An amazing idea for a new Phone App. Someone needs to make.

[Sudaien]

So I was sitting here in my bedroom staring at my new 130.4 gallon water box and the new aquascape that was just built in it the other day I have a few more weeks at least of just staring at an aquascape quite a great one I might add. And in my mind's eye I picture corals here and corals there and corals everywhere and how will I do it Will I add more rock to change it or will I leave it as is and where would I put the corals and what kind of corals.. And I thought wouldn't it be wonderful if I could just take a picture of my tank, download an app that had pictures of every coral there was and I could take pictures and drag them off of one site and drag them onto the picture of my aquascape and see exactly what a lot of these corals would look like placed in specific places in my aquascape.
I truly think this is an amazing idea what a great app, I would pay for this app and I think many people building new tanks and new aquascapes would have fun with this app and wouldn't mind paying a few dollars for it. However I know nothing about creating an app. So I'm reaching out to all my friends in reef to reef to see if there's someone out there that might take a chance on making a wonderful app that they could make some money on,
I would love to hear any ideas.And if someone does make this happen manages to get rich off of it please feel free to kick me back a little for the thought lol. I will put a picture of my aquascape on here so you can see why I was wondering what a great idea this would be
I really look forward to hearing back any responses

 

[saltcats]

This is something I've thought about for ages - on the freshwater side, I wish I could simulate how the plants could look and different types of rocks!
The hard part would be scaling the corals relative to the tank, and extrapolating from 2D picture to 3D space .... although now that I think about it there've been a few AI projects recently reconstructing 3D models from a flat photo. Hmm...

 

[I’m Batman]

We build apps... got any money?

 

[Sudaien]

We build apps... got any money?

What would it take to build an app like this? And could money be made on it?

 

[ReefBeta]

It will be an augmented reality app. Technology is all here. But the data is not. We can't even readily find pictures of mature colony of many named corals. Not to mention the colors of each corals on all different colors. It would be an expensive app to build, mostly in building the data set. Then for profitability, it's hard to sell it more than a couple thousands copies. Even for $10 each it won't be enough to pay salary for one developer for 2 months.

 

[Sudaien]

It will be an augmented reality app. Technology is all here. But the data is not. We can't even readily find pictures of mature colony of many named corals. Not to mention the colors of each corals on all different colors. It would be an expensive app to build, mostly in building the data set. Then for profitability, it's hard to sell it more than a couple thousands copies. Even for $10 each it won't be enough to pay salary for one developer for 2 months.

So your saying it could be done. But it would not be to make money . And in fact someone would have to foot the bill to have it built purely from a fun and knowledge perspective .
So that said . If you were gonna guess. A ball park figure. What would it cost to build?

 

[ReefBeta]

So your saying it could be done. But it would not be to make money . And in fact someone would have to foot the bill to have it built purely from a fun and knowledge perspective .
So that said . If you were gonna guess. A ball park figure. What would it cost to build?

Just wild guess since I'm not mobile developer. Optimistic estimation would be like 2 developer*year to make the app to put 3D model on rock, if the underlying machine learning models are really available and works. The challenge is the tank and refraction. It will probably screw up existing area detection algorithms.

Data collection/coral modeling I have no idea. It would involve something like 3D scan live corals, or manual drawing of corals in 3D. Even you have the initial model, you will still need to develop some sort of scaling algorithms. Just a set side colony or frag won't be much useful. This will be a linear investment, continuously adding more. Let's say it start with same effort of the app, so 2 developer*year.

As any software engineering estimate, add a factor of 2, that's 8 developer *years. If counting 100k/year as salary, that's already 800k before it even hit the shelf. Not even counting any other costs. To make it actually good and attractive you will need lots of coral models. So like double that cost just to add the corals. So it's like a million or two.

That's assuming there aren't major technical difficulties on the way.

 

[Sudaien]

Just wild guess since I'm not mobile developer. Optimistic estimation would be like 2 developer*year to make the app to put 3D model on rock, if the underlying machine learning models are really available and works. The challenge is the tank and refraction. It will probably screw up existing area detection algorithms.

Data collection/coral modeling I have no idea. It would involve something like 3D scan live corals, or manual drawing of corals in 3D. Even you have the initial model, you will still need to develop some sort of scaling algorithms. Just a set side colony or frag won't be much useful. This will be a linear investment, continuously adding more. Let's say it start with same effort of the app, so 2 developer*year.

As any software engineering estimate, add a factor of 2, that's 8 developer *years. If counting 100k/year as salary, that's already 800k before it even hit the shelf. Not even counting any other costs. To make it actually good and attractive you will need lots of coral models. So like double that cost just to add the corals. So it's like a million or two.

That's assuming there aren't major technical difficulties on the way.

Wow... Ok nevermind .. was a nice idea oh well

 

[ReefBeta]

Wow... Ok nevermind .. was a nice idea oh well

Maybe the more useful and practical one is to build up an database of corals grow form. Once you know the grow form you can kind of imagine how they'll look like. But that information is not easily accessible yet. Most of the time it's still from experience. It's something definitely can be well documented and shared.

 

[Sudaien]

Maybe the more useful and practical one is to build up an database of corals grow form. Once you know the grow form you can kind of imagine how they'll look like. But that information is not easily accessible yet. Most of the time it's still from experience. It's something definitely can be well documented and shared.

Well it all sounds super cool. But your right it is wholly impractical. If I had ridiculous amounts of money I would pay people to build this app just for fun. Sadly I do not . LolAnd to be honest as long as I'm doing reefing for a hobby I probably never will.
But I must say I really appreciate all the information and the response to it It gave me some really good insight into what I wanted even though it could not be done I love learning new things and I learned a few new things here.I talked to my son about it after I received your messages on this forum.And he said you were very smart and knew what you were talking about.He told me some of the same things as you before I even read your messages to him. My son is a rocket scientist, He works for a company called aerojet rocketdyne. Super smart but also thought this app would cost far too much money for any same person to build unless they were filthy rich and we're doing it just for fun.
(And yes to anyone who caught it,The greatest thing I've ever accomplished in my life, or probably ever will, Is to be able to say the words out loud knowing they're true,"my son is a rocket scientist". ) It never gets old
Life is good reefing is amazing but children when successful are the greatest gift you could ever have. Well, children period, but especially when they're successful

 

[saltcats]

You could probably get away without using 3d for the corals - with only one angle of the tank, 2d images could just be scaled as though placed within the 3d space of the tank. Maybe have a couple different images for each coral as different shapes. But collecting all of those images and getting them clean and consistent in appearance would be a big challenge, especially since I'd guess the majority of available and suitable photos are frags only. A full colony pictured in someone else's tank wouldn't necessarily be useable since a cluttered background and overlapping objects in the foreground make it much harder to clean up for use.

 

[Boogz2118]

You could probably get away without using 3d for the corals - with only one angle of the tank, 2d images could just be scaled as though placed within the 3d space of the tank. Maybe have a couple different images for each coral as different shapes. But collecting all of those images and getting them clean and consistent in appearance would be a big challenge, especially since I'd guess the majority of available and suitable photos are frags only. A full colony pictured in someone else's tank wouldn't necessarily be useable since a cluttered background and overlapping objects in the foreground make it much harder to clean up for use.

Maybe the way to do it would be by using VR?

 

[HawkeyeDJ]

You're way over thinking this. All you need is Photoshop Desktop App by Adobe and a collection of photos of things you might want to put in your tank. You can easily use any part of any photo you find online, or snap a photo with your phone from real aquariums.

Your background image is the tank as it is today. You snip pieces of other pictures (like corals, fish, inverts) and you place and layer them however you like. You can size these snippets, change the tone, warp them, move them around, etc., creating an image of what you want your tank to look like.

I saw a demo of this technique years ago wherein a guy created a stunningly beautiful bouquet of flowers. Blew me away! Obviously, there is a learning curve involved, but it is not too difficult. And, just like this forum, there are forums for Photoshop enthusiasts who will be very helpful.

 

[I’m Batman]

So like double that cost just to add the corals. So it's like a million or two.

To make an app where you take a picture of your tank and have a coral library you choose “add coral” and drag it around and place over the photo of your tank?

 

[ReefBeta]

To make an app where you take a picture of your tank and have a coral library you choose “add coral” and drag it around and place over the photo of your tank?

OP is talking about 3D model of those, both the rock work and corals. It's not just PS coral onto photos of your tank.