This Startup Is Turning the Human Body Into a Next Gen Design Platform

The story of this startup begins with a murder.

Back in 2006, at Brown University, Professor Michael Black was investigating a homicide through whats called computer vision. The Virginia State Police had asked him to use his computer science skills to make sense of a grainy surveillance video of a suspect and his getaway car. If Black could come up with some key identifierslike the make and model of the car, or the guys heightit might help detectives nab the killer.

So, on the first day of his Topics in Computer Vision course, Black tossed aside the syllabus and set his students to work cracking the case. It was a decision that would prove rather fruitful.

In the end, they did indeed help the cops. A big drumroll moment was when the police were there on the last day of class, and we had to predict the height of the victim, says Eric Rachlin, one of Blacks students, who recently recounted the tale to WIRED. We nailed that height, so the height of the suspect was probably a good prediction, too. But the class had also stumbled upon research with applications far beyond the field of forensics.

In figuring out the killers height, they had essentially developed a way to guess, based on a few measurements, the shape of a human body. This may sound like a small thing. But Black realized that if he could develop a statistical model to predict the shape of someones body using a few measurements or a body scan, a world of companies could use it to cheaply and easily customize shirts, shoes, bras, sporting gear, and all sorts of other personal products.

Nearly a decade later, Black and his three co-founders have launched a startup to do just that. Called Body Labs and now backed by $2.2 million in funding, this New York City company uses Blacks statistical model of the human body to turn simple measurements and body scans into true-to-life 3-D digital avatars. Companies can use these avatars to customize products.

The trend toward personalized consumer products has been simmering for years. Today, you can get earbuds custom-molded to your ear canal, buy a data-driven bra for exactly your shape, or select a button-down shirt in one of 75 sizes. But even as this mass customization movement grows, making custom products remains slow and costly. And most of these custom products are only semi-custom.

Black realized a world of companies could use it to cheaply and easily customize shirts, shoes, bras, sporting gear, and more.

Now, imagine you could upload an individuals shape with a click. Suddenly, designing that bespoke suit becomes less time consuming. There are other possibilities, too. Hollywood could use these avatars to design more realistic effects at a fraction of the time and cost. Videogame brands could let gamers upload their avatars and drop them into the game for a more immersive experience. Health and fitness apps could use it to track not just a persons diet and weight, but the way their bodies physically change over time. Using Body Labs technology, the body can become a platform upon which other companies can build a range of new products.

We live in a world growing more and more customized, says CEO Bill OFarrell, who co-founded the company with Black and his former students Alex Weiss and Eric Rachlin.1 If you believe that technology is going to allow companies and businesses to provide goods and services that are more tailored to individuals, the body is the key component around which those goods and services have to be designed and manufactured.

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This Startup Is Turning the Human Body Into a Next Gen Design Platform