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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
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).
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.
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).
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?
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.
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.
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).
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)
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...