Minifig part identification - www.minifigfinder.com

[Gdurham]

Hello all, 

First time poster, long time reader. I have been working on a project the last several months to classify minifigures using images instead of doing it manually. I created this after purchasing a number of bulk buy lego, and encountering a large number of minfigure “abominations” lol. Looking them up by hand was not going to be fun, so I threw them into a box. Earlier this year I wanted to learn some machine learning and thought this would be an “easy” project. Unfortunately…I was severely mistaken. Anyhow, I hope it is useful to someone and would love some feedback. 
 

http://Minifigfinder.com

[Stuartn]

5 minutes ago, Gdurham said:

Hello all, 

First time poster, long time reader. I have been working on a project the last several months to classify minifigures using images instead of doing it manually. I created this after purchasing a number of bulk buy lego, and encountering a large number of minfigure “abominations” lol. Looking them up by hand was not going to be fun, so I threw them into a box. Earlier this year I wanted to learn some machine learning and thought this would be an “easy” project. Unfortunately…I was severely mistaken. Anyhow, I hope it is useful to someone and would love some feedback. 
 

http://Minifigfinder.com

Clever project, I haven't tried out the site, but it looks very useful. It would be especially useful for older parts which aren't easily recognisable and for differentiating versions and variants of licensed figures. How well does it perform with older, potentially weathered or damaged pieces?

[Gdurham]

Let’s test it out! I have a ton I have tested with and would love more test data that I can throw thru it to improve the quality. The idea is that if we and “classify” the part, i can then use those classifications to improve the performance by feeding it back in. If anyone hits any issue. Please let me know so I can work on it and improve it. 

[MAB]

Same reply as to your other thread about the same thing.

 

My  feedback would be at 50c per image / figure, forget it. You can upload an image of unknown figures to the bricklink forum and people there will identify them quickly and accurately for nothing.

[Gdurham]

4 hours ago, MAB said:

Same reply as to your other thread about the same thing.

 

My  feedback would be at 50c per image / figure, forget it. You can upload an image of unknown figures to the bricklink forum and people there will identify them quickly and accurately for nothing.

Thank you for that feed back! I totally agree with you. I am competing with free haha. What would be a reasonable amount? If I could run it for free I would, unfortunately the hosting costs are coming out of pocket. If you have any thoughts I would love to hear them!

[Darkdragon]

@Gdurham Welcome to Eurobricks.

Please refrain from posting the same topic in multiple forums, one thread is plenty. 

If you joined just to sell people on using your website, I'm afraid it's going to be a tough road for you. As to your question about cost of your service, spending money to have a minifigure identified is something that will probably not be utilized as we are a community and we simply help each other with these sorts of questions for free.  

[Gdurham]

I totally understand. Sorry about posting in multiple forums. New to this community. Not really looking to make anything from it as it is more of a passion project. And definitely did not join to sell something. I promise there will be mocs coming from me haha. Re: pricing totally understand the community helping each other. Thought it would be an interesting bridge of tech and lego, but…may be just that, and personal project. 

[Darkdragon]

It is an interesting project for sure, I just wouldn't put much hope in it paying for itself. It might spark some ideas and ways to make something that is monetizable though, in my experience that's how these sort of projects really shine  

[Gdurham]

Totally. Worst case, I learned a bunch of things. Hopefully it helps someone out, I may just try and cap it on the backend in terms of monthly cost, and offer it up for free until my credits run out on the hosting. As you said, it likely won’t pay for itself, but I hope it helps someone. I’ll think through what I can do there. Thank you again for the comments they really do mean a lot. 

[Gdurham]

Just a heads up, I am re-thinking the pricing, as this was not about making money, more just to sustain itself. I have some free credits from AWS for a few more months, so if anyone wants/needs more credits reach out to me and I will hook you up. Sorry if it felt I was trying to sell here, as that was not my intention. I am goign to look at advertising to try and make it sustain itself, just always had a disdain for advertising :). Thanks again for those of you who tried/tested it, and thank you for the comments. 

[Johnny1360]

Agree that ads would likely be the best route to keep the site up and running, as much as I also hate all those banners and pop ups, it seems like the best alternative here. Although I don't visit Brickset near as much as I used to, for that very reason, lol.

We do have some very knowledgeable people here that are always more than willing to help out and it's kind of fun trying to figure out, what's what. I can see where something like what you have going could be a huge help for people with many random pieces that need identification. Although it would have to be dirt cheap for me to actually use it. I mean I would really hate to shell out $10 or $20 bucks after a few dozen searches.

[Gdurham]

I was thinking the same thing re:brickset haha, I wonder how the subscription method is working for rebrickable. They have ads…but less. I would prefer to not need ads but I see now that it may be inevitable. Anyways…it’s free now until I run out of my aws credits and would love feedback haha. Then I’ll figure out what it would take to keep it alive :)

[MAB]

2 hours ago, Johnny1360 said:

Although I don't visit Brickset near as much as I used to, for that very reason, lol.

 

If you sign up and always stay logged in, you don't get any intrusive ads.

[Johnny1360]

Ahh, good to know, thanks, can't believe I didn't know this already though, lol.

[LegoDW]

Cool idea, will have to check it out.

[Gdurham]

Let me know if you hit any issues. I am working on getting some more data added to it to get more recent figures. Hope someone gets some value out of it haha.