to provide customers with web-based tools that will help them purchase clothes that better fit their unique shapes. They have built an extensive database of scans of real human bodies so if you don’t have your own scanner to work with, you can create an account on their’ Body Hub website to enter your measurements and create a model. Body Labs is a company based in New York City that develops software that you can use to generate custom scans of yourself using a single Kinect scanner.

It was playing on a monitor at the Body Labs booth, so I stopped to learn more about it and talk to developer Paul Melnikow. At the recent QS15 conference, a video of a 3D human body model kicking, punching and bending caught my eye.

Body visualizer 3d