This website can estimate your body fat percentage by uploading just a single photo
Want a computer that not only tells you what your body fat percentage is, but also gives you a ‘good looks’ rating? Well, Bodywhat, that featured on Product Hunt, claims to do that and more with just a single photo.
Here’s how it works.
Firstly, you need to upload a “quality” picture of your upper body. In other words, a picture with absolutely no flexing and only with just arms your relaxed. Once done, you need to upload the picture and fill in a few particulars like weight and height.
The above details along with the picture are taken from there by Bodywhat. Then 3D modeling of your body is done and it compares it to its database to conclude different metrics about your body. It works by pointing out resemblances in different data points in your picture to a reference set of thousands of others.
How precise is it? Bodywhat claims that its confidence interval which is 95% lies somewhere between ± 3.0% and ± 3.5%. The accuracy will only get better over time emphasizes the company, as more data is put to the set and the algorithm becomes better.
Bodywhat provides your body fat percentage, which is the most useful metric. However, it also lets down into the strange. Bodywhat purports to be able to provide a rating of how sexy you are, by “comparing your body to own sexy rating as a weighted-average of those who look the most like you.”
This for sure gives rise to some questions. For instance, is your sexiness ascertained by how closely your body looks like other “sexy” bodies? That’s one way of explaining the meaning of sexiness, but it looks very cold and rather machine-like.
The 3D model that Bodywhat makes of your body can also be altered to give you a partial view into alternate futures. One could see how he or she would look like with a few extra pounds of fat, or muscle, in a function called “Body Morphing” – a feature whose name one could argue is somewhat very alike to “body dysmorphia.”
To sum it up, Bodywhat can let you know from a body-centric perspective which celebrity you most closely resemble to. However, do keep in mind, you may be going up against Justin Bieber’s Photoshopped abs.
And one final piece of advice, in order to just be safe, you might want to crop your head out of the photo. Ryan Hoover, founder of Product Hunt certainly is. “I’m going to try this when I’m in the privacy of my own home, strategically positioning my head outside the frame because I’m skeptical where these photos are going,” he wrote.
One can never be too cautious on the internet.
If you want to try out Bodywhat for yourself, just click here. However, bear in mind that the website has been going offline at irregular intervals, most likely due to server issues.
Resource : Business Insider.
Update : The site is currently offline, ostensibly due to heavy traffic (sic).
