Who Wears What? A smarter tartan tool

**Bill** · 8th August 14, 09:00 AM

Hello to the Rabble!

There is yet another reason for such an app: speaking from the viewpoint of vision impairment a "Tartan Recognizer" would be a boon and a half when it comes to picking out an outfit for the day and would make it much easier to know how to answer any questions about the tartan. Ther have been one or two occasions that I've gone out thinking I'm wearing one tartan and had it wrong. I have color identifiers but they only identify the base color so it is possible to think that you're wearing something like the Black Watch and actuaaly be wearing the McNeil Modern two tartans that have green in their make up.

There is one more consideration for someone with a vision impairment and that is to be sure it is accessable through voice over or with magnification. If someone comes up with such an app I'd buy it in a heartbeat!

Slainte'
Bill & Sir Brinkley the Exubrant, my LeaderDog extrodinaire. .

**Tarheel** · 9th August 14, 06:35 AM

I find the natural boldness of a curious Scot needs no APP to approach an unknown kilt wearer to achieve an answer to the tartan design in question. The aptitude for conversation trumps the displacement of artificial intelligence from an impersonal phone. Viable human interaction is better than less or none.

**Kanati** · 9th August 14, 11:57 AM

I was thinking the same thing. Having been in software design for the last 30 years, I can say it is most likely do-able. There could be issues with what kind of back-end server would be involved. A smart phone would not have enough horse power to do the search.

You would have to take a unobstructed image of the front apron. I do not think the back of a kilt would work due to the different pleating styles.

Using the App would be pretty straight forward.
>Approach a stranger and ask them to shift their sporran to the side.
>Snap a image of the apron area of the their Kilt.
>Look intently at your smart phone as the App searches for the correct tartan.
>Once the fist fight settles out and you have explained the nifty new app, you both can go and share a drink or two and discuss the finer points of tartan identification.

**pastorsteve** · 9th August 14, 02:55 PM

It would be a great app. but, unfortunately, it would probably have limited use. However, if you have thousands of photos, you already have a leg-up on creation of such an app. Time to get started.

**OC Richard** · 10th August 14, 05:56 AM

Originally Posted by kiltedrennie

Like the music applications, it's a pattern recognition problem.... The rectangular pattern of the image would have to be rotated and de-skewed. The color normalized (not sure how this could be accomplished without a reference color chart in the image).

These "de-skewing" and "reference" issues remind me of TunePal, where the trick is to click exactly on the "1", the downbeat of a phrase. If you click a hair late the program perceives the second note as being the first and obviously the entire piece of music is skewed and can't be recognised.

Seems to me that one issue is recognising the structure/pattern of tartans (as opposed to colours). This could be a black&white thing: this portion of the program perceiving the tartans as b&w images and comparing them to a b&w database. It would thus ignore/not be thrown off by colour variations such as ancient, modern, etc or the various colour schemes of Royal Stewart etc.

Then as mentioned there could be a separate colour recognition portion. These two halves would each rank their candidates for most likely match and the program displaying the combined most likely matches.

As far a limited usefulness/ lack of market /lack of necessity goes, that hasn't stopped people before! There are thousands of apps created by hobbyists for the most obscure things imaginable.

**ScottishStuart** · 11th August 14, 02:36 AM

I was actually up seeing the team that developed our Apps last week, and a Tartan Identification app came up in discussion. We thought the easiest way to achieve it would be to perhaps key in the colours in the tartan to narrow it down to tartans that use those specified colours. You could still have hundreds of entries to choose from once you have done this, but it would give you a better idea.

Using a system where you take an image and it identify's a thread count would be a little more difficult. Different sett sizes and slightly different shades of dyes used by various Mills might throw this off.

I will keep you updated if they look to develop any of these ideas!

Originally Posted by California Highlander

No Tartan ID app....yet! But there is a Tartan app for iPhone from XMarks advertiser Houston Kiltmakers.

My Tartan: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/my-t...471273016?mt=8
XMarks Reviews: http://www.xmarksthescot.com/forum/f...tan-app-84937/

As well as our App to make your own tartan, we also have a free Tartan Finder iPhone App.

Tartan Finder App: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/my-tartan-finder/id541909354?mt=8

This app is a little dated, and the database isn't 100% accurate, but if you search for a colour i.e. Green in the appropriate section it will bring up many tartan's with Green used in them.

Looking through the app a few colours work when you search (Red/Green/Blue/Grey/White etc.).

You can also search through tartans by tartan names/surname/keyword.

**OC Richard** · 12th August 14, 05:42 AM

Originally Posted by ScottishStuart

We thought the easiest way to achieve it would be to perhaps key in the colours in the tartan

I think the drawback to that is, for example, things like Camel Stewart and Grey Stewart and Royal Stewart, all having the same structure and easily recognised by the human brain as being the same pattern but with different colourings, but which a colour-based program would perceive as being entirely different. And likewise there are probably a large number of tartans with utterly different structure which happen to share the same colours. It's why I think there has to be a non-colour component which recognises structure alone (perceiving the pattern of lighter and darker, but not caring whether something is lighter or darker). This structure-recognition component wouldn't know the difference between Black Watch and Gordon, which is where the colour-recognition component would have to weigh in.

**creagdhubh** · 12th August 14, 07:24 AM

There is a Scottish Clans and Tartans app that lists numerous Highland Clan and Lowland family surnames with their respected tartans (if they have one, as some don't) and a brief history/description. It's actually a handy, wee app. I've used it on numerous occasions when discussing clans and tartans with friends and family. Having a quick, visual reference is quite convenient in certain social situations.