

Ask YC: Feedback please - Actual size visualization webapp. - ptm
http://pective.com/

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bouncingsoul
Dude, make this work with online shopping.

This is probably hard since most product shots are perspective, but it would
be awesome if I could point to an image at some online store and type in the
dimensions and you scaled that photo to actual size.

Here's a product category where it'd be useful (and where the photos are
mostly straight on): [http://www.amazon.com/Canon-PowerShot-SD1000-Digital-
Optical...](http://www.amazon.com/Canon-PowerShot-SD1000-Digital-
Optical/dp/B000NK8EWI/)

~~~
prakash
Extending the online shopping idea a bit, this would be of great use for folks
buying jewelry, watches, etc. online.

Let's say you are buying a watch, amazon has images, but those are not actual
sizes; although amazon lists the dimensions separately. Having the actual
image size would, in my opinion increase sales in this category.

Also, check if you can integrate any of this with like.com.

Good idea, good luck!

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gz
Can you use the User-Agent string is some intelligent way to guess the screen
size instead of asking me to enter it?

Also, might be nice if you had some presets like, say, Macbook, Macbook pro,
etc.

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shawndrost
Maybe the best solution would be to show a scalable picture of some coins, and
ask them to hold a coin up to the screen make the image output the real size.

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zach
I thought of that, but it doesn't internationalize well. A USB plug is
probably more universal but a little weird.

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mbleigh
Haha, I love the concept! I'm not sure how often I'd go back and visit, but it
was certainly an amusing little distraction.

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iamdave
Agreed, I'd love hear what you used for the back-end in rendering the image
sizes.

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ptm
Well, it's essentially Javascript.

It stores the ppi (pixels per inch) of the image, and the ppi of the screen
and scales accordingly

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zach
This is an idea I toyed with but could never bring myself to implement once I
realized its most popular probable use. If you want to email (see my profile),
I have a suggestion for a domain name that does not involve the word "size" or
"big."

Also, forget the "screen size" thing. Just use physical measurements in CSS
("width: 1cm") - it works remarkably well on a variety of browsers.

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iigs
That fails rather dramatically (approximately .7x reality) on my machine.

If it furthers the matter, I'm on a ThinkPad T60p (15" UXGA), XP, Google
Chrome (verified in Opera as well)

Pretty cool site, though. I was pleased that the several things I tested were
sized as accurately as they were.

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maxklein
Heh, this is really cool. But after playing with it a bit, there's not really
much to come back to.

You remember that graphic a long time ago that uses to be on the web that
showed the relative sizes of different spaceships (like star trek enteprise
etc). That was amusing, and if you had something like that regularly coming
up, I'd put you in my rss feed. Amuse me.

But otherwise, it's really nicely done, and it does what it is supposed to do
properly. I like it.

(Just think of adding some reason why I would want to go back)

~~~
zach
The real use of this kind of site is for new gadgets. If you can compare
things to the size of an iPod, deck of cards, etc. it makes for a nice feature
on a news story for an upcoming gizmo.

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brk
The images never seemed to load for me. But it appears that it creates a
scaled version of what you selected based on your monitor size?

Would be helpful to build up a product comparison database, so that I can
compare the new cellphone I am thinking about buying to my existing phone to
get a real-world idea of the dimensions.

Suggestion for allowing people to catalog their own stuff: create a printable
template that I can print out and photograph my object along with a reference
item (us dollar, quarter, etc). Between the reference item and the printed
grid you should be able to work out the dimensions of the photographed object.
You could probably get a massive social effect from people photographing and
cataloging their various objects.

~~~
ptm
_The images never seemed to load for me. But it appears that it creates a
scaled version of what you selected based on your monitor size?_

Do you have cookies disabled ?

Yes, it does scale based on the monitor size to give you the actual size.

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brk
No, I have cookies enabled. They finally loaded after a very long wait. Seemed
like your site was sending connections to odd places (wikipedia.org, etc).

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mrtron
Very interesting site - the interface is very clean and works well.

Nicely done!

Maybe have the threshold for abuse a bit higher (I added the giant cookie and
reported it for abuse).

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jonknee
The size is way off for me. Tried on my Mac Book Pro's 15" screen and the
batteries are huge, a good 50% bigger than real life. I'd imagine you would
need to get screen size and DPI to accurately resize the images. Perhaps you
could have a sample image (like the AA batteries) along with a slider to allow
the user to set the exact ratio.

~~~
ptm
Perhaps you've disabled your screen resolution tracking (screen.width /
screen.height).

To calculate the DPI it uses the screen resolution (pixels) and your reported
screen size (inches), if either is missing it would fail to work (for now).

~~~
jonknee
Safari might not report it, because I haven't changed anything (I wouldn't
even know where to change that in Safari). I checked in FireFox and it was
much closer to reality.

Update: Safari does report it, so it looks to be another issue. Perhaps a bug
in the scaling for Safari?

~~~
ptm
Yes, perhaps it is a bug in Safari. Thanks for the report.

Edit - It might be the way Safari handles onload -
<https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=13241>

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cmos
Add a 'scale' slider or buttons at the bottom. Then offer this service to
companies that want to show pictures of their goods in 'actual size', with the
scale used for larger objects.

Perhaps might have some traction in the 'adult entertainment' category.

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s3graham
CD was about right, but 360 controller was off by > 2x. "Image" bug, or site
bug?

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ptm
It was user submitted, so neither :)

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tptacek
Matched my Macbook screen size to a CD by holding a real CD up to the screen.
Every other picture is now way off; for instance, credit cards are 1/3 too
small, but an Xbox controller is too big to get my hand around.

~~~
ptm
Perhaps you've disabled your screen resolution tracking (screen.width /
screen.height).

To calculate the DPI it uses the screen resolution (pixels) and your reported
screen size (inches), if either is missing it would fail to work (for now).

~~~
tptacek
I can disable that? How do I do that?

~~~
ptm
The Statcounter logs show Unknown resolution for a lot of the machines.

I'm not sure if that can be disabled or not or is system dependent. (I'm
assuming every system reports it correctly as of now).

If your system reports the resolution correctly here -
[http://andylangton.co.uk/articles/javascript/browser-
screen-...](http://andylangton.co.uk/articles/javascript/browser-screen-
resolution/) \- then it must be some other bug.

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tesseract
I submitted an image of the Hindenburg. The horizontal scaling actually seems
to work, but without a vertical scrollbar I can't see the image. (Safari)

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ComputerGuru
It's really neat, but your domain name really needs to be thought through....

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staunch
It thinks my 20" LCD is 22". I'm flattered!

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ptm
Do you mean the "Adapted for a XX screen" figure ?

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boredguy8
Yes. I'm in the same boat. I have a Dell widescreen 20".

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paraschopra
How will you make money?

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ptm
Not thought through, but an affiliate program (Amazon) might make sense.

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alexkay
Monitors with the same diagonal can have vastly different DPI resolution.

Other than that, a very nice website.

~~~
ptm
Of course, it does take into account both physical size (inch) and screen
resolution (pixels) to calculate DPI.

